Part 10 - New Brunswick

(click on map to enlarge)


States & Provinces visited on this segment: New Brunswick


Dates: Saturday July 21 to Sunday, July 22


Miles driven: 390 (5953 total to date)


Summary: We left our campsite Saturday morning and headed south on highway 2. Shortly after lunch we arrived at Kings Landing Historical Settlement, ~30 minutes west of the Fredericton. Kings Landing is an open air living history museum. It is a restoration of a typical village in the Saint John River Valley in the mid 19th century. The settlement includes buildings moved to the site primarily from the local area prior to a dam being completed in the 1960’s that would have flooded the structures, but some were moved form other areas of New Brunswick. The settlement is spread out across ~300 acres, and includes (among other things) working water powered saw and grist mills, a print shop, blacksmith shop, cabinet making shop, numerous houses and farm buildings, an inn, and a couple of churches. Staff dressed in period costumes do demonstrations of various trades as well as perform routine household work using tools/methods from the mid 9th century. It was very interesting and well done – highly recommended if you are in the area. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Kings Landing until the closed. We then found a campground on the outskirts of Fredericton, and went into the capital city and walked around the downtown area next to the river that evening.


On Sunday morning we packed up and continued east, heading to Hopewell Cape on the Bay of Fundy. We had checked the tide tables when we entered New Brunswick and were able to time our arrival to coincide with low tide. The Bay of Fundy has some of the largest tides in the world, 40+ feet difference between low and high tide. At Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site the ocean tides have carved interesting shapes into the rocks along the shore. At low tide you can walk on the beach around the rock formations. At high tide you can rent kayaks and paddle around the rock formations. It would have been great to experience the site at both high and low tides, but we only had time to experience the site at low tide. The kids enjoyed walking and playing in the mud (most of the tidal flat is either rock or mud, not sand). The kids even somehow convinced a random man walking by to shake their hands when they were covered with mud. They were just joking but he went along with it and shook their hands. After leaving Hopewell Cape we drove back north to Moncton, and then SE to Sackville where we camped. We spent 3 nights in Sackville, using it as a base to take day trips without the trailer to Price Edward Island and Nova Scotia.


Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part10NewBrunswick


Other notes: For its population base, New Brunswick had by far the best road infrastructure of anywhere we visited in Canada. Highway 2 from the Québec border in the NW corner all the way down to Nova Scotia in the SE corner was a new or very well maintained 4 lane freeway. Likewise highway 1 down along the southern part of New Brunswick was a 4+ lane freeway all except the last 100 or so km heading into Maine. Even some of the roads heading off in other directions appeared to be nice 4 lane freeways. This was very surprising since most of the areas we drove through in New Brunswick were very sparsely populated and the total population of the province is less than 1M people. The New Brunswick roads were in sharp contract to those in Ontario. 95% of the road that we traveled from Sault St. Marie to Ottawa were 2 lane undivided highway. The Ontario roads were in general well maintained, and there were frequent passing lanes, but there was almost no divided highway despite the fact that we were in much more densely populated areas (Ontario population is 11+M) and that part of the route we took is the major west-east route across Canada. There was also very heavy traffic on the roads in Ontario, and the roads in New Brunswick had very light traffic. For some reason there appears to be a big difference in priority placed on transportation infrastructure in the two provinces. The other provinces we were in were somewhere in between Ontario and New Brunswick.


Next up: Prince Edward Island

Part 9 - Ottawa, Ontario to Edmundston, New Brunswick

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick



Dates: Wednesday, July 18 to Friday, July 20



Miles driven: 563 (5573 total to date)



Summary: Rain, rain, then more rain, followed by heaver rain and strong winds pretty much describe the three days we spent in Québec. It was cloudy when we entered into Québec province in late morning on Wednesday, and before we made it to Québec City it had started to rain. We found a campground just a few km from the city center, and got unhooked in the rain. The campground was on a steep hill and was heavily wooded. With the rain it made the gravel/dirt roads very slippery. I had to go into 4WD mode to be able to back up the hill into our site. It rained all night long, and was still raining when we got up in the morning. We waited for a while in the morning hoping it would stop, but finally gave up and headed toward the city center, stopping to buy some umbrellas. It finally stopped raining about the time we parked in the old part of the city. We had a rain free afternoon and early evening in the city, although it was very windy and cold especially late in the day. We spent a bunch of time walking the city streets and walls of the old city, took a tour of the Citadel, and took a horse pulled carriage ride tour of the city. Shortly after we got back to our camp site it started to rain again, this time harder than previously. The weather forecast was calling for rain for the next 2-3 days, so we decided to head east and try and get out from under the storm even though there were more things we wanted to see in Québec. It rained hard all night long and It absolutely poured the next morning as I got the trailer ready to go, and I was soaked by the time I was done. I changed clothes and we headed down the road. Driving was miserable all day long as it poured down rain and we had 30-40 mile an hour winds that blew the rain horizontally in sheets. It was as bad as or worse than the worst winter rain storm that occurs in Oregon. At the rest areas we didn’t even try and walk over to the restroom buildings, we just ran back and used the toilet in the trailer. Even in the few seconds it took to do that you got really wet. On a day like that it would be nice to have a motor home so you never had to get out of your protective cocoon. The rain finally started to let up late in the day as we approached New Brunswick, and when we arrived at our campsite south of Edmundston the rain had finally stopped. Québec City was beautiful despite the rain and I would definitely recommend visiting there, but hopefully you will have better luck with the weather than we did.



Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part9OttawaToEdmundston



Other notes: Shortly before we left for the trip we bought a portable GPS navigation system. After looking at reviews of different mfg and models on-line I decided to buy a Garmin Nüvi 350. It was the least expensive Garmin model that had audio prompts that said the name of the road – e.g. “Turn right on Main Street” rather than just “Take the next right”. This is definitely helpful if you don’t want to have to look at the unit while driving and want to confirm that you are turning on the correct road rather that just turn when the unit says to turn. So far it has performed almost flawlessly and we couldn’t really ask for anything better. The unit has taken us where we want to go whether that was to Dale and Gladys’s farm in rural Minnesota on County Road 32 or to the Hard Rock Café in Ottawa. The only place we didn’t get to directly that we wanted to was a Wal-Mart in South Dakota. We asked it to take us to the nearest Wal-Mart and it found one in Spearfish, SD. However, when we got there it was an empty building & parking lot. Turns out that Wal-Mart had just closed that store and opened up a new store the next exit down on the I90. Like any map, things can get stale rather quickly. However, every other preloaded place we have tried to go was still where the system said it would be. Our biggest gripe is that it doesn’t know how to pronounce Oregon correctly. It says “or-e-gone” rather than “or-e-gun”. Can’t really fault the system for that as that is how most people outside of Oregon pronounce it.



Next up: Further east in New Brunswick, then Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia

Part 8 - Thessalon, Ontario to Ottawa, Ontario

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Ontario

Dates: Sunday, July 15 to Tuesday, July 17

Miles driven: 510 (5010 total to date)

Summary: When we woke up on the 15th the gloomy damp weather that had been with us since we entered Michigan was gone and we were back to mostly blue skies. I was glad to leave the RV park in Thessalon that we stayed at as the campground had lots of issues. See “other notes” below for the issues with this RV park and some of the common issues we have had with campgrounds we have stayed at. Elizabeth says she wants to build and run a campground when she gets older and I told her that before she starts she needs to have an open forum with a bunch of experienced RVers to get their ideas, and then solicit additional feedback from them on her plans before she starts construction. Many of the parks we have stayed at appear to have been built by people who have never owned an RV or stayed in a campground before.

We left Thessalon on Sunday morning and drove ~2/3 the way to Ottawa, spending Sunday night in Mattawa. The campground was on a small lake, and the owner said that the water in the lake was warm. It was almost 7 PM by the time we got to the campground, but the kids wanted to go swimming so I took them down there while Karen got dinner ready. Apparently they have a different definition of warm in Ontario than we do in Oregon. Water in most lakes in Oregon is cold even in the summer, but at least we normally say it is cold. In Ontario I think they must say the water is warm if the ice on the lake has been melted for more than a couple of weeks. Seriously, it wasn’t quite that cold, but I thought the kids were going to chip a tooth based on the uncontrollable chattering of teeth that accompanied the shivering when they got out of the water. On Monday we resumed our trek east to Ottawa, arriving early in the day. Note that arriving early for us means we got there by 5 PM! Karen did laundry while I worked on getting the blog updated. We spent 2 nights at this campground on the southern outskirts of town.

On Tuesday we drove into Ottawa which is the capital of Canada. We found a central location to park and spent the day walking around town to see the sites that we wanted to see. We started on Parliament Hill, seeing the capital buildings and the grounds. We also saw the changing of the guard that is an elaborate ceremony that takes ~40 minutes. We then headed over to the Hard Rock Café for an early lunch, and then took a tour of the Canadian Mint. The had an interesting scale there that told you how many troy ounces you weighed, followed by how much you would be worth if you were made out of pure gold. After visiting the mint we went across the river into Québec and spent the rest of the day at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. This is an awesome museum. We spent most of the time going through a very interesting and comprehensive exhibit on the history of Canada. The display takes you from east to west through Canada as you go forward in time from the first European settlement of Canada (the Norse) to the present. There are many life-size exhibits which made it very interesting, especially for the kids. We also spent some time in the Children’s Museum. The kids could have spent a couple of days there. It was huge, and Karen said it is by far the best children’s museum that she has been to. There were other exhibits in the museum that looked worthwhile, as well as other things in Ottawa that would be interesting to see but we needed to move on so after a very busy day (and 4 pairs of tired feet) we moved on east the next day.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part8ThessalonToOttawa

Other notes: The campground in Thessalon was a beautiful setting on the shore of Lake Huron. The setting was fine, and the people were nice, but the utilities were all very poor. The water pressure that night varied from a small trickle to nothing, forcing us to use water from our tank. We suposedly had a 30A plug-in, but they must have had too much total load on their power lines, or too small of gauge wire for the length of run that they had to our site. We tried to use the microwave, and it didn’t sound right at all (the fan was and the turn table were going too slowly), and the lights dimmed when you tried to run it. I didn’t have a meter to check it, but the voltage was apparently very low. We didn’t use anything that had a motor or was sensitive to voltage level while we were there. Finally, the sewer connection was basically worthless. Instead of having a sewer line in the ground with a vertical connection, the sever line was 4” PCV pipe running on top of the ground, and almost flat. It didn’t seem like there was nearly enough slope for it to work, but I tried to empty some water from one of the gray water tanks the next morning, and sure enough, most of the water just came out the end of the sever pipe onto the ground. So, we went to the dump station instead of using the sewer connection. While this campground had issues with all the utilities, lots of campgrounds have at least some problems with their infrastructure design. Probably half the places we have stayed with full hook ups have had brain dead sewer connections. Our site in Maryville, MT had the sewer connection located at the highest point in the camp site, at least 12” higher than the ground level by the trailer. We have also had several sites where the riser for the sewer pipe was sticking 8-12” out of the ground. It is kind of hard to get water to flow up hill! Based on our experiences we normally just ask if they have a site with electric and water and plan on using the dump station when we leave rather than get a full hook up site. Unfortunately, most of the sites that are big enough to fit our trailer have full hook ups, so we get the worthless sewer connection rather we want it or not. We also had a couple of other campgrounds beside the one at Thessalon where the voltage on the electric service seemed very low so we minimized our electricity use. Water has been fine everywhere except for Thessalon.

The other problem with many campgrounds is their road/site layout. A large number have the RV parking pad at a right angle to the access road. That coupled with narrow roads and other obstacles makes it difficult to get into many sites even though they advertise themselves as “big rig friendly”. While many of these parks were likely designed when the average RV was shorter, if they had simply made the RV parking pad angle back ~30 degrees from perpendicular it would make backing into the sites MUCH easier regardless of the length of your rig. Adding obstacles like posts and garbage cans right at the front of the site also adds unnecessarily to the challenge. I do have to say that I am getting much better at getting into tight spaces, although I am still far from being an expert.

Next up: Québec City, Québec

Part 7 – Belgrade, Minnesota to Thessalon, Ontario

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario

Dates: Tuesday, July 10 to Saturday, July 14

Miles driven: 975 (4500 total to date)

Summary: We left Dale and Gladys’s on Tuesday and truly had no plan on where we were heading next other than generally east. We discussed different options as we drove east towards Minneapolis, and ultimately we decided to head up to the northern most part of Wisconsin and go to Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on Lake Superior. We didn’t leave the farm until about noon, so we only made it to Menomonie, Wisconsin that night. The next morning I got the oil in the truck changed and we headed north to Ashland, which is on the shore of Lake Superior. We spent Wednesday and Thursday night in Ashland, camped in a nice city campground right on the water. On the way to Ashland on Wednesday we went through several hard thunderstorms, with strong winds, thunder and lightening, and hard downpours. Fortunately when we got to Ashland it had cleared up and we had a nice campfire and roasted marshmallows. On Thursday we drove north to Bayfield, went through the visitor center, and took a 2 hour cruise through the Apostle Islands. We had nice weather for the cruise.

On Friday we resumed our trek east again. We made it ~2/3 the way across the upper peninsula of Michigan (the UP), and spent the night in Munising on the shores of Lake Superior. It started raining right after we arrived and rained most of the night. On Saturday we packed up again and headed east to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. We visited the locks, learned some of the history of the locks between Lakes Superior and Huron, and saw several large ships go through. We then said goodbye to the US for the next couple of weeks and crossed the bridge into Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It was getting late so we only drove another hour or so after we got into Canada. We spent Saturday night at a campground on the shores of Lake Huron just outside the town of Thessalon, Ontario.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part7BelgradeToThessalon

Other notes: We had the first self created problem of note with the trailer on this segment. While leaving the campground at Menomonie I hit a water pipe with the trailer. The site that we were in was a pull trough site and had a large tree on the right hand side as you exited the site and an embankment immediately past the road in front of the site. To insure I cleared the tree on the right I initially went slightly to the left to get around the tree and then turned as sharp as I could to the right since the embankment prevented me from going too far forward. As I turned the corner I heard a small thump, but knew I had cleared the tree fine as I could see down the right side of the trailer. Then in my rear view mirror I saw a small geyser of water behind the trailer. The left rear stabilizer jack on the trailer had hit the water faucet. Bummer. I went down to the campground office so they could get the water turned off and then returned to survey the damages. The pipe sticking out of the ground was 1” galvanized steel, and I had bent it over at a 45 degree angle, plus sheered off the faucet. On the trailer I sheered off one of the two bolts securing the stabilizer jack and bent the brackets that connect the jack to the trailer frame. The campground owner told me I owed them $20.07 for damages (including tax). Not sure how they came up with this value, but I gladly paid it as I was expecting something significantly more. At a minimum they would have to dig up the pipe, replace the riser and the faucet. That assumed that just the riser was bent and that it didn’t cause any damage to the tee or main water pipe underground. I removed the stabilizer jack from the trailer and headed off down the road before they changed their mind. I stopped at the next RV dealership that I could find to see if I could get replacement brackets for the jack. They weren’t terribly helpful but ultimately said they could not find and replacement brackets in their part catalogs, much less havining something in stock. I surveyed the damaged parts again and concluded that I could probably fix it myself, at least good enough for now. I stopped at the local hardware store in Stanley and bought some new bolts and nuts as well as an assortment of washers to use as shims to compensate for the bent brackets. After we arrived at the campground in Ashland I was able to partially straighten the brackets and then get everything put back together with the parts that I bought. The jack is a couple of degrees off square, but works fine. Total cost for this mishap - $21.37 + ~ 2 hours (30-40 minutes dealing with the initial problem, 1 hour looking for brackets & parts, plus 15 minutes to get everything put back together. I am getting more use out of the tools that I brought along than I would like!

Next up: Ottawa (Canada’s capital)

Part 6 – De Smet, South Dakota to Belgrade, Minnesota

States & Provinces visited on this segment: South Dakota, Minnesota

Dates: Sunday, July 8 to Monday, July 9

Miles driven: 225 (3525 total to date)

Summary: We left De Smet on Sunday morning, stopping to visit the cemetery where the Ingalls family is buried before heading out of town. We then headed northeast to Belgrade, Minnesota to visit Dale and Gladys, friends of Karen’s from her time in the Peace Corp in Belize. Dale and Gladys are dairy farmers, and we parked our trailer on the farm while visiting with them. The kids had an awesome time on the farm. They helped feed the cows, bottle feed new calves, gave hand milking a try as well as hooking up the milking machine, and even cleaned up a bit from the cows. They also enjoyed playing in the hay loft, and “getting lost” in the corn field. The weather this year has been warmer than normal and all of the crops are weeks ahead of where they normally would be this time of year. The corn was 7+ feet high, so even an adult could get lost pretty easily. We enjoyed visiting with Dale and Gladys and getting caught up what has been going on in their lives as well as Karen reminiscing with them about their years together in the Peace Corp. Dale and Gladys are retiring at the end of September, so they are counting down the remaining days of milking. It was ~80 days when we were there. They have bought a fifth wheel trailer and plan to spend the winter months down in Arizona so they were interested in our experiences with our trailer since they have not used their trailer since purchasing it earlier this year. Dale and Gladys took us to a small family run zoo that was about 20 miles from where they live. The zoo has a wide variety of animals bad it was interesting to hear about them on the guided tour.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part6DeSmetToBelgrade

Other notes: Special thanks to Dale and Gladys for their hospitality. They made us all feel extremely welcome and were great with the kids explaining everything to them and letting them help out on the farm. I think we each gained a couple of pounds eating Gladys’s great cooking. We even had 30A electrical service for our trailer so we could run the AC! We offered to let the kids stay longer and said we would pick them up in a few weeks on our way back west, but Dale and Gladys weren’t quite that accommodating.

Next up: Somewhere further east.

Part 5 - Custer, South Dakota to De Smet, South Dakota

States & Provinces visited on this segment: South Dakota


Dates: Thursday July 5 to Saturday July 7


Miles driven: 450 (3300 total to date)


Summary: We left Custer on Thursday morning and rejoined I90 at Rapid City. We then headed east, stopping at Wall Drug in Wall, SD for lunch. If you have kids you really can’t miss stopping at Wall Drug. The signs along the road for Wall Drug are what most people who have traveled I90 will remember. There are signs hundreds of miles away imploring you to stop at Wall Drug for a plethora of reasons, including the signature “free ice cold water”. Ultimately it gets the kids asking “Just what is Wall Drug?” Once you arrive there are actually a lot of fun things for the kids to do in the “backyard”, and overall it makes a fun stop even if Wall Drug is over hyped to the max. After leaving Wall we detoured south off of I90 and visited Badlands National Park. We spent most of the afternoon there, stopping the various viewpoints and exploring the visitor center while the kids completed their junior ranger activities. We then rejoined I90 and continued east, spending the night in Chamberlain on the banks of the Missouri River.


Friday was Elizabeth’s birthday – she turned 10. Wow, double digits! It doesn’t seem nearly that long ago that she was born. We bought some cinnamon rolls and candles and sang happy birthday to Elizabeth during breakfast. We packed up and headed down the road to Mitchell to see the Corn Palace. They bill it as the “World’s Only Corn Palace”, and it definitely is a one of a kind place. The building was built to showcase all the crops that are grown locally. The building is a large multi-use facility that in addition to being a tourist attraction is home to local basketball games, trade shows, performances, etc. The third and present corn palace was built in 1921 and has a Moorish architecture. While the architecture itself is out of place in South Dakota, the real distinguishing thing about the building is the murals. The exterior and interior of the building are covered with giant murals made entirely out of different colored corn, grasses, and grains that are grown locally. Over 3000 bushels of grains are used to decorate the building in addition to countless ears of corn. Best of all, the admission price is just right – free.


From Mitchell we left the interstate and headed NE to De Smet. This small town in South Dakota was the setting for many of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books, and is where “Ma” and “Pa” Ingalls, plus all the kids other than Laura are buried. Laura wrote “By the Shores of Silver Lake”, “The Long Winter”, “Little Town on the Prairie”, and “These Happy Golden Years” based on her experiences in De Smet. Every year the local community puts on a dramatic adaptation of one of Laura’s books in an outdoor amphitheater that overlooks the original Ingalls homestead. They do the performance on three weekends in July and we were fortunate to make it to town just in time to attend the opening night performance for 2007. This year they did an adaptation of “These Happy Golden Years”. We all enjoyed the performance. On Saturday we visited a number of the historic buildings and sites in town. Several of the original buildings are owned by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society and are open to the public – the surveyor’s house that they first lived in, the house that Pa built in town (and in which Ma, Pa, and Mary lived in until they died), and the first school that Laura attended in town. In addition, you can visit the original homestead site and see the five cottonwood trees that they planted on their homestead. Adjacent to the homestead site there are recreations of many buildings from the timeframe the Ingalls homesteaded in De Smet, with lots of hands on exhibits to give the visitor a sense of what life on the prairie was like in the 1870’s/1880’s. It was 103 deg the day we were there so we also got a sample of how difficult it could be to deal with the weather on the prairie. Overall it was a great educational experience and a must see for anyone who has read the books as visiting the sites and actual buildings brings the books to life.


Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part5CusterToDeSmet


Other notes: At Chamberlain we experienced our first issue with the trailer. I went to empty the holding tanks at the dump station and had the unpleasant surprise of part of the sewage going on the road rather than down the sever pipe when I opened up the valve to empty the tank. “Yuck” is an understatement. I was able to see that one of the seals had came out from the gray water drain valve, allowing some of the gray and black water to come out by the valve rather than out the discharge pipe. By wrapping a rag around the seal I was able to get the tanks drained, and then we headed down the road to find replacement parts. I was able to find a new valve assembly at an RV dealership in Mitchell. When I removed the old valves the next morning I found that the flange on the gray water valve was broken. In reassembling everything I discovered that the gray water pipe coming from the tank did not line up correctly with the valve assembly. This put a lot of force on flange, likely causing it to break. When they had built the trailer instead of fixing the problem they apparently just force fit the connection together. The flange may even have been broken from the beginning and it just started leaking when the seal worked its way out due to road vibration or opening and closing the valve. I ended up raising the whole drain valve assembly a little bit, cutting the gray water pipe, and installing a flexible rubber coupling to connect the gray water pipe to help remove the stress. In the end it took me a couple of hours to tear everything apart and put it back to gather again (including a trip to the hardware store in De Smet to buy some other parts), but in the end I think it is better than new. Next up: Belgrade, Minnesota (home of some friends of Karen’s from the Peace Corp)

Part 4 - Medora, North Dakota to Custer, South Dakota

States & Provinces visited on this segment: North Dakota, Wyoming, and South Dakota

Dates: Sunday July 1 to Wednesday July 4

Miles driven: 630 (2850 total to date)

Summary: We left Medora on Sunday morning and headed east on I94 for ~30 miles before heading south on US Hwy 85, crossing into South Dakota around midday. We decided to take a detour to Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, so at Belle Fourche we headed west towards Wyoming, hoping to have our own “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”. We spent the night at a nice campground right at the entrance to Devils Tower. We had a great view of Devils Tower from our campsite. At the campground they were playing the movie, but that was as close as we got to seeing any aliens. I told the kids the aliens came when they were asleep, but they didn’t buy my story. On Monday morning we drove into the National Monument and went through the visitor center and took the short hike to the base of the tower. The kids worked on completing their junior ranger activities while I hiked the loop trail around the base of the tower. One of the junior ranger requirements was to pick up litter. The kids couldn’t find any, so a woman who happened to overhear them talking was nice enough to take a candy wrapper out of her pocket, tear it in half, and “litter” so each of the kids would have a piece of litter to pick up and bring back to put in the garbage can at the visitor center. After leaving Devils Tower we headed south, joining up with I90 at Sundance. We then headed east on I90 back into South Dakota. We continued east on I90 to Rapid City, and then headed south on US 16 to Custer.

We ended up spending 3 nights camped at Custer which is centrally located in the Black Hills. On Tuesday we started the day by going to Jewel Cave National Monument. Jewel Cave is the 2nd longest known cave in the world, with over 139 miles of mapped passageways. We took an hour and a half tour through the cave and then spent additional time at the visitor center while Elizabeth and Matthew completed their junior ranger badges. One of the focus area of study in Matthew’s class next year is going to be caves so Matthew was excited to visit the cave, get pictures of the cave, as well as purchase a couple of books on caves and pick up additional information to share with his class next school year. After leaving Jewel Cave we went to Wind Cave National Park. We didn’t tour the cave, but Matthew picked up some additional information at the visitor center on this cave which is the 4th longest known cave in the world. We then drove north through the park and then through Custer State Park. We saw lots of bison, pronghorn antelope, deer, and wild burros. We thought we would try and go to the Independence Day celebration at Mt. Rushmore (which they hold on July 3rd, not the 4th), so we continued northwest to Mt. Rushmore. Despite getting there 3-4 hours before the festivities were going to start we found out that we would have to park and walk ~3 miles (one way) if we wanted to see the celebration. We decided it wasn’t worth that much effort. On the 4th we returned to Mt Rushmore National Memorial and went through the visitor center, sculptor Borglum’s studio, and the paths up to the sculpture. The kids gathered information for their junior ranger badges along the way. After leaving Mt. Rushmore we did some scenic drives trough the Black Hills, including the Needles Highway. We returned to our campsite and watched the Custer fireworks from the campground.

.Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part4MedoraToCuster

Next up: De Smet South Dakota (setting of several of Laura Ingalls Wlder’s “Little House” books)

Part 3 - Glacier National Park to Medora, North Dakota

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Montana and North Dakota

Dates: Monday June 25th to Saturday June 30th

Miles driven: 1006 (2220 total to date)

Summary: We left St. Mary Montana on Monday morning and headed southeast to Great Falls. We spent Monday afternoon at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive center. Karen and I had been at the interpretive center in 1998 when it was new, but this was the first time the kids had been there. The center is awesome, and I think it is the best informative center on the Lewis and Clark expedition. The center sits on the banks of the Missouri river in Great Falls where the Lewis and Clark expedition spent 18 days portaging around the falls in the summer of 1805. The kids had a great time and completed their junior ranger badges by attending an interpretive talk given by a park ranger and finding the answers to several series of questions based on reading the displays throughout the center.

Originally we had planned to head due east across Montana to North Dakota after Great Falls. We had wanted to visit Karen’s uncle in Billings, but be was going to be gone on a fishing trip during the time we thought we would be in the vicinity. However, since we got delayed in Glacier it turned out he was coming home the same day we left Great Falls. So, we gave Allen and Joyce a call and then decided to head southeast to Billings to visit with them. We spent two days at their house in Billings. On the way to Billings we stopped in Harlowton which is where Karen’s father grew up. We also wanted to see Karen’s other uncle who works on a cattle ranch outside of Harlowton in Two Dot. However, Uncle Gary was up in a remote area of the mountains when we passed through so we were not able to visit with him. While in Billings we visited with Karen’s Uncle Allen and Aunt Joyce. The kids loved their dog Annie. On Wednesday we drove to Pompey’s Pillar National Monument. This is the only place on their route where you can see physical evidence of the Lewis and Clark expedition. William Clark carved his name into this ~150’ high sandstone pillar on July 25, 1806. There is a new interpretive center at the site, and the kids completed the junior ranger activities. While in Billings we also went down to Riverfront Park, which has a lot of nice walking/biking trails along the Yellowstone River in Billings. While at the park we saw some beavers, a turtle, and lots of fish in the water, plus a bunch of rabbits and a raccoon on land, and lots of ducks and geese in the water and on shore.

We left Billings on Thursday the 28th, and headed southeast to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. We spent most of the afternoon there, exploring the battlefield and the visitor center. The kids completed their junior ranger badges (have you noticed a pattern yet?) which helped them to learn more about this battle in 1876 between the US army led by George Custer and members of several plains Indian tribes led by chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse among others. It was hot at Little Bighorn, close to 100 deg F, with no shade. After leaving the battlefield we drove north to connect with I94 at Custer, MT. We stopped for a break in Custer and took some pictures of the school in Custer where both of Karen’s parents taught school. Karen’s parents lived in Custer when she was born and she lived there for 7 months before her parents moved to Oregon. After a short stop in Custer we continued on to Miles City for the night. We tried out the air conditioning on our trailer for the first time and were glad to have it.

On Friday the 29th we went the rest of the way across Montana on I94 and into North Dakota. We spent two nights in Medora, ND. Medora only has ~100 permanent residents, and much of the town is old restored buildings, along with some new buildings constructed to look like they would fit in with the Old West style of the town when it was founded in the 1880s. These buildings house various businesses, museums, and performances catering to tourists. We went to the Medora Musical on Friday night which I would highly recommend to anyone passing through the area. The performance takes place in an outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Badlands of North Dakota. The variety show blends old and new style western music and song and dance routines in a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt who owned a ranch in this area as a young man. In addition, there was a special performance by the Mapapa acrobats, a troupe from Kenya. Medora is also the entrance to the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We went through the South Unit visitor center which includes Roosevelt’s first cabin that he had built at his Maltese Cross Ranch. We also went to the Painted Canyon visitor center which is ~10 miles east of Medora as well as driving through the park. While driving through the park we saw several bands of wild horses, a lot of bison (including one herd of 200+ animals), plus countless prairie dogs. Karen and the kids also took a 2 hour horseback ride in the park and observed bison while on their trail ride.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part3GlacierToMedora

Next up: Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Elizabeth’s notes: To be added

Matthew's notes: To be added

Other notes: It has taken a while to get these next parts done and posted. They have been written for a while, but hadn't had time to sort through all the pictures and get them to a reasonable number w/captions added so I postponed uploading them until I had photos to go along with the text. Also I have had issues getting things to be formatted the way I want and have basically given up trying to make the blog look nice. Blogger is definitely not WYSIWYG like advertised. It adds additional blank lines where you don't want them and refuses to put blank lines some places where you want them. Everything looks fine when you edit it and preview the blog, but when you post it extra lines get added and some blank lines get deleted. While Blogger may be easy to use if you just want to type in unformated text, it is a pain if you want to format your blog to make it look reasonable. Putting in photos is an even bigger pain in Blogger so I am just putting the map at the top and putting a link to all the rest of the photos.