July 20 & 21: SD, MN & on to Oshkosh, WI

We felt like we spent a long time in South Dakota, or maybe it's just a really long state. But, we are big fans, at least of the summertime. It is beautiful, clean, and had great weather during our visit. After our night in Sturgis, we headed east via a beautiful county road that took us through Deadwood and so many neat roadside spots. We would like to come back to the Black Hills and Deadwood for a longer visit. What a cool area! Then the decision was to head east through the Badlands National Park, or forgo that for the Interstate 90 so Jake could experience and I could relive a stop at Wall Drug. It's really not the stop at Wall Drug that is the experience, it's the anticipation. Jake earned a quarter for every Wall Drug sign we passed that he could read. He made $12.75 to spend there! It was very exciting!

One of hundreds of Wall Drug Signs. Scott spotted the first one in Wyoming.


We had another stop across South Dakota at the Pioneer Auto Museum, the one and only attraction in Murdo. An enormous collection of autos and vintage memorabilia, right up the boys alley! Even boat motors...note Scott's matching shirt. Jake participated in the treasure hunt throughout the dozens of buildings and won a frisbee.
Our last official South Dakota stop was at Bob's Cafe in Sioux Falls. We found it on Roadfood.com. http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Reviews/671/bobs OMG!!! The best chicken ever, by far, we have ever eaten. The photo does not do it justice. And the place is a crack up. We ate at the counter and enjoyed watching the "action". The sign is bigger than the diner. They call it "broasted", but it is some kind of pressure cooker frying that made it just YUMMY. More good healthy eating. This however, was totally worth it! It was cheap too!


We finally crossed the border into Minnesota. We stayed at a fantastic family style campground in Waseca, called Keisler's Campground, on Clear Lake. We had our first real campfire so far on the trip. And Jake saw lightning bugs for the first time. We laid awake listening to it pour rain all night! As we drove east Thursday morning, things looked wetter and wetter. We passed by lots of corn and porn....it's funny how many adult stores you see in these parts! Apparently, there has been a lot of flooding going on and we were headed into it. We crossed over the Mississippi River and continued a nice farmland drive into OshKosh, WI. We are getting ready to drop off the truck and trailer at the airport for the Oshkosh Air Show that Scott is flying in the C-47 with Sherman and a big group. We are hoping things dry up a bit. Thousands of people are heading into Oshkosh to camp during the festivities, and it is just too wet right now. Thankfully, Scott and Sherman have passes to park the trailer out on the tarmac under the wing of the airplane. Jake, Clover and I will be heading to Cincinnati on Saturday to visit my cousin Paige (and Aunt Kendall will be there too) while the boys camp out at the air show.

July 18 & 19: SOUTH DAKOTA

We drove across southwestern Wyoming and made it to Hot Springs, South Dakota, at the bottom of the Black Hills area. The weather was perfect! We stayed in a little hotel and planned for a big day on Monday. First stop, the "World Famous" Evans Hot Springs Plunge. It is the largest indoor hot springs in the US and has slides and all kinds of stuff that Jake loved. Then we drove into Custer State Park. We loved it! It is a beautiful park with lots of wildlife and not so many people. We saw many Pronghorn (not to be mistaken for antelope) and buffalo, but the highlight was the wild, but very friendly burros living in the park. They come right up to your car. We fed them crackers and they were very happy. At the top of the park, we started to see glimpses of Mount Rushmore in the background, very cool. We parked at the Mount Rushmore visitors center and got the close-up look. Some thunder and lighting made for a pretty quick visit. We ended up driving through Rapid City and on to Sturgis to camp for the night in a lovely spot cleverly named Rush-No-More Campground. Thankfully, we are about two weeks before the big annual Sturgis Bike Rally, when the entire town and area is transformed into a huge biker party. We are way too old for that stuff anymore. Scott's Harley Davidson days are long gone. But, it was fun to see the town where it all happens and feel the "calm before the storm".

A quick trip across southeastern Wyoming

The buffalo roam throughout Custer State Park

A beautiful drive through Custer State Park

Note Mount Rushmore in background above along with scary clouds.

Sturgis.....we ate "steak tips", the local favorite.

July 16 & 17: COLORADO

It always feels great to come "home" to Colorado! We spent a fun evening with my cousin Kristi, Kevin and Nick. And Clover got to have some fun with their new puppies, Douglas and Brian (seriously) after some boring days in the car for her. We were greeted with the smell of one of Kristi's famous cherry pies, made with real "pie cherries". But first, we went out for some true seriously gut-wrenching yummy food. We had Frito Pie as an appetizer followed by massive quantities of awesome chicken wings. A very healthy choice, don't you think? Hey, the wings had carrots and celery sticks on the side! Scott is very anxious for later in the trip when we go to the true home of chicken wings in Buffalo, but these were very close! So, I especially, was in pain, but managed to have the pie for dessert later. It's always great to see them and good for some laughs as well. So after a short and sweet visit with my super-fun cousin, we were on the road to Morrison the next morning. We stopped along the way at The Gashouse in Edwards, famous for Rocky Mountain Oysters. And then we took a quick drive through charming Georgetown, where I lived when I was about Jake's age. Morrison is home to one of my most favorite friends, Joan. We were sorority sisters at CU together and our families now manage to see each other on occasion. We actually did a long RV trip with them about 10 years ago that was one of our favorite trips ever. Unfortunately, Steve and Annie were gone for the weekend, but we had a great time with Joan and got to sleep in a real bed and do some laundry too. We went to Cafe Prague in cute downtown Morrison. We had a German platter of all kinds of yummy stuff. Jake became part of the entertainment and sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" with the duet playing. I must get this on U-Tube. Then afterwards, Jake got to play Annie's guitar while we had s'mores back at home in the backyard fire-pit. Another short, sweet visit and we were headed out the next morning. We had to go to Boulder, my alma mater. Too close to not stop by. It always brings back fun memories. We had lunch at The Sink, famous for it's pizza served with honey for the crust. www.thesink.com Then we went by the Chi Omega house so Jake could see where I lived. That is always fun. But, no time to check out Pearl Street or the rest, we headed out. It was decision time, which way to head east? We had planned on heading through Nebraska, but scratched that at the last minute and headed north on the I-25 towards Cheyenne.

July 14&15: UTAH

It was hot, hot, hot in Vegas, so we headed out quickly after picking up our new Schwinn Cruiser bikes and mounting them on the trailer. They are really cool! We drove through Zion National Park, which was gorgeous, except the road was so torn up, Scott couldn't take his eyes off the road. We had reservations in a campground outside of Bryce Canyon, but the campground was a huge tightly spaced tourist trap and we didn't want our first night in the Shasta to be there...so we headed on to the town of Panguitch, and stayed in a nice little KOA. We opted to not backtrack to Bryce, but instead go to a lesser known National Park called Capitol Reef. We stayed in a nice campground outside of the park near the town of Torrey. Jake had a great time swimming and making fast friends. We partook in the "cookout" dinner, which was fun. The drive through the park was really beautiful the next morning. We had a nice drive to Grand Junction, CO to visit my cousin Kristi and her family.

In the photos, don't forget to look for the Venteux bottle....it won't always be easy to find!

July 13th: "On The Road Again" (and again)!

Plan "A": Depart on our journey Monday, July 12th in our recently restored 1968 Dodge A100 van and 1959 Shasta Airflyte 19 Deluxe. After three months of hard-core labor and lots of research finding the right parts, the matching duo turned out so cute! We planned for a "test drive" but time didn't permit as we weren't ready to go until July 13th. We loaded and were finally on the road Tuesday afternoon. Here comes Plan "B"....After about an hour and a half of a very HOT and very LOUD and UNCOMFORTABLE ride in the van, we came to the sad decision that our personal comfort was more important than how cool we looked, and we did look cool! So we turned around and went back home to change the van for Scott's Dodge truck. Wow! It sure feels luxurious after that experience! We think it was the smart decision and thankfully we made it when we did and not a few days into the trip. We made it almost to Las Vegas that night with a dinner stop at the Mad Greek restaurant for dinner. www.roadtripamerica.com/eats/madgreek.htm

Here are some photos of the Shasta, our home for the next 7,000 miles!

What a cozy family-bonding experience!

Dining Room

Bathroom

Living/Bedroom

Gourmet Kitchen!