Meet Me at the Mall - July 5, 2010

We set our alarm for the first time this vacation because we wanted to be on the road by 8:00 - we were actually pulling out of the hotel parking lot at 7:45 am. (Are you impressed, Uncle Wes?) Because we were all tired, Elizabeth's backseat "cave" became a sleeping place. Each of us slept for about a third of the drive. It worked, because we were all wide awake and ready to go when we arrived at the Mall of America at around 1:00 pm.

We parked and walked in and were immediately bombarded by the sights and sounds of the mall. Elizabeth said it was like South Coast Plaza on steroids. We had called our friend, Gary, who lives about an hour from the Mall, when we were thirty miles from our destination. We called him now and told him where we had parked. He said he would meet us in about 20 minutes. We went to the American Girl Doll store (our reason for visiting the Mall of America) and began to look around. Gary met us there and we all decided to go eat some lunch.

The Mall of America has more shops, places to eat, little kiosks, etc. than a person would think possible. Over the next few hours, we ate lunch and walked and talked around two floors of the mall. We took a break and went and checked into our hotel room and talked some more. We really enjoyed seeing Gary. It is funny - we have gone several years without seeing each other and this year, we have seen each other twice - earlier this year when Gary was visiting his mother in California and now. We were so sorry that Gary's wife was not home, but she was with their daughter in Idaho. We went back to the mall for dinner at Famous Dave's. Gary had eaten there before and he recommended the family meal. It was served on a trash can lid and had some of everything they serve. It was so tasty and an unbelievable amount of food. Luckily, Gary has a sixteen-year-old son at home who will eat the leftovers!

It was a wonderful day of visiting with an old friend and enjoying being together.

On top of that, we were in a new state that none of us had been in before, we saw some beautiful lakes, and we enjoyed a short walk in the woods at one of the rest areas. Life is good!

See Stairs, Will Climb...again and again and again

Hello all!

This is Elizabeth, I'm writing the first part of the blog today because Auntie offered and how can I refuse?

Well after reading a lot of these blog posts I've noticed that a good chunk of them say I'm sick, which I was but now I am WORLDS BETTER! It's amazing, I had a touch of food poisoning yesterday and it was no fun at all but today I'm back on my feet (literally) and having a ball.

"North Dakota Noise" is the CD I made for us to listen to in the car as we drove to ND. We listened to it (it's just a bunch of songs that I like), then we listened to Billy Joel and Trace Adkins for most of the way here. I enjoy singing "Honky Tonk Badonky Donk" with Auntie and Mom; it's fun and it helps to kill the time.

After Leaving Watertown we came here to ND and went to BONANZA town! Now... if you're like me and watch too much TV then you probably thought of that old TV show "Bonanza" with Hoss and Little Joe but this town is not that AT ALL. It reminded me of the 1880 town we just visited with a little hint of Pioneer Village (form Nebraska) I was able to take LOTS of photos there today; it's a reconstruction of a town during the North Dakota Homesteading Era (yes, I just asked Auntie to describe that, I had no words for it)

We had Root beer floats there and we were able to learn a lot about North Dakota.
However, we were not thinking before we went there and none of us sunblocked or wore hats so we took in tons of sun which made us feel worn out and done for the day.

We went "home" (hotel home) to a Hampton Inn (where we always are) and Auntie took a nap but I just HAD to get my photos developed. So my mom drove me to Walmart where we developed the photos and shopped a little.

We just finished eating at Oliver Garden (it was FANTASTIC) and now we're back at the hotel and I am writing this to you!

But I'm done now and I'm passing the keyboard to Auntie. Bye Ya'll!

Not too much to add to what Elizabeth has already said, but I did want to include a couple of more comments.

First of all, if you noticed Elizabeth's title, you may be wondering what the title means. The reason for the title is that in every single home or business we visited, we were allowed to climb the stairs into the second story. Lorie and I kept marveling over this, because in the majority of historic homes we have visited over the years, you are never allowed to climb the steep, narrow, creaking staircases. We really enjoyed ourselves. Elizabeth was not quite as enchanted with the idea of climbing the stairs every time -- she found the creaking and the dusty upstairs areas a little disconcerting. However, she climbed with us and took pictures. It is great to have our own "official" photographer.

My second comment is that we happened the visit Bonanzaville on the Fourth of July weekend and they were having a special Bluegrass and Old Time Gospel Music Festival. They had a different bluegrass band every hour, an old fashioned ice cream social, watermelon seed spitting contests, and "tractor pulls" for the children where the children pulled red wagons. They also had people in costume around the town to explain the different homes and businesses and some patriotic actors. One actor was so hot that he had the blue "breeches" of his Benjamin Franklin patriotic outfit rolled up to above his knees. It looked pretty funny.

We are going to try to get to bed early tonight because we want to get on the road earlier tomorrow morning. We are going to see our friend who lives in Minnesota and, since he has tomorrow off, we would like to be able to spend a good part of the day with him. He lives about an hour from Mall of America, which is our next destination. We are going to meet him there. We have about a five hour drive to get there.

Hope you all are doing well. We miss everyone!

Where in the World Are You?

If we haven't been in touch with you, we apologize. For most of our drive across South Dakota, we have had little to zero cell phone reception with our Cingular phones. Sometimes we will see a bar and we think, "Great. We can call now," and, that quickly, it disappears. And, our internet connections at our hotels have not been the best. So, there are several new posts here to catch up and we will keep trying to stay in touch. But, if we are not in touch, remember that we are having a great time and we love all of you!

Wilder Geeks Unite!

Well, we are not really Laura Ingalls Wilder Geeks, but we did enjoy our afternoon in De Smet, South Dakota. Once we knew we were going to drive across South Dakota, Lorie and I said, "Let's go see the Laura Ingalls Wilder site." Elizabeth did not really know who Laura Ingalls Wilder was, but she was game for going.

Elizabeth had a really rough night, so we let her sleep in this morning. We got on the road around 10:30 and drive for about two hours to De Smet, the location of By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years. We did not realize how much there was to see about Laura in De Smet. It was unbelievable. We really could have used a full day. There are also sites connected to Harvey Dunn, a watercolor artist who was born on a South Dakota homestead near De Smet in 1884. He paints scenes based on his early childhood experiences.

We began our visit at Loftus General Store. This store is mentioned in the books and it has been in operation for over 140 years. We then went to Depot Museum and the school that Harvey Dunn attended. After that, we began the Laura Ingalls Wilder tour. It started at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society Headquarters. They have moved the surveyors' cabin, the Brewster school, and the first school in De Smet that Laura and Carrie attended, to their location. We had a tour of those three buildings and then everyone went in their own cars and followed the tour director about 2 miles to Ma and Pa Ingalls home in De Smet where they lived after they moved off the prairie into town. It was a very nice home - not the way one usually pictures them living. After Pa sold the farm, they moved into town and he built them a three room house. He then continued adding on to it as he had time and money. They ended up with a home with a living room, dining room, large kitchen, two downstairs bedrooms and three upstairs bedrooms. Ma actually rented out rooms after Pa died to help support Mary and her.

Following the official tour, there was a map of different sites you could drive or walk by in town, drive out to the cemetery and see the family graves, and drive to Silver Lake, the site of Pa's homestead and the site of Laura and Almanzo's homestead. Some of the cottonwood trees Pa planted are still standing and some of the trees Almanzo planted on his timber claim are still standing.

Elizabeth was feeling very badly today. She slept in the car most of the day. We kept parking under trees and leaving all the windows open. She did walk through the surveyors' house and the two schools with us, but that was all.

After the official tour, we went to Subway before doing any driving. Elizabeth said that she felt much better after eating and she did perk up. She said she was afraid to say she was feeling better though. Lorie and I both understood - food poisoning gives you that feeling that it might come back.

We drove out to the cemetery and saw Pa's grave, Ma's grave, Carrie's grave, Mary's grave, and the grave of Laura and Almanzo's baby son. If you walked around the cemetery, you could see several other graves from people in her books.

We drove by Silver Lake, Pa's claim, and by the spot where you would leave the road for Laura and Almanzo's claim. We really enjoyed ourselves. Elizabeth said she wants to read the Little House books now.

We are spending the night tonight in Watertown. Tomorrow we are driving to Fargo, North Dakota. If we get there early enough, we are going to try to see Bonanza, another prairie town replica. If we don't see that, we are just going to relax and enjoy the evening. We hope we can see some fireworks from our hotel room.

Happy Fourth of July to everyone!

South Dakota Skies - July 2, 2010

"South Dakota Skies" is the title of the CD Elizabeth put together for us to listen to as we drove through South Dakota. It is a mix of all types of artists and music. We are enjoying it, but would enjoy it even more if Elizabeth felt better. She is fighting a sore throat and ear ache. We think that the air conditioning may be a contributing factor.



We started the morning by backtracking twenty miles to 1880s town. We saw it last night, but it was too late to stop. 1880s town was created in the 1960s by a man who wanted to recreate what a South Dakota town really looked like in 1880. He purchased buildings and items from all over South Dakota and moved them to this site. It was very interesting. The buildings were set up like a town street and everything you think would be there was there - homes, newspaper office, banks, post office, hotel, 2 saloons, a church, train depot, over 20 buildings in all. You could also take a wagon ride out on the prairie to a homesteaders' shanty, you could walk out to the windmill and field of Texas longhorns. There was also a round, fourteen-sided barn that had costumes and props from the movie, Dancing with Wolves, that was filmed in South Dakota.

We ate in a restored dining car that was decorated to look like a 1950s diner. The food was excellent.

One highlight of our visit was the stage show at the saloon. It was good in itself, but what made it really fun was at the end when the performers brought up three children to perform with them. One little boy had so much personality that he made us laugh until we cried. And, the two performers milked him for all he was worth. It was great.

We continued down the road to Mitchell. After we crossed the Missouri River, we stopped at Lewis and Clark interpretive center. It was interesting to learn more about their journey. We got to walk on a replica of their keel boat and see the types of things they took with them. There was a replica of how their camp would have looked and lots of information about the Indian tribes they met with. There also was a section about all the animals and wildlife they learned about as they traveled.

When we got to Mitchell, we checked into our hotel and then went to see the Corn Palace that Mitchell is famous for. Of course, before we went into the building, we had to stop and have some ice cream. The flavor of the day was Milky Way Sundae and the ice cream is served in homemade waffle cones or bowls. It was good. Because it was so warm, you had to eat quickly or you would have ended up having ice cream soup.

At Corn Palace, we watched a short movie about the history of it and then had a tour. It was interesting to hear about how the theme for each year is developed and how the murals are made. We enjoyed learning about it.

For dinner, we went to Ruby Tuesdays. We were so excited to see a full salad bar. We have not been in a place with a salad bar since we left California. We really enjoyed it. And, for those of you who are wondering, we did not have dessert! (Since we'd already had ice cream and all......)

When we returned to the hotel room, we were all so tired, that we just went right to bed. In the night, Elizabeth got ill. We think she had a touch of food poisoning---her stomach had not been feeling well since lunch time. She had a pretty miserable night.

Lions, Tigers, and Bears....Oh, My! July 1, 2010

Actually, it was bears, jackolopes, and praire dogs...oh, my!

One of our goals on this trip was to see animals for Lorie. Well, we have seen many animals as we have been driving, however, Lorie says that the dead ones don't count. "Roadkill is not a zoo," she stated. So, today we intentionally visited a place for animals.

We visited Bear Country, USA, outside of Rapid City, SD. For those of you who were in Orange County in the 1970s, think Lion Country Safari. Bear Country was started in 1972. It is a three mile drive through eight different areas. The areas are: elk, reindeer, timber wolves, artic wolves, mountian lions, bison, big horn sheep, and bears. You drive through in your car at a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour (we actually moved much slower). It is unbeleivable. We had three elk cross right in front of us. We saw timber wolves staring from the grass. One bison was up close where we could see it very well. It was a white bison - I had never seen a white bison before. There was four other bison down the hill. One was a baby. One of the others was rolling in the dirt - it was great to see that!

The highlight of the experience though was the bear section. There were over twenty bears - both black bears and grizzlies, just wandering around. We saw one swimming and get out of the pond and shake himself dry. We saw others walking around, sleeping on branches, scratching backs against trees, walking across the road in front of our cars - it was just fantastic. We had so much fun. We wished we could have driven through again.

After the drive, we walked through Babyland, where some of the baby animals are kept so they can grow before being put into the areas. We also ate lunch at the Grizzly Cafe.

We then continued down the road. We had decided to stay in Murdo because it was a good halfway point. We weren't quite sure what we were going to do in South Dakota, so staying at Murdo gave us a choice between contining east or changing direction and going north.

We stopped at Wall Drug because it is the thing to do when you are in Wall. We especially enjoyed the "backyard" with its huge "creatures". Lorie had her picture taken on a fourteen foot tall jackolope, hugging two different six foot rabbits, and posing in front of a huge t-rex that roared and gnashed its teeth. We convinced Elizabeth to have her picture taken with a six-foot white rabbit that we named "Harvey". She went along with us, but she let us know that she thought we were weird. I believe her actual word was "deranged". :)

We said when we began this trip that we were going to stop at anything that looked interesting and we have been doing that. It is has been so much fun. Today we saw "Praire Homestead" on our map and we saw signs for it. We decided that sounded good, so we stopped. It was about three miles off the interstate. When we pulled up, we were the only people there. It looked like an old general store building from the front and there were all kinds of old farm implements out front. As we walked up on the porch, there was a figure in a rocking chair and it began "speaking" to us. It about scared Elizabeth out of her pants. The figure looked like the figures in the Knotts' Berry Farm ghost town. It was a supposed to be a version of the man who had homesteaded on this property. We continued inside and purchased tickets that let us walk through the homestead. It was so much fun.

First of all, the area was heavily populated with prairie dogs. We purchased a bag of peanuts for fifty cents so we could feed them. They acted just as they do on nature movies. They would pop up, look around, and squeak. When we tossed the peanuts, they ran, grabbed the peanut, sat up, shelled it, and then nibbled the peanut. It was hilarous to watch.

We then continued up the hill to the little house that was their homestead. You could just walk right in, and look at and touch anything you wanted to. We were saying, "Never in California." Near the house was the root cellar. You could climb down the steps and go into it. The dirt overhead was falling in and it was unbelieveable that we were allowed to go into it. We saw the outhouse and other outbuildings, including the barn where there are still chickens, goats, and geese. (and, of course, more praire dogs) I said this before, but I will say it again: We had so much fun.

When we got into Murdo, we checked into our hotel. We went to a local restaurant - a sign at the entrance said "Seat yourself. Choose any empty table or booth and please be patient." We think sometimes they must get tour buses in. The food was okay, but the highlight was dessert. We each had our own tonight - Lorie and I had brownie sundaes and Elizabeth had strawberry shortcake.

After dinner, we drove around looking for an ATM machine. Neither of the two banks in town had an outside ATM machine. We figured that the gas station truck stop on the edge of town would have one and decided to check when we purchased gas the next morning.

The last thing we did before returning the hotel room was go to the car wash and wash the car. It was filthy and we wanted to get some of the dirt off. Lorie and I used the power sprayer and soaper and Elizabeth laughed and took pictures. She says it was a great comedy show. I was happy the car was clean.

I was hoping to post about this day when we returned to the hotel, but, while we did have high speed internet, it wasn't really working, and I was too tired to play with it. So, dear readers, you are getting this post a couple of days late.

Relaxation, Rest, and Rushmore

Today was a quiet day - little driving and lots of talking.

Across the street from our hotel is the Flintstones' Bedrock Campground. The buildings look like they are from the cartoon and there is a little park full of Flintstone things to play on. We went to the Bedrock City gift shop and looked around and then to the Snack Shop for.....you guessed it...Diet Coke. While at the Snack Shop, we talked with the people running it. They are RVers and have been for the past 12 years. They travel around to different RV parks and work at some of them. They are working the snack shop this year for the season (May-second week in September). Then, they will be off again. They wintered last year in Texas, but don't know where they are going to be this year. It was very interesting to talk with them.

We then went and walked through downtown Custer. We went in several little shops and talked to many interesting people. There is a great used bookstore in Custer called Second Hand Roost. We all agreed we could have stayed there for a long time.

We went to a a Rustic Pine Store. The woman running the store told us that her husband makes everything they are selling. We talked about the beauty of the pieces and how they create them.

We ate lunch at the Purple Pie Place. We each had the Purple Pie Special: sandwich, side, and piece of pie. We decided that is what Dad would have ordered if he were here with us. We talked with the owner. His home is in San Clemente, CA. He brought this place last year and they are living up here during the season, running the pie shop, and then in San Clemente during the winter. He said they brought the place with the furniture, recipes, and all and this winter he is going to create an online site and sell the recipes there.

After lunch, we decided we were tired. (Probably from all that talking.) Also, Elizabeth is fighting a cold. We went back to the hotel and all took naps. It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

About three o'clock we drove up to Mt. Rushmore. We enjoyed walking through the museum and around the grounds, but our favorite thing was the evening lighting ceremony. It is unbelievable to see those faces on the mountain. Even though she has seen it before, Lorie is still in awe that those faces could be carved out of stone. It is awe inspiring and it does make you think about our country.

To complete our day of talking to people, we talked to a woman in the bookstore who is there for the summer. She and her husband spent their first six years after retirement traveling around the United States, looking for the perfect place to live. They found the perfect place in Colorado, but could not afford it, so they ended up in Prescott, Arizona. However, it is too hot in the summertime, so they go other places in the summer. This year, they are at Mount Rushmore working for the season.

The last people we met this evening were an older couple from England. They are here for a square dance convention in Kentucky. I didn't even know that people in England square danced. They said they love it and have been involved since 2002. They are now on an extended tour of the United States and will end up in Las Vegas before going home.

We ended our day, sitting out behind the hotel by the waterfall watching the fire pit. It was beautiful and calm. It is amazing to see the stars in the sky. We could see the Big Dipper just like it was a picture.

Now, it is Thursday and we are getting ready to leave the hotel. Elizabeth said, "It is hard to find a hotel you like so much and then have to leave it."