Monday July 27

Finally got the lettering put on the back of the camper.....I think it looks cool.....hoping it raises some conversation in the future....

Posted the Blog, got the generator looked at (It was running a little rough) and cleaned up some other business before entering Yellowstone tomorrow.....

Pizza Hut for dinner and postedall the Blogs!!!!! Finally.....

Wally Camping tonight........with the 20 other campers.

Sunday July, 26

Showered at the “J” in Billings Montana......hit a few shops and headed for Cody, Wy......hit a few shops there too....Cody sure is nice.

Here’s a wacky one.....Last year I met this guy out in the middle of nowhere who was writing a fishing article on the lake we were both fishing. Today, just browsing the news stand I found the magazine and the article.......the last 10 paragraphs were about ME!
Northwest Flyfishing Magazine July/August 2009, Elk Lake, MT

Rodeo again.......5 year old girls doing the barrels......some kids doing the barrels and just wandering all over the arena...they were funny.

Another classic western sunset......

Saturday July 25

Drove a while to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Walked around the tower led by a ranger....very interesting.......Devils Tower was more impressive to me than Rushmore. Loved it.......It means so many thing to different people, it’s in every climbers top ten list, to the native America’s it’s a spiritual place where prayer bundles are hung from the trees, and to the average tourist it’s just simply a sight to behold......from far away as well as up close.

Decided to take the longer scenic route to the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn.....70mph in a strait line for 3 hours......I had a thousand grasshoppers crammed up in the grill and the lights by the end.

Battle of Little Big Horn didn’t go so well for Custer.......or his 300 men. Great Ranger talk......most Rangers seem to know all about history and not much about nature.....and next to nothing about birds.
Billings Montana....saw something wild tonight......One of my favorite vacation tactics is investigate any large gathering of vehicles in any one place....This time I ended up in the tenth row of an actual livestock auction. They’d parade the horse for sale in one gate on one side of the room.....auction it off....and send it out another gate. While in the room the horse was ridden back and for demonstrating its skills etc......the guy next to me gave me all the details....What makes a horse so expensive? Its skill level combined with it’s breeding heritage. There were times when this lady would step in and add a few things to the horses description before the sale......the guy informed me that this lady was the #1 quarterhorse breeder in the world and that she was a millionaire......

There were a couple of cute kids about 7 years old waiting for their dads....passing the time away roping a this fake calf thingy.

Tried a Wal-Mart that night to sleep but I was unaware that the locals enjoyed using the lot after hours for car racing and burnouts.....had to check out and move down the road.

Friday July 24

Sturgis......Bikers arrive next week so preparations were in full affect.......basically a dumpy town.

Deadwood........Spent all day there......Saw a parade, walked around the shops downtown, went on a bus tour and saw Wild Bill Hikock and Clamity Jane’s graves, saw a reenactment of Hikock getting shot......and went to the rodeo at night. Drove out of town around 10pm.......another Cabela’s camping experience.

Thursday July 23

Crazy Horse first. I really liked it. The two things I liked the most were the fact that when completed, the statute would be the largest in the world....and that the largest statue in the world would pay tribute to Native Americans. The other thing I liked about it was the story of the guy who carved it.....many people, I’d assume, thought he was a total nut case....carving a mountain alone for 10 years......but it’s was they guys never quit mentality that will someday get the job finished.

Wind Cave....my favorite of the two caves. Never been in a cave in my life so that part alone was cool.

Jewel Cave....also good, but walking on all those catwalks freaked me out a little.....don’t like heights.

Back to the steak place....it was so good I had to go one more time......just as good as the first time.

Showers at the “J”, Cabela’s and bed.....

Wednesday July 22

Wall Drug.....Felt like it was going to be a let down after all the roadside build up. Sort of like South of the Border. It wasn’t....I liked it a lot. Never though I’d buy a pair of boots there either....but I did. I enjoyed all the goofiness of the place.....a nice diversion to the monotony of the road. The “world famous” doughnuts were just average and talking to all the foreign workers was fun.

The Badlands were impressive.....I did get a little bored after a while. The 95 degree temps weren’t helping either. It became a little monotonous after three hours. Saw a Western Kingbird and flushed out a Nighthawk. I usually see night hawks migrating on the last night of adult tennis lessons in late August at home. The ranger in the visitor center wasn’t so helpful with birds...he just wanted to tell me all the wonderful birds he saw while working at the Badlands......mixed up priorities I’d say.

Visited the Rapid City visitors center next.....I needed a game plan for how I was going to attack the Black Hills.....lots to see, but stuff is a little spread out. I assumed the lady knew what she was talking about so I took her advice and booked a campground that she said was nice and secluded.......man was she wrong. I had an empty dog pen 4 feet from the camper on one side and a pop up trailer on the other...and to top it off the site was unlevel. I imagined the experience of putting the wood blocks under the rear wheels at 11pm upon return from Mt Rushmore with whatever was sleeping in that cage 2 feet away. I decided to bail out of the whole thing despite the prospect of a hot shower. The owner was pretty cool about it and gave me my money back. There were a few ding a lings nearby that didn’t hear out whole conversation who added a few comments meant to sting but I kept my mouth shut, took the money, and beat it out of there. I ended up spending the night in down town Hill City where I had my quietest night of the trip....I think 3 cars drove by all night......for free.

Got a tip on a great place to eat and it did not disappoint. The line was long and it had only one choice on the menu.....filet mignon served with a quarter of a head of lettuce with ranch dressing, baked potato and toast.....all for $10. Best meal I’ve had in a very long time.


Anyway...Rushmore. It was awesome. Saw a mountain goat with baby a mile before the entrance. The monument was lit up after and but of patriotic overload.....almost to the point of ridiculousness. It was very cool. The best part was when they got all the vets in the crowd up on stage and made them say their name and branch of service. There were about 100 of them in the crowd of over 2000. I wondered if Dad would have gone up on the stage.......my guess was that he wouldn’t have. He was never overly enamored with his days in the Air Force....but times were different back in the late 60’s.

Tuesday July 21

Corn........Drove 90 west for about an hour then decided to detour south to pick up Iowa as it’s a state as I haven’t visited yet.....it was worth it. I parked the camper on the roadside in the middle of miles of corn and climbed up on the roof. All I could hear was the wind ruffling the leaves of corn on the stalks. Loved it. Pulled over later and spoke with a few farmers loading trucks with last years corn out of these giant silos.....they said they keep it in the silos til the price is best then sell it all off. They said all the rain this year was going to create a bumper crop of corn and soybeans. I guessed that one bushel of corn got him $5.....he was getting $3.50 a bushel. The corn was to be used as fuel, oils and feed....the excess was shipped to the coast and shipped to China or Europe.

I asked him what his biggest nightmare would be as a farmer......he said.....hail. Apparently a hail storm can beat the corn stalks down to the ground. He actually had hail insurance in case this happened. He asked me as many questions as I asked him. My take on him was that despite the fact that he was a “farmer” he had a keen business sense, the kind of business sense that a guy would have that worked in some office building in downtown Boston. He was sharp. We ended by saying that each of us had our roles in this country as different as they were....... but when he was in school, his favorite class was gym.

Red Lobster in America’s heartland????......you bet. Sioux City, SD for lunch.

The Corn Palace.....pretty neat.....Had popcorn and checked it out......love the idea of watching a high school basketball game in there in the winter......that’d be pretty cool.

Some guy gave me the finger on the way out of town.....I suppose that had to happen at some point......Got some groceries and hit the road.

Then something wacky happened......a grouse flew out in front of the truck and I nailed it. It slammed into the front bumper and I pulled over. There were a few very minor cracks in this plastic grill type thing but the license plate was bent pretty badly. I twisted it back into shape and kept moving. I think that if the bird hit any other part of the grill more damage would have been done.....but it hit the plate dead center. Lucky I thought. Never heard or saw what happened to the bird......I don’t think thongs worked out well for him though.

Grasslands......I thought I would like driving through the South Dakota grasslands and I did. You can see for miles with almost no trees. You get out to rest and it’s just you, the grass, and the wind. I’ve been lucky enough to actually have my camera with me during some of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen......tonight was no exception.

No overnight parking at rest stops in South Dakota......sounds silly to me. Hit a Flying J gas station instead.

Monday July 20

Temp dropped to 48 deg last night. Put the heat on in the am to warm up the camper.

Shower!! Needed it bad......the truck stop had sweet shower facilities, shower bathroom, sink, mirror....... all for $8.50......got every pennies worth.

To Minnesota........Two and a half hours to the Mall of America......I don’t admit it often but.....I like malls. I think it goes back to the days when my mom used to take sis and me to the Galleria. That was always such a big deal for. Anyway the Mall of America was absolutely awesome. I loved it. Clean and huge beyond belief, over 400 stores and a massive amusement park in the middle. Did a rollercoaster and a log flume ride. 7 hours in the mall.......It was that good.

Drove 2 hours south back to I-90 then a rest stop in southern Minnesota for the night. The rest stops work out nice.....clean bathrooms open all night and in 10 seconds you’re back on the highway in the morning.

Averaging about 11.3 miles per gallon so far......not great...... but it’s nice to sleep in my queen size bed every night.

Sunday July 19

Drove 2hrs........ wanted to see the University of Notre Dame in South Bend Indiana.....South bend kind of a dump.....the University was ok...it seemed that every building was under construction and the grounds could have used some maintenance.....because of these things the charm was lost. I was unimpressed.

Cabela’s Indiana success......returned 2 air mattresses (Ian).....got a sweet down jacket, light, warm, and camo.......$200 of retail also got some leader for fishing....basically made out like a bandit....

Drove up around Chicago 5 hours north thru Wisconsin to a Flying J where I spoke to a few truck drivers about their lifestyles.....all from Montreal....one guy left Montreal every Sat at noon with a load and delivered it 20 different locations near the Minneapolis St Paul area....then back to Montreal with a load, and home by Thursday.

I asked one trucker what kind of junk he was carrying....he said, “Junk? I’ve got soybeans, not junk” He also had a million questions about the camper.

Sat July 18

Woke up to rain and a view of Lake Erie out the window. Love the new mattress topper. When I came back from the bathroom there was a rainbow. If I stood in the right place I could make it look like it was coming out of the top of the camper.

Drove 2 hours to Cleveland to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame....I gave it a score of 7 out of 10. Really cool stuff on the bottom floor. Highlights for me included the jacket worn by Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones in the film Song Remains the Same, the one with the heart on the sleeve....and Michael Jackson’s glove.......Sis, I saw bucks purple stage outfit from REM too.....no photographs allowed.

Improvements to the hall? Make the films a little shorter....... my ass was sore......and display everything you have......if you don’t have room, make the building bigger......I really wanted to see Jimmy Page’s dragon pants and the red double neck guitar......and in the end, not one single item from one of the worlds best rock guitarists......sacrilegious I say.....like a church with no Jesus.....

Cleveland Indian’s game at night......call me a communist but I have become disconnected and disinterested in professional baseball. For me it has become so tainted and boring but millions of people still watch it....am I missing something? Is there nothing better to do? Indian’s played the Mariners so I got to see Ichiro and all his quirkiness, bizarre stretches and rituals.

Drove another hour and a half out of Cleveland, hit a Waffle House then slept at the last rest stop in Ohio. Love the pillow topper.....

Friday July 17, 2009

With summer tennis 2009 in the books and the million and one things checked off my to-do list I rolled out of Sterling at high noon today.....

As I drove through Sterling I thought to myself......I’ll drive through many, many small towns like this in the next month and a half.......

Blasted through Mass and was in Buffalo, NY by 8:30pm. Felt like I needed to see some people and throw myself in the action so I stopped at a monster size mall in Buffalo. I’ve always liked the burgers at Johnny Rocket’s and there was one at the mall so I had one.....salad too.

Drove another 2 hours and parked for the night at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center on I-90.......cleanest bathrooms yet and open all night.