It is amazing how an attitude adjustment comes with a good night’s sleep! Even though it was still light outside at 10:00 last night, we were in bed before night actually fell. LOVE the daylight so late in the day! We were up and on a roll this morning and were pulling out of camp at 9:45, heading east on Trans Canada 1.The terrain for most of our drive today was VERY flat in all directions. It felt as if you could see tomorrow in front of you and yesterday in the rear view mirror. The vast fields were covered as far as the eye could see with various crops...including the ubiquitous canola! As an aside: I think it would be wonderful if there were a world wide enforceable law that all crops have to be ... read more

We were up and at ’um at 5:30 this morning because we wanted to make a stop at the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park on our way to Minot, ND via Williston. We pulled out of camp at 8:00 heading north. Along our route we started seeing many oil pumps. The North Unit formations seemed to be taller than the ones in the South Unit...maybe because we were driving more through the “canyon” of formations rather than along a rim. The valleys between the formations were further apart also. Note of interest: we saw a lot of buffalo poop in the road! Therefore we were not so surprised when we did see one buffalo bull lying in the grass close to the road and a herd of maybe at least 25 or 30 buffalo ... read more

We arrived at our “WIFI away from home“, the Spearfish Public Library around 9:15, worked on finishing yesterday’s blog, sent it out, and were on our way at 10:00!! We are getting very good at this process! As we left Spearfish, we were almost instantly out of the Black Hills as they started falling behind us in our rear view mirror. Our horizon quickly widened out for sure. We drove through Belle Fourche around 10:20. About ten miles north of that little town is supposedly the geographical center of the USA. We never saw a sign which disappointed us as we would have liked to take a picture—just have to trust that it is there I guess! The part of South Dakota we drove through today is VERY sparsely populated and the roads, which have been ... read more

First of all, John and I want to wish my baby brother, David M, and our good friend Barb A very Happy Birthdays! We hope you both have wonderful ones. Love you!! We pulled out of camp at 9:15 heading directly to the local library in hopes of good WiFi. The folks there were very accommodating and I was soon busily at work getting yesterday’s blog out. Leaving the library at 10:30, Spearfish Canyon was our next excursion. Leaving the town of Spearfish on the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, we were soon back in the Black Hills. It was a very nice drive and we expect it would be spectacular in the Fall when the Aspen and Beech trees turn. It was pretty today but in comparison to the drives in the Mount Rushmore area, it ... read more

We were up super early (for us) this morning—5:30 AM. We followed our plan to get to the laundromat first thing, arriving there at 8:00! Yay us!! We did our clothes, had breakfast, and were on the road at 9:30. Our first stop was at the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center in Lead (pronounced “leed”) South Dakota. This was a great stop. We took an hour trolley tour of the old mining town of Lead and then a short overview of the Sanford Underground Research Facility which is in the old Homestake Mine tunnels. If you are interested in the “sciencey” part of this, I recommend looking it up on Google. They are in the process of building the world’s flagship Neutrino Experiment. An international team of 1,000 scientists and engineers from more than 30 countries ... read more

Yesterday evening we took a two mile walk on the George S. Mickelson Trail which lies directly behind our campground. It was named in honor of a former governor of South Dakota who really pushed for this trail before he died in a plane crash in 1993. It runs through the Black Hills and connects Deadwood with Edgemont. “The crushed stone pathway incorporates nearly 100 converted railroad bridges and 4 tunnels, and much of it traverses national forest; however, some segments pass through private lands and users are asked to respect landowner rights.” “In many places the trail is notched into the mountains—pressed up against granite walls to one side and dropping off steeply on the other. The granite gives way to slabs of slate stacked haphazardly like tall, thin texts on a bookshelf. Since the ... read more