We left Lewis & Clark State Park on June 19, and headed south. We have about 2 weeks before we are due in Idaho, and our plan is to head down to Colorado to do some exploring. We have been on several ski trips to CO, but haven’t spent much time there in the summer. Our first stop was Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, ND. Teddy Roosevelt came to the N Dakota badlands in 1883 to hunt bison, only to find the population had been almost hunted into extinction. He became very enamored with the lush grasslands and beautiful rock [View Full Entry]

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We took a side trip out of Williston to visit a couple of historic sites just a few miles up the Missouri River from town. Near the Montana border, the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers converge. Fort Buford was established in 1866 to guard and protect the strategic confluence of these rivers, both important transportation and trade routes of the early west. From this fort the army fought the Indians of the northern plains, and it was at Fort Buford, on July, 20, 1881, that the Sioux chief Sitting Bull surrendered, ending the great Sioux wars. Much of the fort has been [View Full Entry]

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The History On May 14, 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left St Louis, heading up the Missouri River on their 2 ½-year expedition to explore and chart the lands recently acquired through the Louisiana Purchase, and to seek a “Northwest Passage” to the Pacific Ocean. On April 17, 1805, almost one year later, they made camp at Short Creek, in what is now North Dakota, one mile from our campground at Lewis and Clark State Park. Sixteen months later on their return trip, they made camp at Tobacco Garden Bay, just across the Missouri River from the Park. It was [View Full Entry]

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We left Fernandina Beach on April 29, 2009 on a five month adventure that will have us spending a month in the Northwestern Corner of North Dakota, two months in Southern Idaho, and then back to Virginia for about a month. We won’t be home again until early October. Our first stop is Arlington, VA, where we’ll spend a few days visiting with our son, John, his wife Kemper, and two of our wonderful grandchildren Mary and Robert. We had a great visit. The highlights were the elementary school fair, Robert’s baseball game, Mary’s soccer game, and a nice visit with [View Full Entry]

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Glacier National Park is located in northwestern Montana along the Canadian border, and consists of some 1,600 square miles of mountains, forests, rivers, lakes, and, of course, glaciers (over 50 of them). It became our 10th National Park in 1910. In 1891 the Great Northern Railway had crossed the continental divide at nearby Marias Pass, opening the region to settlers, miners, and inevitably tourists. Seeing the potential of the area’s breathtaking beauty, the railroad promoted the region and built a series of lodges across the area connected by primitive trails. Tourists would trav [View Full Entry]

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We left Oregon on May 31, after a great month at the beautiful Nehalem Bay State Park, and after an overnight stay in a neat little Oceanside campground on the Washington coast, headed for southeastern Washington to spend a few days with some friends, Glen and Lori, from Vancouver, and Terry and Linda, from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, all of whom had worked with us as volunteers in Oregon last year. We stayed for 3 days at the Yakima Nation RV Resort, a nice resort and casino in Toppenish, WA, then we all moved about 100 miles east to the little [View Full Entry]

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From Durango we headed west into Utah, Stopping for lunch in Monticello, where we were greeted by a blizzard (by this Floridian’s standards, anyway). From Monticello we turned north toward Moab, and were soon in the spectacular canyon country of southeast Utah. We had made arrangements to meet our friends Glen and Judy Denner in Moab. We met the Denners and spent some time with them last September at the Montana Owners Club rally in Indiana, and were looking forward to seeing them again. Our schedule only permitted two days in Moab, which we knew was barely enough time to [View Full Entry]

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We stopped in Durango to visit our friends, Jim and Becky Rodefer, whom we met and traveled with last year in Alaska. Located on the edge of the mountains in picturesque southwestern Colorado, Durango is a real outdoorsman’s paradise, with great hunting, fishing, skiing, and whitewater rafting readily available in the area. It is also home to the Durango and Silverton narrow-gauge railroad, which began operation in 1882, and still carries passengers on the scenic route using authentic coal-fired steam engines and vintage passenger coaches. The tracks passed within about 50 feet of our c [View Full Entry]

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Crossing the Sacramento Mountains on US 82 we came to the little ski village of Cloudcroft, with a splendid view of the valley ahead and some 5,000 feet below. Here we got our first glimpse of the huge White Sands Missile Range. At 3,200 square miles, it is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Here, at a site called Trinity, the atomic age began at 5:30 AM on July 16, 1945 with the the detonation of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, the culmination of the Manhattan Project. The site is open to the public only 2 days each year, on [View Full Entry]

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In 1898, in the Guadalupe Mountains of Southeastern New Mexico, a cowboy named Jim White saw what he thought was smoke rising in the distance. When he went closer he found that the “smoke” was literally millions of bats coming from a large hole in the ground. White and other locals knew of the hole, but no one had explored it. Concluding from the number of bats he saw that this must be a huge cave, White returned with a lantern and a crude rope ladder and descended into the hole. He spent the next 30 years making thousands of [View Full Entry]

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