August 19-21 - Day 45-46 - Journey's End

Well - probably most of you know that we are home! Today is Monday, August 23. We arrived home at 1:20 a.m. on the 21st. Took a couple of days to decompress, and here is our final post.

We left Iron Mountain, Michigan at about 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 19. We went to the parts store and picked up the air bag and headed east. When we found a level, paved rest area, we parked and changed the bag, which took about 1.5 hours. After completing the repair, we continued.

Since we got a late start, we didn't make too many miles on Thursday. We wanted to avoid the traffic of the U.S route, which would have taken us through Chicago, Cleveland, etc., so we chose to return to New Hampshire through Ontario. We crossed the Canadian border at Sault Ste. Marie at about 7:30 p.m. and found a campground a couple of hours later near Sudbury. Not a very restful night -- heavy truck traffic on one side of the campground, and freight trains on the other!

We left pretty early on Friday morning, not sure how far we would get. We thought we might have a chance to make it home, but we knew it would be a very long day. The day was nice - quite sunny and warm. Traffic wasn't too bad. We avoided going through Ottawa by taking an alternate route to the NY border. We crossed into the US at Orgdensburg, New York - our final border crossing - at about 5:30 p.m. We paused to eat at Rouse's Point, NY, and crossed into Vermont at Alburg just above Lake Champlain. By that time, we figured we might as well keep going, since we were only a few hours from home.

We went south to Barre, then crossed into NH at Woodsville, and came home through Warren and Plymouth. We drove into our driveway at 1:20 a.m. on Sat. morning.

The odometer on the camper read 43,140 when we left on July 6. When we got home, it read 57,141 -- 14,001 miles!

We were both very tired and happy to be home. It seems good to sleep in our own beds, and to cook on a real stove in a real kitchen. It will take a long time to process all that we saw and experienced on this "trip of a lifetime." We met lots of interesting people, saw some incredible sights, and had a truly wonderful time.

My personal favorite experience was visiting Chicken Alaska. Donny loved being able to see the legendary Snow Trains in Fairbanks.

Don and Cheryl

August 18 - Day 44 - Iron Mt., Michigan

Hello Everyone,

Yesterday Donny called the manufacturer of the airbag we need for our camper and ordered one to be shipped to a parts store in Iron Mountain, MI, since we knew we would be passing through there today. We arrived at the store this afternoon, only to find that the part had been placed on the wrong truck, and had mistakenly been delivered to Ohio!

Since we had to stay here for an extra day, we visited the Cornish Pump and Mining Museum, home of the largest pumping engine in the United States.

Here is some information from the website:

Edwin Reynolds, chief engineer for the E.P. Allis Company (now the Allis-Chalmers Co.) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, designed the steeple compound condensing steam engine in 1890.

The engine's high pressure has a 50 inch bore, and the low pressure cylinder is 100 inches in diameter. The flywheel alone is 40 feet in diameter, weighs 160 tons, and had an average speed of only ten revolutions per minute. The engine itself rises 54 feet above the floor of the room. The designers estimate the weight to be 725 tons over all. The engine's boiler required 11,000 tons of coal annually to operate. 


The pumping equipment utilized a reciprocating motion to a line of steel rods extending 1,500 feet down into the mine, with eight pumps attached at intervals of 170 to 192 feet along the rods. Each of the pumps forced the water to the next higher pump and finally out to the surface of the mine. Over 3,000 gallons of water poured out through a 28 inch the pipe every minute. A total of 5,000,000 gallons of water could be removed from the mine each day. 


The engine began operation on January 4th, 1893. The Cornish Pumping Engine and equipment were highly efficient until, in 1914, the Oliver Mining Company put into operation the largest electrically driven centrifugal pumps in mine service at that time in America. Unable to adapt to the new electric motors, the magnificent Cornish Pumping Engine, world famous as one of the mechanical wonders of the steam age, stood idle and was kept only for emergency use.

I also had some extra time to put together two more pages of wildflowers and one of butterflies.

We hope out part will be in tomorrow, so Donny can install it and we will be on our way.

Donny and Cheryl

August 17 - Day 43 - Wisconsin to Michigan

Hello

Today we spent the day driving across Wisconsin. It was a pretty day, lots of sun and blue sky. When we left the campground in Turtle Lake, we first encountered lots of corn fields and dairy farms. As the day progressed, the terrain changed to forests of oak, maple, ash and beech, as well as large softwoods. Good to see real trees again!

We stopped at the Logging Museum in Wabeno, but it had just closed. We considered staying there overnight, but since Donny had seen the museum last time he was here, we decided to continue.

He called the airbag manufacturer today and arranged for a kit to be shipped to a parts store in Iron Mountain, MI tomorrow, so we drove through to the border, arriving at about 7:00.

The day wasn't too eventful. We did see a young whitetail fawn at a rest area -- it watched us curiously as we slowly drove by.

Donny and Cheryl

August 16 - Day 42 - Minnesota

Greetings

Today is the last day of our sixth week, and we spent most of it driving across Minnesota from Sioux Falls to Taylor's Falls.

Most of the state that we saw looked surprisingly the same! Corn, corn, corn - oceans of corn from horizon to horizon. What wasn't corn was soybeans. The day was beautiful - blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Picturesque farms, complete with silos and red barns, dotted the landscape, and dairy cows grazed peacefully in the rich, gently rolling pastures.

In Holland, we counted hundreds of wind generators slowly turning all around the horizon.

We stopped in several small towns that featured grain elevators, old-time buildings on Main Streets, and tidy houses in neighborhoods shaded with oak, ask and beech trees.

At Clearwater, we crossed the Mississippi River. Also we are now in the Central time zone -- forgot to mention that yesterday.

Beautiful state!

Just before sunset, we crossed into Wisconsin and stopped for the night at a small campground in Turtle Lake. The front brakes have been squealing a bit, and Donny plans to change the brake shoes in the morning. Still limping along with one air bag, since we haven't found a place to buy another one yet.

Later!

Donny & Cheryl

August 15 - Day 41 - 1 of 5 - Black Hills & Mt. Rushmore

The map at the top of this post represents our travels from August 11 through August 16.

We did so much on today, August 15, that it will take five posts to cover it all.

Our travels today took us through a range of terrains - everything from the dark pine forests and the rocky cliffs of the Black Hills, through verdant prairie grasslands and sandstone canyons; dry short-grass cattle ranches and rangeland and on to arid desert and watelands; and finally to fertile cropland dotted with prairie potholes and and dairy farms.

We began in South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest where we visited Mt. Rushmore. We didn't take the tour, since the place was mobbed. We just took some photos and headed back down the mountain. Mt. Rushmore is truly awe inspiring - what an accomplishment. Right near the parking area, we came across a nanny mountain goat and her kid! (They are shown in Post 5).

The National Park Serivce website says about Mt. Rushmore.

Carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota are the faces of four former presidents of the United States--George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. These men were chosen to represent the first 150 years of American history and America’s cultural heritage.

The idea came from Doane Robinson to promote tourism in South Dakota and his idea was wildly successful--the park attracts almost 3 million park visitors every year. Gutzon Borglum designed the sculpture. Though he passed away before its completion, over 400 workers helped bring his vision to life.

On the way to see Mt. Rushmore, we passed the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is a mountain monument under construction in the form of Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance.

Then we went to Rapid City and stopped at Bear Country USA, a drive-through wildlife park. (Post 2 of 5). After that, we visited part of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and drove through the Badlands Loop, a 20+ section of Badlands National Park. (Post 3 of 5)

We then drove the entire width of South Dakota, ending our day at a campground just across the Minnesota border. (Post 4 of 5)

Post No. 5 is a few recent wildlife photos.

More in Parts 2-5

August 15 - Day 41 - 3 of 5 - Badlands National Park

Donny had visited South Dakota's Badlands about 30 years ago, but I had never been there. Once again, I was blown away by the beauty of this place!

Before reaching the Badlands, we passed through part of Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. Tall prairie grasses and wildflowers covered the plains in all directions, billowing in the wind. We saw several small bands of grazing pronghorns.

Suddenly, the terrain changed, with the land dropping off sharply into peaks and valleys of delicate banded colors that seemed to shift in the sunshine. Vistas opened up with buttes, mesas and wide prairies vanishing into the hazy distance. Around every corner of the sharply twisting road jagged sawtoothed mountains soared into the azure sky. It seemed to be part of another world - inhospitable, lonely and austere. It is difficult to imagine that humans have inhabited the Badlands for 11,000 years!

No photos can do it justice, but, of course, I had to try. I took about 350 pictures, kept shooting until my hands were cramping from holding the camera. It was very difficult to choose just a few to post.

As I marveled at the gorgeous scenery, Donny quipped, "This is just a bunch of gullies. If I had enough equipment and fuel, I could level this place out in about a month."

August 15 - Day 41 - 2 of 5 - Bear Country

Since we never were lucky enough to get any photos of grizzly bears in the wild, we decided to visit Bear Country USA in Rapid City, SD, which offers visitors views of most North American mammals. Visitors take a three-mile drive through several enclosures where the encounter black bear, elk, reindeer, mule deer, cougars, bobcats, rocky mountain goats, bighorn sheep, dall sheep and bison. Here and there throughout the park were wooden towers with armed guards, ready to take action if anything should go wrong.

The collection of black bears was quite amazing! They had every size and color phase imaginable, from the lightest "blond" to the darkest black. (At first I thought the brown and blond bears were grizzlies, but after looking at the photos, I realized they were not. Supposedly the park has grizzlies, but apparently they were not on display.) Many of the bears had unkempt, matted fur -- not sure if that happens in the wild, but I have never seen a wild bear that looked like that.

There must have been at least 100 bears in a very large enclosure. As we drove through, some were lounging in a pool of water, and others were ambling about, crossing the road in front of cars, climbing on logs, etc. Suddenly they all began running in one direction -- they had heard the truck coming with their food. They all gathered around the truck as the attendant shoveled out what appeared to be vegetables and possibly bread. They squabbled among themselves, with some running off with tasty morsels, and other pursuing.

It was interesting to get some close-up photos of huge elk shedding the velvet from their antlers. Other highlights were a very light-colored "white" bison, wild asses, and a bighorn sheep with fantastic horns.

This place made me a little sad, since most of the animals were lethargic, with many sleeping or just lying down looking through the fences. I couldn't even bring myself to take pictures of the cougars -- they had six of them in two small, heavily fenced enclosures. I couldn't get shots of the arctic wolves, reindeer, mule deer and mountain goats, since all were asleep or lying down out of sight.

More in Part 3

August 15 - Day 41 - 4 of 5 - South Dakota I-90

After leaving the Badlands, we traveled east on I-90. At first, the terrain was waterless and nearly desert. The landscape consisted of arid rolling hills and arroyos filled with sagebrush, with an occasional ranch in the distance. At one point, we spotted a herd of wild horses browsing on dry grass.

As we moved eastward, we began to notice more streams and rivers, and there were herds of cattle and horses grazing the rangeland. Gradually the desert gave way to farmland, featuring endless fields full of hay rolls, wheat and sunflowers. Near the Wisconsin border, we began to see more trees, ponds, streams and fertile cropland and dairy farms.

At Oacoma, close to the middle of the state, we crossed the broad Missouri River. We remembered how small it had been when we saw its source in Three Forks, Montana, and were impressed with how large the river had become in that distance.

We saw lots of deer -- both mule and white tailed -- with a couple dozen in S. Dakota, and nearly 60 in the Black Hills National Forest, right after we crossed the state line. Throughout the day we saw small bands of pronghorn antelope. By the time we reached Wisconsin, we had counted over 300!

Interesting note about pronghorns. According to National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals,

This family consists of a single species, which occurs only in Western North America. Despite it's genus name (Antilocapra, meaning "antelope goat"), the Pronghorn is neither goat nor antelope, or even very closely related to either; instead, it is the sole remnant of an ancient family that dates back 20 million years.

More from August 15 in Part 5 - Animals