Retirement Road Trip

We have taken the plunge into full camping mode at Glacier National Park.  Yesterday at noon we arrived to perhaps the prettiest of any campgrounds we have been to.  The pines are towering and the aspens and yellow maples surround us with golden glory. We got here late morning yesterday, the temperature was in mid-60's and rose into the 70's.  We decided on pitching the tent and go full throttle into camping for 2 nights.  We unpacked the camping gear and began cooking over the campfire.  Homemade bread in the dutch oven last night and egg and sausage caserole this morning.  Just wish we had friends and family here to enjoy it with us.  Alan, ever dubious about my cooking experimentation, was duly impressed.  He reminds me that I left out one ingredient in a 3-ingredient recipe, but I remembered half way through the rising time and added my salt then.  The bread may have been a bit saltier on the crust (pretzel bread maybe) but it made it eve...

We finally have WiFi to upload the latest post.  I appreciate the comments and need to figure out how to respond, although I succeeded once.  Maybe one of my retirement projects should be to master computers and the internet.  Nah, too much stress.  I will just fumble along and hope that Alan outlives me. The last night in Yellowstone was a car sleeping event.  The temperature went below 28 degrees and we had ice on the windows, inside and out!  But we were cozy in the van.  The night was clear and full of stars to guide my way for my 3 AM potty break.  Just a bit chilly.  We were the only vehicle in a huge parking lot at Old Faithful.  Our bikes in the AM show the thick frost: The nights before when we were sleeping in our cabin, some "thing" unzipped the little zipper pouch here and pulled out packets of alcohol swabs and first aid cream, we guess looking for food.  We thought it was an amazingly clever raccoon.  When we saw ...

We have been in Yellowstone for 2 days.  The first day was focused on wildlife; the second on geysers and thermal features.  There is no way we can post all of the wonderful pictures we have taken or describe all of the incredible things we have seen, but we will give you enticement enough to have you make the trip yourselves if you have not already done so.   As we drove into and in the park, we saw chipmunks, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, big horn sheep, bison, trumpeter swans, eagles, elk, a black bear and a grizzly bear.  Almost every picture of an animal was taken with Alan's SLR camera and are not available to me without wifi.  Stay turned for those.  But to give you a taste, here is the cute black bear we saw foraging in the meadow.   And a bison who "owned" the road: Alan says this was "heavy traffic".  It is exciting to see the animals in the wild even if we have seen them in zoo or contrived habitats.   We will thrilled to get a ca...

Due to the rain and cold, we opted out of a second visit to Mount Rushmore or a first visit to Crazy Horse Monument. Wind Cave, which we had never seen was on the calendar. On our way to Wind Cave, we saw turkeys again, a herd on mule deer, bison and prairie dogs. Alan took pictures with his fancy camera and you will have to wait for those after he dumps them to his computer.  Wind Cave is the 7th designated National Park and the first one one that was a Cave. The Cave is complex and deep. The opening barely fits a small person: Can you imagine climbing into that hole to explore?  Air flows in and out of that hole in reaction to the barometric pressure outside. They now have a big opening for tours.   The Cave is known for its unique rock formation called "boxwork".   This rock forms by calcite Being deposited into sandstone and then water washing away the sandstone.  95% of the Boxwork in the world is in Wind Cave.  We were fortunate to get a cabin in Yell...

South Dakota is not complete without visiting the Black Hills and environs.  We have been here before and drove through Sturgis DURING the motorcycle rally.  Then, it was packed with people and bikes, loud music, engines roaring and noisy chatter, and excitement.  On Saturday, we stopped in Sturgis for lunch.   It was rainy, quiet, and unpopulated except for a few retirees-types out for a music and wine/liquor tasting tour in the town.  The band playing at the famous bike bar "The Knuckles Salon" was a polka band, little plastic hats and accordians.  It was rather disconcerting.   But we took pictures of the highlights to share.  While Alan made me ham it up next to Elvis, I finally got him to stand awkwardly by the sexy Indian maiden.  I know that you have been waiting for his picture: Won't leave mine out either, along with the iconic images that dot the town.  Still an interesting place without 10,000 bikes and bikers. The Indian Knuc...

We entered North Dakota in Fargo at 10:30 AM in the heat of 91 degrees,  At 6:00 PM we stopped in Bismarck where the temperature had dropped to below 50 degrees.  We are grateful for the uber-lightweight puffy down jackets we just bought.  I got mine in Wisconsin at a Costco for $19.99.  It is warm and snugly.  Get one before they are gone.  We saw the same brand for a list price of $110 in Egg Harbor.   We took a picture of a very disturbing rendition of Paul Bunyan, just because it was too "out-there" to leave it off the blog.  It was in front of a modest Paul Bunyan Museum in a small town, maybe Medina, ND.  Alan could not resist putting it on FaceBook--always beating me to publication.  Since some of my audience are not Alan's FB friends, I will share it here as well: True confession:  I LOVED Paul Bunyan stories as a child.  In fact, we named our first car, a $200 1963 blue Chevrolet Impala, Babe, after Bunyan's Blue Ox. W...

By 10:30 AM we crossed the Mississippi River near Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  The river was narrow and still, but a major landmark that divides the country and puts us in the Western half of the continental United States.  The Mississippi River: We awakened early again this morning and set out for Fargo, North Dakota.  Alan caught the sunrise over Lake Superior while packing the car: We followed a severe thunderstorm and rain along the southwest coast of the Lake.  It turned dark as night just as the rain started. North Dakota is an important destination for us as it is one of two states in the continental United States that we have not traveled.  Vermont is the other state--not to be stricken from the list this trip.   Minnesota will get short shrift as we have plans for longer visits at Devils Tower and Yellowstone in Wyoming.   We got acquainted with Minnesota earlier this trip by listening to Al Franken read his book, "Al Franken:  Giant of the ...

Alan tells me that we cannot spend 5 nights in every state or we will never make it home by election day which is my deadline.  He is now working backwards to figure out what we can do and what we cut out of the trip to stay on track.  The two absolutes are 1) to see Luke, our youngest, in Seattle for a few days and meet his fiance's parents who have a lake house there; and 2) stay a couple days with Cheryl, Alan's sister and her husband, including a visit to their vineyard North of Dallas.  The rest can be changed.   But Wisconsin was well worth the 5 days.  Well, maybe not the overnight in Beloit's Wal-Mart parking lot.  But the rest of the visit was awesome.  Door County was our favorite.  The Apostle Islands Lakeshore is very nice as well, but second on my list.  We took a 3 1/2 hour cruise of the islands (saw 21/22 islands). We saw 5 bald eagles and some lake birds, but not much else.  Caves carved out by the water were cool, but no...

For 35 years or more, Alan and I have designated Bar Harbor, Maine as our favorite vacation spot anywhere.  Door County, Wisconsin feels remarkedly like Bar Harbor and has almost as much to offer.   Door Pennisula juts out between Green Bay and Lake Michigan.  It is dotted with small towns that are busy and crowded in the summer, but almost shut down from October 15-May.  The restaurants are wonderful and there are lovely art galleries and stores featuring fine arts and crafts or clothing or gifts instead of just junky souvenirs.  Bar Harbor is neighbor to Acadia National Park which has phenomenal camp sites, biking trails, hiking trails,  iron-bar climbing, beaches, scenery and sites and a 4-star inn which specializes in blueberry popovers and out of this world lobster stew.  Egg Harbor and Fish Creek are neighboring communities to Door Peninsula State Park which features 400+ campsites, a beautiful beach, hiking and bike trails, and outdoor performan...