Devil's Tower

From our campsite. Is this cool or what!

Day 2 – Wednesday, May 14, 2014

North Platte, Nebraska to Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Another crisp, clear morning, with the temperature right around the freezing mark.  But we stayed toasty warm in the motorhome.  Having an electric hook-up meant we could use our little portable electric heater, which is much quieter than the motorhome’s propane heater with its turbojet blower that wakes me up every time it cycles on during the night.

After a leisurely breakfast of fruit and cereal, we pulled out of the campground a little before 9:00am.  We stopped for gas going back through North Platte, then headed north up US Hwy 83 through the sand hills of north central Nebraska.  We drove through miles of dune-like hills covered with fresh green grass, interspersed with tidy ranch houses and barns surrounded by dense plantings of juniper trees to provide shelter from the unceasing winds that blow from the northwest.  The pastures were filled with herds of cattle, most of which were accompanied by this year’s calf crop.  I couldn’t help but think of all that meat on the hoof, and wonder how many of them already had McDonald’s branded on their backsides.  As we drove, I was also keeping my eyes open for a place to come back to view the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse, the path of which crosses directly over a wide swath of this portion of the Sate of Nebraska.  There are numerous spots along here where it looks like one could simply pull off the side of the road and have an excellent view.

A few miles after crossing into South Dakota, we turned west on Hwy 44, through the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Reservations to the south entrance to Badlands National Park, where we’ll spend a couple of nights and do some hiking in and around this unusual landscape.  I’ll post more about that after we actually do it, but first I want to explain our somewhat round-about way of getting here since there are more direct routes.  There are actually a couple — maybe even three — reasons.  One was to scout the area for eclipse viewing.  Another was simply to drive on a blue highway that I’d never driven before (goin’ places that we’d never been before), and to get to this National Park which we’d also never been before.   And of course, it’s all on the way of getting to North Dakota and the plains provinces of Canada so we could check them off. 

(Note:  As I post this, we’re now on Day 4, but I haven’t had time to write our Day 3 at Badlands National Park and we’re at a spot that has wi-fi, so I’m posting Days 1 and 2.  We’re on our way to the Devil’s Tower in northeast Wyoming right now, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to get caught up with the blog over the next couple of days.)

Day 1 – Tuesday, May 14, 2014

Denver to North Platte, Nebraska

After yesterday’s cold and snow, the day dawned clear with the temperature in the low 30’s.  We were up by 6:30 and had a quick breakfast, hoping to get the final packing done and be on the road by 10:00am.  Most of our stuff — clothes, food, cameras, etc — was ready to go and just needed to be packed in the modular plastic bins we use in the motorhome so it didn’t take too long.  Then it was time to carry it all out to the driveway and get it into the over-cab bed we use for our storage area.  The final item was a telescope — something that was not on our list of needed items but just something to have for possible wildlife viewing and casual star gazing.  It looked like we’d have room for the little SV66 refractor that we keep set up in our dining room to watch waterfowl out on the lake behind our house.  I gathered the mount and tripod, a couple of star watching reference books with night sky charts, the aluminum case for the telescope and its accessories, and stuffed it all into the remaining space in the motorhome.  We filled the fresh water tank, disconnected the shore power, but away the leveling blocks, locked the front door, and settled into the pilot’s seat and co-pilot’s seat.   It was 9:57am and all was well.   For once we were going to make our departure target.   After a quick stop at King Soopers to pick up a bag of M&Ms for a batch of gorp, our favorite munchy while driving, we were on the way for good.

Fast forward to approximately Mile 35 — we were driving past Barr Lake on the far northeastern outskirts of Denver, a place famous for watching bald eagles.  I thought to myself, I’m glad we brought that telescope after all.  I’m sure we’ll have many opportunities for seeing things like that.  But wait!  I packed the telescope case, the mount and its dedicated tripod, but did I actually remove the telescope from the tripod in the dining room and put it in the case?  NO! (slap on forehead), it was still back home where I never went to get it in the last-minute rush.  Duh.  Oh well, at least we got at the first screw-up out of the way early.

After that, the rest of the day was anti-climactic — just a blast up I-76 to I-80, just over the Nebraska border.  Our original thought was to stay overnight at Lake McConaughy,  just outside of Ogallala, but it was still early, so we decided to continue on to North Platte.  The All-Trails app on my iPhone listed several campgrounds near there, so we chose the Buffalo Bill Ranch State Wildlife Area, which has a small and very pleasant campground with electric hook-ups right on the North Platte River.  Finding it took a bit of time because it’s not well-marked, but we finally settled in for the evening and enjoyed a nice dinner of fresh green salad, vegetable lasagna, and a glass of wine.

Total miles for the day:  305.

A Slight Delay

Our plan was to depart tomorrow, that is Monday the 12th.  However, a couple of things conspired to delay us for at least a day.  First, I wanted to replace the grungy green carpet in the motorhome. While the carpet felt good on the feet, it was hard to keep clean.  Plus, it was beginning to show its age.  The newer Tigers now come with vinyl flooring as the standard, so that’s what we decided to use.  After looking around at various flooring places, we decided on a pattern that resembled 12" x 12" tiles.  It comes in 12" x 36" sheets with edges that overlap and stick together with pre-applied adhesive.  Installation looked very simple, which it would be if we were putting it down in a big, rectangular room with walls that were at perfect 90 degree angles.  While the motorhome is small – no more than 40 square feet of flooring to be replaced – nothing is square, and there is some tricky little jog at every corner.  So to make a long story short, it took four days to do a job that I had hoped to get done in two.  And it’s still not totally finished – I need to install some quarter-round trim along the base of the cabinets in the cooking area, and I need to replace one of the tiles that got damaged during the installation – but I just ran out of gas.  I’m getting too old for this shit (pardon the French).  Anyway, I’ll try to shoot a photo and post it here when it’s finally done.

The other cause of the delay is a late spring storm that blew in overnight last night, bringing temperatures in the low 30's today with light snow.  It’s supposed to freeze tonight and drop 3 to 5 inches of snow by morning, with another inch or two tomorrow.  That’s reason enough for waiting until Tuesday to get away when the sun comes out again and melts the snow.  Besides, with all the work on the flooring, we haven’t had a chance to pack yet so tomorrow we’ll be doing some last-minute grocery shopping and gathering all our stuff together for six weeks on the road.

On the Road Again

Just like Willy Nelson, we’re fixin’ to get on the road again...goin’ places that we’ve never been; seein’ things that we may never see again.

After our Alaska road trip in 2011, we set our sights on the Canadian Maritime Provinces – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island – as our next big journey.  Circumstances, or maybe it was simply what we considered to be more attractive alternatives, conspired to lead us elsewhere for the next two years: the Greek Isles and Italy in 2012, the Camino de Santiago in Spain in 2013.  But the Maritimes can be put off no longer – this is the year.  So beginning May 12 we’re off to Canada for another extended road trip in the Tiger, our faithful 19-foot motorhome.

As I began planning our route for this journey, I knew we wanted to follow our preferred practice of avoiding long stretches of driving along soulless Interstate highways and staying as much as possible on what William Least Heat Moon calls the blue highways.  Even avoiding the Interstates, the most direct route would be across the heartland of America and up through New England.  But my eyes kept getting drawn back to that big bunch of states up north that we’d never been to: North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  They comprised a big hole in our Map of Colored In States; all around are states cheerfully colored in with bright colors, but that big white area was really bugging me.  And way over there in the northeast corner of the map is Maine – another white blotch begging for a dose of color.  Our first post-retirement road trip back in the fall of 2008 was a leaf-peeping tour of New England, but we skipped Maine on that trip and have regretted it ever since.  Obviously there was no way we could miss Maine this time since it’s right next door to the Maritimes – we’d have to go through Maine either coming or going this time, no matter what.

But back to the overall route making.  As I began penciling in potential routes, it dawned on me that if we went north to check off that bunch of states, we might as well keep going right into Canada pick up some of the white areas on that other map, our Map of Colored In Provinces.  That map was pretty sparse – only Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory had splashes of color: BC from a trip to Victoria a few years ago and again from the Alaska trip, and Alberta and Yukon from the Alaska trip as well.  But, as my map clearly indicates, it’s just a short jog from North Dakota over into Montana, then up into Saskatchewan and east to Manitoba.  From there we could cut back into Minnesota, across Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper peninsula, and re-enter Canada at Sault Ste Marie.  That puts us in Ontario, giving us an opportunity to stop by and visit friends from last year’s Camino family.  So Peterborough and Ottawa were added to the itinerary.

After Ottawa, we’ll cross into Quebec and follow the south bank of the St Lawrence River up to northern New Brunswick, then over to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, back into New Brunswick, and finally into Maine, putting us back in the US for keeps.  From then we’ll wander down the east coast to Alexandria to visit our son, Russell and his wife Carol, and to Columbia, South Carolina to visit my brother John and sister-in-law Charlie.  Crossing the country from there, we’ll head back up to Virginia and pick up US 50, “America’s Highway.”  We’ll drive US 50 all the way over to Kansas City, and then because we’ve driven most of US 50 across Kansas at least twice, we’ll turn right and follow the Missouri River north to US 36 and take that blue highway across northern Kansas and back home to Colorado.  So that’s it folks, a bit more than 9000 miles if we don’t deviate from the projected route.  We’ll finish the 50 states, and add seven Canadian provinces as well.

Like a band pair of gypsies we go down the highway. We’re the best of friends. Insisting that the world keep turning our way. And our way is on the road again.

Nov. 10 - The rest of the story

The second box arrived yesterday and now our story is complete. Most all of our belongings are accounted for with the exception of Jeanette's sandals and hiking poles, a small amount of cash and some jewelry that we bought for our daughter. We feel very blessed, as we are still in shock that the backpacks were recovered. The whole journey was an incredible experience and has made a lasting impact on our lives. Again we give thanks to God!

Nov. 5 - One box arrives!!

On Tues. one of our two boxes arrived and it contained the important stuff! Our credentials and Compostellas (certificates) along with the memory cards from Jim's camera, most of the gifts we had purchased and a few personal items were in the box. Thanks be to God. We still feel like it's a miracle that the backpacks were found. The rest of our things (mostly hiking stuff) are in the other box. As of today, Friday, it has not yet arrived. But we wait -- patiently.