And Here We Have Idaho

We finally made it "home" again. It was a really good trip driving across I-90 through Montana, although it was snowing on the summit when we fueled up in Butte and the rain on our awning froze overnight when we camped in Garrison! There was lots of water in the rivers all through Montana and northern Idaho. Our first view of Idaho was of course from the top of Lookout Pass and it was spectacular. We realize how much we miss the mountains when we come back to visit.
These two got out of order so I'll just write under both of them. I had to put pictures of Coeur d'Alene on our blog for Di. I know she misses this country too. We fueled up in Post Falls and then spent the weekend at Charlie's (Howard's cousin) in the Spokane valley. On Monday we drove down to park at Granite Lake RV Resort in Clarkston, WA so we could visit family in Lewiston. The first week we were here, Betsy got to drive up to Moscow with our good friend, Carma and go to the "Lunch Bunch" and visit with lots of Moscow friends. That was really fun!
The first weekend we were in Lewiston, we took Aunt Laura and Dorothy (Howard's Mom) over to Bridgeport, WA to celebrate their sister-in-law Becky's 95th birthday. As we drove by Grand Cooley Dam, we noticed they were letting lots of water out so we stopped and took a picture. I had to get one with the two sisters in it too!
Chief Joseph Dam is just east of Bridgeport and we could hear the roar of the water clear over from Becky's deck! It was really something to see so much water in the Columbia this time of year. We had a great time visiting with lots of family members and helping Becky celebrate her birthday. Last night we had Howard's brothers and Mom over for dinner. It was fun to visit and catch up on what they're doing. We'll be here in Clarkston until Monday, then we'll head for Burley for about two weeks to visit. We've been super busy visiting friends and family. We wish we could see everyone, but there aren't enough hours in the day!!

The Black Hills of South Dakota

We decided to drive the Iron Mountain Highway our first day in the Black Hills. It is a windy, narrow road with tunnels and lots of bridges. This is the first pigtail we went through. The road was built in 1919 and is really a beautiful drive.
This is a good picture of what the road does as it climbs the hill. There are lots of trees, but also areas where you can see out over the Black Hills that are really spectacular.
After going through this narrow, low and very long tunnel, we found out the tour buses go through here too! They only use experienced drivers and there isn't much room on each side of the bus. We were glad to have the car on this road.
This was the view that we got coming out of the second tunnel on our trip. It had a bit of the WOW factor. We went around a pigtail curve, crossed the bridge, went through the tunnel and got a really good shot. We went on this drive early in the morning so the sun was shining directly on Mount Rushmore.
After all the curves and tunnels we got on a bit of flatter land and saw a few pronghorns so we stopped to watch them. Then we noticed the fawn among the adults! What a treat, it scampered around for some time so we could take lots of pictures. When we told the rangers at the Custer State Park Visitor's Center that we had seen the fawn, they said we were extremely lucky because very few are ever seen and they had never seen one!
Burros in Custer State Park are not "wild" they are actually decedents of burros the minors brought to the area. They are wild now, but are very curious when you stop to watch them. This little guy was very hard to get a picture of, it was running around and mama kept trying to stay really close. They were really fun to watch.
We took a wrong turn on the Wildlife Loop Road through Custer State Park and coming around a curve we spotted this herd of buffalo. There were about 100 head in the herd so I couldn't get all of them in one picture. It was really quite a site!
As we got around closer to the herd, we spotted lots of babies. This one got really curious when we stopped to watch and allowed me to get a really closeup picture.
After all the shots of animals (we also saw a mountain goat and a turkey and we have lots more pictures of antelope and buffalo) my battery died in the camera! After a great morning driving and getting to see so much this was a bit anti-climatic, but it was neat to see again. They haven't gotten much done in the ten years since we saw it last though.
What can you say? Mount Rushmore is really awesome to see no matter how many times you've seen it! This is one of my favorite shots of the monument. We also visited the museum again and we got to have ice cream at the cafe (that's always a treat!)

Our last day in the Black Hills we got to go to a chuckwagon dinner at Ft. Hays Dances with Wolves. It was a good dinner and show and it was fun to see so many buildings from the set of Dances With Wolves. We also went through the Mount Rushmore Black Hills Jewelry Factory. That was a cool tour getting to see how Black Hills Gold is made. We had a really good visit to the Black Hills and are now looking forward to visiting Idaho!

South Dakota

This past weekend we got to camp on the Missouri River by Oacoma, SD. We attended a tiny branch on Sunday with only about 20 people in attendance. I've never been in such a small branch, we had some good meetings. This is really a pretty area.
On our way to Rapid City, we drove through the Badlands National Park. It's really pretty and really different. We dropped the coach at the Visitor's Center and drove the CRV through the park. The road was really windy and curvy, but we probably could have taken the coach on it.
At the end of the drive we came to Wall, SD and had to go to Wall Drug. We had heard it was a must see in SD. It was really fun to visit. We even ate lunch here and got to do lots of shopping.
We stopped at a little roadside store on our way back to pick up the coach and spotted these baby prairie dogs playing around their holes. There were quite a lot running all around and they were very friendly because people had been feeding them.
This guy was eating at his hole. He (or she) just stood there for quite awhile like it was posing for me to take a picture! We also saw antelope as we were leaving, but of course we were on the interstate and going too fast to get a good shot. This week we'll visit Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. I'll post more later. Hopefully it won't rain the whole time we're here!

Rock Island Locks

This one is mostly for the grandchildren! We're in Davenport, IA for a few days to get the coach fixed. We decided to go sightseeing today, so we drove to the Mississippi River Visitor's Center and Locks. We got up to the observation deck to see a boat in the lock going downriver. As we were watching, the lock started opening so I started snapping pictures -- all the way until the lock closed again and traffic resumed on the drawbridge over the lock. As we were leaving the Visitor's Center we spotted another boat getting in position to enter the lock. What a cool experience! Hope you enjoy the video!!!