Mount Rushmore....Wyoming....Montana

This morning we got up early and were one of the first visitors in to see Mount Rushmore. The sun was shining, though it was quite cold, around 40 degrees and windy. I'm actually glad we didn't camp last night considering it got down into the 30's! We spent a good 2 or 2 1/2 hours in the museum at the base of the sculpture.


The vastness of Wyoming and Montana is hard to wrap your head around. NH seems to be claustrophobic compared to the openness of the land and sky in the West. The view goes on and on as far as the eye can see. Everywhere you look you see ranches with Black Angus cattle. They dot the landscape for miles and miles. I think we've seen as many babies as we have adults!



Our plan was to head to Yellowstone tomorrow, but snow is predicted…so we're pushing our trip back a day. We spoke with some locals at dinner tonight and they suggested a nice ride off of the interstate. We're hoping to see more elk and big horn sheep.

The Badlands

Today we continued West along Route 90 in South Dakota towards the Badlands National Park. When we arrived we purchased our America the Beautiful national parks pass for $80. This will allow us entry to all the national parks for a year. I have to say that the Badlands took my breath away. I've never seen anything like it..it was just beautiful and a little scary at times driving through the passes. You can look for miles and not see any sign of civilization where the rugged landscape meets the prairie. We were lucky enough to see bison, prairie dogs and big horn sheep.


From the Badlands we continued on to Wall Drug. We saw miles and miles and miles of billboards advertising this shopping phenomenon, so of course we had to go see it for ourselves.

Our goal was to spend the night near Mount Rushmore. It didn't take us long to figure out that none of the campgrounds were open in Keystone…at least for a few more days. Everything opens the beginning of May and we arrived April 29th! No camping in Keystone for us!

Heading West!

After leaving Illinois we drove due West toward South Dakota, crossing the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa. That day we drove over 600 miles, getting a good jump on our westward journey. We crossed the entire state on Route 80. The flat terrain of Illinois slowly turned into the small rolling hills of Iowa. Our goal for that evening was Mitchell, South Dakota. We stayed at the Lake Mitchell Campground. We were one of three campers there for the evening and we were lucky enough to get a lake view campsite. Though it was a bit windy, we set up camp and cooked a great meal….steak, spinach salad, potato salad and some nice crusty bread.


The next morning we woke up to a cool 40 degrees and ended up with cold showers…ugh! On our way out of Mitchell we stopped to visit the world famous Corn Palace, which was originally established in 1892 to display the fruits of the early settlers' harvest.

Celebrating Uncle Junie

Today we celebrated the life of Uncle Junie. It was so nice to see everyone despite the sad occasion. After the service and luncheon, aunts, uncles and cousins gathered at his house one last time. Over the years Junie's house had become the family party house. I have so many memories of times spent with family around his kitchen table. It's part of our visits that I'm going to miss the most. I just thought I would share some photos of our last gathering there.