Sep 2007

Day 16 - Well, here we are in Minnesota, State 7. We came to the headwaters of the Mississippi. Jeanette crossed the river on foot. I went out a little way on teh rock dam. Last nite we camped here. In the evening we heard scratching and mewing. Jeanette shone a flashlight out the window and saw the tail of a racoon skittering under the RV. Yesterday we were in Bemiji and saw Paul Bunyon and the Blue Ox (statues). Driving thru North Dakota I was impressed by how wet it was. There were lots of sunflower fields and hay. Minnesota is more farm like and towns are closer togeher.

We've seen many reconstructed villages. Some of the things there in the houses, stores and schools I remembered suing when? We had a nice visit with daughter Penny. She gave us a tour of McLaughlin and nearby communities describing their needs and successes. It was interesting.

Day 16 (evening) - We are a few miles from Duluth, one of the largest ports in the US. We are at Saganaw Campground. We stopped at Judy Garlands home (moved to it's place in Grand Rapids, Minnesota). We didn't tour it as it was expensive and we were tired. I bought a few cards and Jeanette bought the "yellow brick road" so we should be in Oz soon. We we stopped for gas, a doe and two fwn were walking in a field across the road.

Day 17 - Last nite spent in the city park of Bayfield, Wisconsin. We are right on Lake Superior. It rained hard yesterday. No rain this morning. We can see the Apostle Islands. The sun is trying to shine. The fog is gone. We drove on the Hwy 13 which borders the lake. Picked up sand at a nice beach. Hope to get to Michigan today. The trees are getting very yellow and red in places.

Day 21 - Haven't written for some days. We are sitting in the RV in front of my borther-in-law's house in Berrien Springs, Mich. We traveled about 200 miles today, mostly on the interstate, so we didn't stop much. The colors on the trees are nice, but not as spectacular as farther north. It was raining hard in Sault St. Marie, but I could see the boats coming and going thru the locks from inside the building & Jeanette went outside on a covered elevated walkway to get pictures.

Fort Makinac & the bridge was nice. Last nites camp was a primative campsite, but I slept will. My foam pad was about 5 inches longer than my bed so I cut it off and pade a pad for my front seat. Comfy! It is nice here - lots of trees - quiet, a bird or two twittering.

Before we left for our trip, I modified the RV to make it a better vehicle for a long trip like this. This RV (like most) has two batteries, one for the engine and a separate one for the living compartment. I installed an AD/DC inverter so we could use the DC battery in the living unit to charge devices while on the road. I had also previously had a 'splitter' installed, so the RV living unit battery would recharge while we were driving, not just the engine battery. So far we have used these extensively, since we have stayed in state parks and primitive campsites more often then we have stayed in RV parks with hookups.

I also installed an electric water heating element. Previously my water heater worked only on Propane, but I thought maybe we could avoid having to fill the propane as often if I used electric heat when we do stay in an RV park and plug in. So far, the results of this effort are mixed because we haven't stayed in RV parks that often. It does work well when I use it. We've been on the road two weeks so far and I've just filled the propane tank once - so maybe it's helped.

I also brought folding chairs and tables and had an awning installed before we left. So far, almost every campground we've stayed at has had picnic tables, even the primative one! I've decided to tie the folding tables and chairs on the roof to get them out of the way since we hardly use them. We haven't used the awning yet, it may come in very handy when we travel through the south, but since we normally only stay one night at a campground, the awning hasn't been used yet. Some RV'ers travel for a day, then stay at a campground for a week or two. Maybe for them an awning makes a lot more sense.

We have carried a couple of grocery bags of food with us, but haven't used it all yet. We have also purchased food along the way. We are probably stopping for shopping about once a week. We area also doing laundry about once a week (at RV parks). We do dishes daily and vacuum every few days (we need to be in a park with electricty to vacuum, I don't want to drain the living unit battery for this.

Mom has difficulty walking, so I put a bike rack on the back bumper and carry her walker on the bike rack. This has worked out very well and she uses her walker often to be able to walk places she otherwise couldn' t go.

We thought we could see just about the whole country in 8 months, but we were wrong! There are so many interesting things to see, we could probably spend at least a month in each state (at least the ones we've been to so far). Several people have offered suggestions about places to visit, but I don't know if we'll have time. We also thought we could make about 200 miles per day during the trip. So far, we are only averaging about 150 miles per day because we spend so much time stopping to take pictures and visiting museums or sites of interest. During my planning, I thought if I was only driving 200 miles per day (about 4 hours driving), I'd have lots of time to work on various hobbies as well as some chores from back home. So far, we are barely able to keep up the minimum chores and blog - the 'slack' time is taken up visiting interesting places, and stopping to take pictures. Maybe we're just having too much fun?

<<We have a lot more information, I'll try to add more later. It's been hard trying to update the blog and travel at the same time, I've developed a lot more appreciation for how Lewis & Clark were able to keep such detailed journals during their expedition, which was a lot harder then mine!>>

The Sandpoint, ID Museum has the following information about the "Kalispel Canoes":

"The Salish Canoe is light, fast and able to navigate the often wind swept waters of Lake Pend Oreille and river, the sturgeon nosed canoe was a key element in the lifeway of the kalispel people. Named after the camis plant that was so vital to their subsistence, the Kalispel were often known by neighboring tribes as the "canoe" or "river" people.

"Indigenous people in other parts of North America relied on birch bark for canoes. In this region, vast white pine forests provided the Kalispel and other interior Salish people with the strong pliable bark used to make their uniquely constructed canoes.

"Canoes were often constructed by women and could be built in four to six days, but gathering the needed materials may have taken just as much time. Along with the white pine bark for the outer covering, other materials include birch bark for each end, split cedar and maple for the frame, and choke cherry bark for lashingl. Pine pitch was used to patch any cracks.

Paddles were carved in a unique design that tapered to a near point. If necessary, the canoe could be tied up to a paddle that was driven into the riverbank."

The Museum of the Plains Indians in Browning, MT has a lot of information about various Plaines tribes. The Blackfeet Reservation covers the area south of this and contains many informative signs along the highways and rest stops.

In South Dakota, my sister Penny showed us some of the current living conditions for the Sioux tribe on the Standing Rock reservation. We also visited Fort Yates, in North Dakota where Sitting Bull is buried.

In North Dakota, we passed the Huff site where a native 'city' of about 1,000 people lived around 1500.

Later we visited Fort Mandan, near the winter home of the Lewis & Clark Expedition in 1804 – 1805. This was named for the nearby Mandan Indians, who were very helpful to the expedition.

In eastern North Dakota, we drove through the “Spirit Lake Nation” reservation to look for Fort Totten. We learned later that this is a branch of the Sioux peoples.

Day 8 (9/9/07) - We are at the Little Big Horn Battleground having lunch. After lunch we'll take the driving our. We took a picture of a hawk on a pole (or rather leaving a pole).

Yesterday we went from a parking lot next to the "Manlove cabin" in East Helena - near the road we saw a prong horn antelope, and drove on to Billings. We stayed in a campground on the Yellowstone River. We did our laundry and took pictures of the old farm machinery. There were plows, harrows, hay rakes, manure spreaders, etc. I have ridden some similar ones behind a tractor. I remember making a straight windrows with a hay rake and getting very dusty using a harrow - long ago. We have been across the great divide in the Rocky Mtns. It is raining here this afternoon. We went to the Wheat Montana Bakery near Bozeman, MT. We bought a nice loaf of bread, some of which we had for lunch today with some Choke Cherry jelly we bought last night. We also bought a loaf of banana bread (which I ate with some of the Bavarian Cream we got in Leavenworth. We also bought a big apple - raisen cinnamon bun which we shared. We've picked up sand for Kathy here and there. Some places are hard to get to and some have rocks and no sand. We still hope to get some on the Little Big Horn River. Sometimes I write little because I'm tired.

Day 11 - Went to the Little Big Horn and spent quite a lot of time there. We decided to take the side trip to Devil's Tower. It was worth it. I've been there before, but still enjoyed it. (We did not climb it.) We went to a nice overnight park near Mt Rushmore. When I went to Mt Rushmore 20 years ago there was very little there except the mountain. Now there are shops, café's, the row of state flags & more, quite spectacular. We went to Custer State Park and saw a big herd of Buffalo and some wild donkeys, including a little one, and some white tailed deer before we got to the Wildlife Loop Road - so we skipped that and drove on to the Badlands. We camped last night in a wilderness camp in the park, but outside the "bad" lands. We took a side road (red gravel) for miles and miles.

Day 12 - We camped last night beside the Missouri River in a nice city park in Fort Pierre. Across the river in Pierre, is the state capital. Today we will go to McLaughlin, SD where my daughter Penny lives. The last twoays we drove through the Badlands Nat'l Park. We took a back road to the upper loop road (It looked shorter on the map). It was gravel so we couldn't go more than 15-20 mph. It was a lovely drive and we saw buffalo, etc. We camped at a primative camp, no electricity, water etc., but nice covered table areas. It was lovely and we could hear the buffalo lowing and took pictures of their footprints. The Badlands were awesome and massive. There were little grassy places among the rock structures. We saw some buffalo & deer sometimes and a humungus prairie dog town.

Later we went through a homestead and a 1880's "town". The buildings were brought to the place. It was terribly windy in Fort Pierre. Howled all nite & shook the RV.

(JL Notes: Some of this duplicates what Mom has in earlier entries, she doesn't write as much, so I decided to group her entries by week. I don't know how she wants to display her photo's yet, in blog entries or just leave them in her photo gallery, but will at least get these uploaded now that I've figured out my technical difficulties.)

Day 1 (9/2/07) - We are off and running (well driving). We left about 3 O'Clock Sunday. After a couple of stops for last minute supplies, we headed east on Hwy 2. We turned off at Money Creek campgrounds, where I've camped before, but the sign said "No Sites Available" so we drove on. As we gased up in Skykomish, Jeanette asked where there might be a spot to camp. The man led us to a nice city park on the river. After a good nights rest we had fresh picked blackberries on our cereal, took a hike to the river and got a sand sample for a friend and prepared to leave.

Day 2 (9/3/07) - Continued on East on Hwy 2. Stopped in Leavenworth and shopped. Oh my $$. Got sand on Wenatchee river and later on the Confluence of the Columbia & Wenatchee rivers. Drove north to Peteros & Alta Lake (got sand) and camped there.

Day 3 (9/4/07) - Off and away Tues am - stopped at Chief Joseph Dam and turned off to go to Dry Falls and then up to Coulee Dam. We heard from my daughter Penny who was in Newport, WA so we went through Spokane after passing miles of grain fields. Since I've lived in the Spokane area for a number of years it was all familiar to me. We camped, with Penny, in Albeni Cove on the Pend Oreille (pronounced Pond Oray) river. It was nice. We had a nice rest.

Day 4 (9/5/07) - We drove north to Sandpoint on Hwy 2 and stopped to use the laptop and have lunch. Drove on Hwy 2 East through Idaho and into Montana. We saw lots of space and some animals incl. a flock of wild turkeys. We camped over nite 40 or so miles from Kalispel at the Middle Thompson (Logan State Park).

Day 5 (9/6/07) - Ate lunch and rested at Kalispel city park. There were geese there with humps on their noses and wattles on their chins. We drove through Glacier Nat'l Park on the 'Road To The Sun'. If I were 20 or 30 years old, I would plan to go on other roads in the park. We saw some mountian goats far off and two big horn sheep near a parking lot. When we publish our pictures, you can see everything.