2007-RETURN TO FLORIDA

Our Blog was officially wrapped up September 28, 2007. Our year on the road ended without much fanfare in St. Petersburg, Florida (our beginning). We accomplished most of our goals. We visited many parts of the country neither of us had ever been to, we got to do and see some amazing things, we came in on budget, we didn't go crazy living in 400 sq ft.
We hope that all of our faithful readers will join us on a new journey once it is started in April 2008 as we head up the eastern coast.
We'll continue to chronicle our adventures, exploration and travels. Right now we are taking a break and visiting family, friends, and acquaintances along the way. We stayed at our son's home in Summerland Key, Florida for the month of December. We took a bike ride into Key West and of course had to get a shot of us at the Southern Most Point in the Continental USA.

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Rushmore Shadows RV Park - Rapid City, SD

Sunday, July 29 - Our journey has us departing Lionshead RV Resort in West Yellowstone, Montana. We drove back across the Rocky Mountain range north on SR 191 . The scenic drive is awesome and a different perspective as the sun was reflecting on the rock formations and illuminating their colors. We are headed to Billings, Montana for service on the RV. After 2.5 hour wait, they couldn't find the filter for our RV and charged us for service anyway.
Arrived around noon at Yellowstone River RV Park & Campground, Billings, Montana. Nice park, but full to the brim due to Sturgis annual event starting August 3. We saw two couples in the valley camping in tents and they had Goldwings and a tow. Every biker we met recently was heading for Sturgis. The temperature gage showed 106 in the shade, so our evening walk around the park at 8pm was still warm and the breeze was actually hot. We saw deer around the outside fence of the park. Just a one-night stay. Moved on to Gillette to spend the night in a non-descript park off the interstate.
Tuesday, July 31 - We left High Plains RV Park in Gillette, Wyoming around 8:30 am. Wyoming is a great plateau broken up by several mountain ranges. The basic elevation of this plateau is 5,000 feet above sea level. We only have 150 miles to get to our next destination, Rushmore Shadows Resort in Rapid City, SD. Located in the heart of the beautiful Black Hills at 4,300 ft. elevation. The drive was all I-90 and, at times, very boring landscape until we reached Sundance. The resort of Sundance is not to be confused with the town of Sundance, Wyoming, the location from where the Sundance Kid received his name.
Along our drive, we saw many trains with over 50 cars filled with coal. They are Wyoming Coal Trains filled with thick, easily strippable seams of low-sulfur coal. The coal has made Wyoming the nation’s #1 coal producer. Burning Wyoming coal is plainly the cheapest option, and meets air quality emission standards for many electric utilities. The railroads’ substantial investment in coal transportation demonstrates their belief in the long-term viability of Wyoming’s coal industry. Ray spoke to a rancher at our last stop who has 350 head of cattle. The state of Wyoming requires a rancher to have 22 acres for every one cow on his ranch. It takes 14 cowboys to run these cows. They no longer use helicopters or ATV’s. The rancher’s neighbor has 22,p000 head of cattle and bunkhouses scattered over his acreage housing the cowboys that keep watch on the herds. The terrain changed to red rock pillars scattered about the rolling hills. All the grass fields have been cut and bundled for winter food. Each bale is about 750 pounds.
Rapid City is nestled on the eastern foothills of the Black Hills and shines as the hub of this legendary region’s vacation activities. Built in the 1880's to intercept and re-supply miners on their way to the gold fields. Today, this community of 60,000 is the cultural and commercial headquarters for a trade area that includes four states and 120,000 sq. miles. It is the nucleus for the Black Hills visitor industry. ”The name “Black Hills” comes from the Lakota words Paha Sapa, which means “hills that are black.” Seen from a distance, these pine-covered hills, rising several thousand feet above surrounding prairie, appear black.

Wednesday, August 01 - We met with an agent to explain the Midwest Outdoor Resort (Coast to Coast & Resorts of Distinction). We were very interested until we reached the bottom line. We can’t see getting involved with another major membership like Thousand Trails, although their locations in the east coast interested us. There are certain positives, but to lay out $4000+/- after all the discounts they were willing to give us, it is still entirely too much and we can't justify the expense.

There are bikers everywhere due to the Sturgis Rally next week and our drive today saw so many more at every twist and turn of the road. After lunch, we drove to Mount Rushmore National Memorial at 5,251 elevation.

The monument on Harney Peak is 7,242 feet, the highest point between the Rockies and the Swiss Alps. Mt. Rushmore is often referred to as America’s Shrine of Demorcracy. Over 25 million visitors in 2006. Mount Rushmore – Sculpture took 14 years starting in 1927 and ending 1941. The actual time spent working was a total of 6 ½ years. Gutzon Borglum preferred carving the presidents so that the sculpture would be of national significance. The four presidents represent 150 years of American History. Federal funds and the death of Gutzon stopped the carving and remains as it is today. Total cost was a million dollars. The full sculpture is 185 ft. across and 150 ft. tall. The four presidents represented are: Washington; Jefferson; Lincoln; and Theodore Roosevelt. Ninety percent of the mountain carving was done using dynamite. It took a crew of approximately 400 workers led by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and carved the faces.
I walked up to the primary viewpoint at Mount Rushmore to get some pictures. Thousands of people but yet it was very subdued, even the bikers were in awe of this great masterpiece. Ray stayed below with Mitzy as they are very strict about dogs walking near the monument. The Grandview Terrace provides an unobstructed view.
The Black Hills are incredible and we thought we had seen it all. Summer daytime temperatures average around 80 degrees or higher but it was nice at the monument with a breeze blowing. The Needles Highway (SD 87) includes picturesque lakes, towering granite formations and picture-perfect tunnels. Plus there’s tight hairpin curves, spiral “pig-tail” bridges, mile-high overlooks and the wildlife ranges of Norbeck Wildife preserve. . .

We almost collided with a biker that decided to take a piece of our road on a curve and Ray had to go off the road and there are no guard rails and the road is very narrow. It was after

3 pm when we left Mount Rushmore and we decided it was too late in the day to take the loop called Wildlife Loop Road in Custer State Park. The park is just south of Mount Rushmore and 71,000 acres. has over 1,000 head of Bison and we were fortunate to see one scratching his hide on a tree. Other than that sighting, wildlife was not seen.

History of South Dakota: First inhabitants lived more than 9,000 years ago. Most of these nomadic tribes migrated with the massive herds of bison that roamed the grasslands of the Great Plains. Of course, Sitting Bull was medicine man and leader of the Sioux through turbulent times when the white man started encroaching on their land. Hunting bison, or tatanka, and processing the meat, hide, and bones were tasks for the entire tribe. Trappers and mountain men had been trading with native tribes for decades when Thomas Jefferson became the nation’s third president. His policy of westward expansion led to the 1803 purchase of the 828,000-square-mile Louisiana Territory from Napoleon of France for three cents an acre. The land deal included most of what would become South Dakota. Lewis and Clark journals frequently refer to the wide-open spaces and black herds of bison they viewed from vantage points along the Missouri River. There is so much history in what occurred over the years, mainly the homesteaders and sodbusters, the land treaties, and Gold Rush untimately led to the Battles and Losses of June 25, 1876 in the valleyof the Little Bighorn River, when Sitting Bull and his 4,000 warriors were encamped when Custer and his troops mounted their infamous attack. Hopelessly outnumbered, Custer and his entire force of more than 200 soldiers were killed. The Massacre at Wounded Knee has a solitary stone memorial marking the site of the tragic story.
Thursday, August 02 - Got a late start, but drove to Sturgis to see what all the commotion was about. Highway 14A was a great road and very scenic. Sturgis is home to the premier motorcycling event known around the world as the Sturgis Mororcycle Rally celebrating its 67th year. The crowd number estimated for 2006 is 456,498. It is the largest tourism event in South Dakota. Each August the population of 7,000 welcomes half-a -million motorcycle enthusiasts. Over 800 temporary businesses set up vending—everything from tattoos and body piercing and exquisite jewelry and, of course, leather everywhere! Don’t know what we expected, but it was the same as Leesburg, or Daytona to us. Bikes everywhere and no one was acting crazy, as it was only noon. The bikes came in all sizes, shapes, models, and colors, just as the people that were riding them. Vendors were everywhere but didn’t see where we could park and grab a bite to eat, so we drove over to Deadwood, population 1,380. We found one Pizza Hut in town and no other fast food possibilities unless you gamble. We did not have the time to see this historic Wild West town as we should. Colorful personalities and now famous names like Hickok, Bullock, Canary, Seeargengen, and Adams created their own legends and fortunes down the Deadwood Gulch. In 1989, legalized gaming was introduced to Deadwood creating a new “gold rush”. The casinos are everywhere. Can you believe from the beginning of legalized gaming in 1989 through 2006, nearly $9.5 BILLION was wagered at the tables and slots in Deadwood. As staggering as that number is, over $8.5 Billion of that was paid back to bettors (90.8%) over the same period of time.
On our return, we saw a herd of Elk grazing or just sitting it out enjoying the weather. They are a beautiful animal and looked very unconcerned with the traffic noise or seeing us gawking and taking their picture.
We received two free tickets from the Park for listening to their presentation. Fort Hays “Dances With Wolves” film set and Chuckwagon Supper & Show. We thought it would be lame, but the six-member band was very enjoyable.
Friday, August 3 - Rain started during the night and it is overcast and appears to be an all-day grey-sky kind of day, so we decided not to see the Crazy Horse Memorial. Too much to do so we move on Saturday towards the Badlands.
Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski moved to what is now known as Crazy Horse Memorial on May 3, 1947. Tremendous changes both visible and cultural have occurred because of the man and his mountain carving in the sixty years that have now passed. Korczak and Lakota chief Henry Standing Bear picked the mountain 60 years ago to honor the great heroes of the Lakota people. Although Korczak died in 1982, his work has never stopped due to the steadfast commitment of his family and the Memorial’s multitude of friends and benefactors. It is the world’s largest mountain carving. When completed, the three-dimensional carving depicting Lakota leader Crazy Horse astride his horse, will measure 641 ft. long and 563 ft. high. The horse’s head is 220-feet long. Ruth Ziolkoowski leads the work on her late husband’s project.

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Wall South Dakota & the Badlands - Trip back to Florida

As we leave the Black Hills, Ray and I reflect on how beautiful this area is and how much more we would like to have seen. We will be back for sure if we ever get in this direction in our travels. But not during the two weeks before and after Sturgis Annual Rally. We would certainly explore the small towns that abound around Rapid City, especially Belle Fourche, located at a “beautiful fork” in the river that gave the town its name. Significance is that the US Coast and Geodetic Survey officially designated a point 20 miles north of Belle Fourche as the Geographic Center of the Nation. On my list of must-see places next time will be the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, home to America’s largest wild horse herd! Located at Hot Springs, SD.
Saturday, August 04 - We drove 55 miles from Rapid City, to Wall, South Dakota on I-90, a colorful western town. We arrived at Sleepy Hollow Campground. The park is reasonable and we have 50amp service. There are not many people in the park, surprisingly.
The Badlands area is a wonderland of water chiseled spires, ragged ridges, rugged canyons and prairie. The lower prairie lying along the flood plain of the White River is a sod-covered expanse dotted with scattered buttes. The upper prairie varies from great grassy flats to gentle grassy undulations. And there is "The Wall" standing between the two, serving as a barrier to north and south going traffic. "The Wall" is a rugged strip a half mile to three miles wide and nine miles long with a succession of tinted spires, ridges and twisted gullies.

From "The Wall," the name of the town of Wall, South Dakota is derived. Wall was established as a railroad station on the C&NW Railroad in the summer of 1907.

The Wall Drug Store is known as the "free ice water store." Glasses and thermos jugs are filled by the thousands every day at the "free ice water store" for the visitors in town!

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The Badlands: Rt. 240 takes drivers amidst the National Park’s most dramatic rock formations. Badlands was originally proclaimed a National Monument in 1939 and later became a National Park in 1978. The reasons for the park’s special significance include: spectacular vistas and scenery that inspired the first description of the "badlands" landform; it contains rich fossil remains of early mammals; it was the birthplace of the science of vertebrate paleontology (the study of fossils); it contains the finest remnant of mixed grass prairie in the U.S.; and it contains places of spiritual and historical significance to the Lakota Sioux nation. Pictures do not do this incredible land justice.

This is a fossil dig and when we walked the wood path, the heat was unbearable.

Tuesday, August 7 - Left at 7:30 am to travel from Wall, SD on I-90 to Adrian, Minnesota, Adrian Campground. The land is far from flat as there are rock formations off in the distance that look like remnants of the Badlands. The wheat fields run for miles. Most of the fields have already been harvested and the bales of hay were everywhere. We drove 330 miles to Adrian, and set up for a one-night stay. The park is large with grassy sites. But, the flies were bad.

Wednesday, August 08-09 - At 7:30 am we started to drive another long day across south Minnesota on I-90. We encountered a group of firefighters preparing to walk over the mountain to another huge forest fire. Traffic was held up for awhile as they unloaded their men and equipment to their staging area. We are still at 1,600 ft. elevation. Took lots of pictures of the changing landscape. We crossed the border into Wisconsin and we started seeing green hills, trees, and farms.

We arrived around 2:30 and set up our home on a beautiful site looking out over the Petenwell Lake. Petenwell County Park, WI has very nice RV sites on the lake. We are in a county park and a lot of small trailers, campers, etc. are set up for the summer retreat for families. The lake is beautiful and the bugs are out in full force, but the heat is not bad at 88 degrees. We found out our site is reserved for the weekend, so we have to leave on Friday instead of Monday. We drove into the small towns of Adams/Friendship for groceries, had lunch at a local restaurant. Took pictures of sunset on the lake.

Friday, August 10 - We left early (7:45) to drive from Petenwell Lake County Park, Wisconsin to arrive at Sugar Creek RV Campground in Crawfordsville, Indiana. There are corn fields everywhere. We are now encountering a lot of big cities and a lot of traffic since we are parallel with Chicago, 109 miles to our east. At noon, we are in Illinois on I-39 south. Cornfields look taller and healthier, so we believe they must have had more rain here. At 2:30 pm we crossed the Indiana border heading east. Stopped at a very small campground in Crawfordsville, but we have 50 amp service. Site size is good. Hot weather and flies hanging around. We stayed inside until late in evening.

Saturday, August 11 - We drove 125 miles from Crawfordsville, Indiana to Thousand Trails Indian Lakes campground near Batesville, Indiana. A very large park with nice sites. We are on a cul-de-sac and a lot of trees behind us to give us shade in the afternoon. Paved streets with grass and gravel sites. As we drove the surrounding areas, we saw so many fields of corn and soy beans. We kept buying the sweet corn along the way since it tastes incredible. Also saw a lot of old barns. Sunday, we went into the town of Greendale where a new theater was showing the Bourne Ultimatum. Was a great movie. We kept watching the weather channel and saw that we are getting out of the Wisconsin/Minnesota area before the huge front of rain hits. We extended our stay here until Thursday since the park is so pleasant and it is only hotter as we move southeast.

Thursday, August 16 - Left Indian Lakes in Batesville to drive over 300 miles to our one-night stay at Soaring Eagle RV Park in Lenoir, Tennessee. Park is reasonable at $24 a night, but asphalt parking lot and no ambiance whatsoever. Across Hwy. 275 South, we crossed the Ohio River. There was a lot of road construction along the way. And then we crossed the Kentucky state line. Kentucky is full of hills and wide roads mostly in good condition, and green trees everywhere. At 11:30pm, we crossed the Tennessee line.

Friday, August 17 - Left Soaring Eagle RV Park in Lenoir, Tennessee on Rt. 40 to I-75 on our way to Atlanta, Georgia and a small RV park in Cordele. Arrived around 2pm. The park (PA approved) is in very poor condition, without any defined sites. Had to look for our own site up on a hill with red paint on the electric connection box. The heat was unbearable, so 50 amp service was a must. Overgrown grass and stagnate pond. Mostly permanent residents in small trailers. Not a pretty sight. We had a major storm that night with lightning and thunder, and winds rocked the coach. The good news was that we were on high ground.

Saturday, August 18 - We left Cordele RV Park, Georgia at 8am. We crossed the Florida line mid-morning and the sky was a white smog and I could barely make our some white clouds in the sky above. The sun was trying to peek through.

We encountered our FIRST problem on the road that required us to remove our TOW.

Ray wanted to get diesel gas and realized at the last minute that the station was impossible to navigate the RV with the tow. We had to turn into a Best Western in Gainesville to turn around through their driveway. There was a concrete post that made it impossible to maneuver and Ray had to disassemble the tow so I could drive the truck out to a side street to reattach the tow.

We arrived at Grand Lake RV & Golf Resort, Orange Lake, FL. What a breath of fresh air to finally locate a park that is not only free of dirt and dust (paved sites), but there is a lot of room between neighbors. The golf course is on premises and very busy, even though it is HOT at 98 degrees. The park is not full this time of year so we got a great rate. They say in the season this park is hopping with all kinds of things for visitors to do. We are on a concrete site which is rare, but the grass sites are not that bad. Satellite, cell and Internet is all working.

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Lionshead RV Resort in West Yellowstone, MT

Sunday, July 22 - We left Fairmont RV Park, Anaconda, Montana around 8:00 am after first filling up with diesel at the Flying J. Took I-90 and crossed a huge mountain range, the famous Rocky Mountains. We climbed up to 7,500 ft. elevation. The diversity of the scenery was amazing. Where we passed through valleys there were huge horse ranches spread out and mobile homes or shanties were the norm; a few nice ranch-style homes sprinkled here and there. We see a haze in the distance and can’t figure out what it is. Ray turned onto SR 191 south (a scenic drive). We saw cliffs that looked like granite and have large veins of coral color running through them. Every bend we take is another beautiful scene. We arrived at Lionshead RV Resort in West Yellowstone, MT around noon. We like the park with mountains all around us and lots of room at our site. There is a mountain stream at the back of the park where we take Mitzy to run around.

We saw several families of these critters running around the park and looks like they love to set up camp under the permanent RVs. Really cute.

Tuesday, July 24 - We used Buffalo Tours to see the lower (south) loop of Yellowstone National Park. They somehow canceled our reservation and when we called they picked us up within twenty minutes. The driver, Jay, was good at bringing up the finer details of the park and we sighted many wildlife, either up close and personal, or very far away (the grizzly bear). The stops were sometimes too long, but with twenty people to satisfy, it was necessary. We were gone from the park for eleven hours and Mitzy had to stay home. She did great, but we were so concerned since we have never left her alone over five hours.
Yellowstone National Park is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. Over 10,000 geysers. One-third of the park was burned in 1988. Borders Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Bald Eagle sighted on the trip. Very far away.

Nineteen years after being scorched by fires, Yellowstone National Park continues to experience lush, new growth. The fires covered about one-third of the park and extended eastward onto thousands of acres in Cody County. Remnants can still be seen of the fires, but what is evident now is the new growth of trees and other plants. 1988 was the driest summer in the park’s written record of weather statistics covering 112 years. Some plants rely on the fires to continue the reproduction, such as the Lodge-pole pine; requires high heat to open its cones and release seeds.
On our tour of the south loop, we were able to see and learn a lot. The first
Mud Volcano area filled with turbulent and explosive mudpots, including Mud Volcano and Dragon’s Mouth.
Norris Geyser Basin has the hottest, most dynamic geyser basin in the park, which includes Steamboat, the world’s tallest geyser, and Echinus, the world’s largest acidic geyser.

We came upon a traffic jam and took his picture from the bus, a massive Bison (aka Buffalo, or Tatonka).

Of course Old Faithful is the world’s largest concentration of geysers. We did not walk the many trails that pass hundreds of geysers and hot springs. We had our lunch in the main dining room at the Old Faithful Inn which is undergoing a major three-year renovation. It has the same look of 100 years ago. The Inn sits in one of the country’s most active seismic zones.
Old Faithful’s eruption length and height, and the time between eruptions varies daily and yearly. An eruption lasts 1.5 to 5 minutes; the average interval between eruptions is 92 minutes. The height ranges from 106 feet to more than 180 feet, averaging 130 feet. 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of water are expelled per eruption, depending on t he length of eruption. Just prior to eruption, water temperature at the vent is 204°F. It’s one of more than 300 geysers in Yellowstone. Geysers are hot springs with narrow spaces in their plumbing, usually near the surface. Old Faithful Village and Dining Room --

Three hotels serve the Old Faithful area: The Old Faithful Inn, a historic landmark hotel completed in 1904, the Old Faithful Lodge Cabins and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, the park's newest hotel, built in 1998 and Snow Lodge Cabins.
West Thumb Geyser Basin has boiling springs including the famous Fishing Cone, discharge their waters into chilly Yellowstone Lake.
Canyon area you view the colorful Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and the Upper and Lower Falls from overlooks.
Yellowstone Lake - Lake Yellowstone Hotel is one of the park's classic hotels, built in 1891 and restored to its 1920s splendor. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Lake views from the lobby Sun Room are excellent.

Wednesday, July 25 - Day Two: We saw Elk again, bald eagles, and bison. Also, Gibbon Falls with its 84 ft. drop at 7,700 elevation.
Tower Falls
We were amazed by the Yellowstone River and the white rock made by sulphur.
Mammoth Hot Springs was too much for us to walk, but took picture from the scenic drive above and through the Upper Terraces.

Yellowstone River plunges 308 ft. over the Lower Falls. Hot Springs have weakened the rocks downstream and you can see several geysers spouting into the river. The park's riverbeds drop abruptly in more than 100 locations. Upper Falls formed at a junction of lava flow and glacial lake sediments - one dense and hard, the other brittle and easily eroded. The Continental Divide runs through Wyoming from the northwestern corner to south central border. Some rivers in Wyoming drain into the Pacific Ocean, while others flow into the Atlantic Ocean. Wyoming also has the Great Divide Basin, in the Red Desert, from which no streams flow to either ocean. Wyoming has a cool climate which varies due to the diverse topography. It snows and rains in Wyoming, producing annual precipitation ranging from 5 inches to 45 inches. The hot temperatures we are experiencing are highly unusual for this time of year. Wyoming is second only to Colorado in mean elevation, and offers many scenic attractions, notably Yellowstone National Park and Devil's Tower.

Picture at the Upper Falls of a Bald Eagle with her fledgling eaglet.

Wyoming's diverse terrain, produces diverse minerals, crops, and stock. Wyoming is able to mine oil, natural gas, gold, trona, soda ash, uranium, and coal. Primary crops in Wyoming are wheat, oats, sugar beets, corn, potatoes, barley and alfalfa. Wyoming is ranked second in the United States in wool production. Exceeded only by California and Texas in sheep numbers. We didn't see too many sheep from the roads we traveled.b:if cond='data:blog.pageType !="item"> >