STAYING WITH FRIENDS THEN MOVING ON

We arrived at our friends house Roger & Mary in Gillette, Wyoming  Saturday evening.   Sunday was Rogers birthday so we went to eat at a new restaurant in town that Roger happens to work there as a handy man.  Now Roger has been retired and very content, but he is very handy like Kent is and the restaurant was needing someone to be a handyman, so through an acquaintance they got Rogers name & they called him.  One of his handy jobs was to mount the cougar on the wall.  It is up over a door way and really up there.  I would liked to have seen the work in progress.  Good job Roger.


           Roger & Mary and their daughter Natalie                              

The new restaurant   JORDANS

 

 

                                                                        "THE  CAT"

 

 

 

 

Since it had been several years since Kent & I had been to Devils Tower, we all made the trip over on Monday.  All we remembered was the tower itself,  nothing else looked familiar.  The day was nice & sunny and by mid morning it was getting pretty warm.   There are several trails you can walk but we just took the shortest that went around the base of the tower, but even at that it took us a good

hour or more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After saying our goodbyes on Tuesday morning we headed northwest towards Yellowstone.   It had been as many years since we had seen Yellowstone as Devils Tower.  We went into the park at the East entrance.  This must have been the area where a lot of the fires had been.  We drove for probably at least 50 miles seeing the trees burned out.   You cannot see Yellowstone in 1 day, but we only spent yesterday there.  We left out the North exit, and decided that was the prettier way to come in.  Just a few of the MANY pictures we took.

 

 

 

He crossed right in front of our truck

 

 

 

Lunch by Yellowstone Lake

 

 

 

 

And last but not least "OLD FAITHFUL"

 

 

 

Many more things to see in the park but we are moving on.  We are in Montana right & expect to be in Canada by Saturday.  I do not know how often I will be able to post a blog while traveling, but I will do my best.  Thanks for reading the blog, I love sharing our travels with our friends & family.

 

Until next time

Kent & Martha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOTS OF THINGS TO SEE & DO

      We have been on the road for 4 days and just today arrived at our friends in Gillette Wyoming.  The weather from home to here has been a mixed bag of goodies.  The wind has been atrocious for a couple days.  We even pulled into a truck stop and parked between semis to shield us from the wind and the storm that was coming.   About 2 hours out of Gillette we sit it out in another parking lot.  We got a call from our friends & they were having bad hail and they had tornado warnings, so where we were it was getting very dark and the wind was bad again, so we waited about 40 minutes before we headed their way.  It was still raining & we had some wind on the way over to their place, but not as bad as it had been.  

 

 

 

 

    
        I found this funny sign on the door of one of the campgrounds we stayed at.  Since we are in a truck camper this trip it seemed relevant to us, but hope this isn't the way we feel by the end of our trip.   I just wonder which one of us is going to be honey!~!   In case you can't see what is happening, the steps are out & the truck is backed up to a cliff !

    

     This is the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.  The murals are made of corn and each mural is custom fit by a master craftsman.  The corn is all grown locally, and the scenes are changed each year.   The Palace has a gym and stage.  They have had a lot of famous people come & perform there.  The Corn Palace was a brain storm of 2 business men back in the 1930's.  It caught on and has been  a draw for the town every since.


 Each picture is made of corn

 

 

 
 
 

After leaving Mitchell, we drove towards Wall Drug in Wall South Dakota.  It had been over 20 years since we had been there when the girls were little.  It was a lot more commercialized than what we remembered.  After spending time in the shops we spent the night at a Good Sam campground just a couple blocks away.

        
 

 

     The time changed on us yesterday.  We are now 2 hours behind Indiana.  Kent was up this morning and I looked at my clock & asked him why he was up at 5a.m.   He had looked at the clock on the wall and it said 7:00  but that clock on the wall had not been changed.  Surprisingly we were able to get a couple more hours sleep.    When we finally did get around, we headed West towards
Mt. Rushmore.   We got some really good pictures.

 

                                                        It is very windy today ~!!

After we left Mt. Rushmore we took a drive through the Black Hills National Park.   We were certainly glad we had, it was a very nice scenic drive, but the road was very curvy.  Got lots of pictures but it was prettier than what the pictures show.  At every curve was another snapshot to take.  I was trying to take movies and snapshots & just could not get it all.  We went through 3 stone 1 lane tunnels and each one we were not sure if the truck camper was going to make it.   At the first tunnel I got out to see if we were going to clear !!  I got it on video but did not get a snapshot.  Here are just a few of the shots.

                                                                      Fun travels to you all
                                                                           
                                                                          Kent & Martha





 

TRAVEL DAY FINALLY ARRIVED

Today  is the day !  Ready or not we are going to pull out the drive.   The day was very nice & sunny, just a perfect day to travel.   After all the pictures and goodbyes we were on our way.  Starting mileage is 52,746. 

 
 
 

 

 

Most roads we traveled today were 2 lane and very bumpy.   We stopped at a city park in Goodland, Indiana  to have some lunch.   Just zipped out the slide, pulled down the steps a couple minutes & I had lunch on the table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cookies by Shelly!!    Thanks

Chocolate chip butterscotch--they are so good

 

Janice my sister sent us away with some delicious cookies.  Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far we have realized we left the window bracket to the gps at home (at least we cannot find it on board.)   We called Shelly to go out to the house and look, thinking maybe we knew where it was but she could not find it, so who knows where it is at.   We are at a campground in Tipton, Iowa tonight & we were thinking about sitting out, but two things stopped us, the BUGS were non stop and Kent had forgotten to put in the lawn chairs.  So guess who gets 2 new chairs ?!  I carried 10,000 trips putting stuff in the TC (truck camper) he only had a few things to put in....oh well...

This is the camp spot.    When we pulled into the campground no one was at the office, so it tells you to take an application fill it out & put it in the box.   Well not knowing what spot we would be in we just took the slip with us came down found a spot and then later we walked it back up and dropped it in.   There are showers and bathrooms  so I decided to use the bathroom up there.  Without paying too much attention I walked into the bathroom    WHOOPS  first thing I saw was the urinals !!  Luckily I was the only one in there, but I was only in there for a millasecond.   I certainly went out faster than I went in.   

 

 

Until next time

Kent & Martha