South Dakota

South Dakota Activities and Adventures:

June 17- 28, 2013 - Wow we spent 11 days in the state of South Dakota! Had been our plan to take care of any maintenance and/or care-taking that we needed to do before we embarked on the last part of our trip: Canada and Alaska. We were able to do that, got the MoHo checked out, oil changed, new air filter, beautiful new GREEN window awnings and rock guard installed. Corona and Guinness got a daylong spa treatment, a nice grooming to help keep the dog hair down for the rest of the trip. We also spent the better part of a couple days, cleaning inside and out, 15 + weeks on the road and we are feeling just a bit shop warn!

We spent a day enjoying the city of Sioux Falls. It is a very pleasing town and has an amazing amount to see. We enjoyed the Falls Park, very nice area with some pretty good falls flowing on the Big Sioux River. We took a trolley ride to downtown where we enjoyed the 2-3-block walk with 55 bronze sculptures on display. The artists display on the city’s Phillips Street, and loan the pieces for a year. The visitor’s vote on their favorite one and then the city purchases the winner at the end of the year. This is the 10^th year for this activity. We were also quite impressed with the many other musical and artistic activities that are planned during the summer.  The surrounding community is filled with beautiful old homes, churches and buildings.  It was a great day – completed by a visit to a tacky little bar called the Thirsty Duck – great happy hour, hot wings and cold drinks.

The travelers packed up and headed west again – stopped for the night just out of Murdo S.D. and the next morning we made the pilgrimage to the famous Wall Drug – how can one pass up fresh donuts and 5 cent coffee? We also each bought cowboy hats (yes really?) to wear at the Calgary Stampede. Our roadside was still very green, but less corn and more grasslands and cows and horses to be seen.

Rapid City was our next major stop on our itinerary. We camped at the local Elks, another very pretty place with a full 18-hole golf course owned by the lodge. We used this as our base for 4 nights. We got a lot of our chores and errands accomplished. We spent a few hours enjoying the city. We were quite familiar with this area due to our extended visit 5 years ago when we made a “pit-stop” to have the motorhome repaired after a bit of a disaster in Glacier NP.  We made a visit to the Mammoth Site where they have unearthed 2 woolly and 60 Columbian Mammoths that roamed the area 26,000 years ago. We enjoyed walking through the Black Hills Caverns and the Wind Caves National Park.  Karen’s knees survived quite well the steps and slope climbing.  Crazy Horse was also visited and he continues to make slow but steady progress.  We guess he may be completed in 2040, and may get back to see him again, maybe our kids will get to see him finished?  We enjoyed an up-close and personal encounter with a herd of buffalo. They were crossing the road in the Wind Caves National Park, - there must have been 25-30 grazing moving from one green area to the next.

 Almost every night we had a bit of rain and on a couple of occasions rode out some pretty substantial rain/lightening/thunder storms with a tornado watch one night. The ground was pretty muddy and puddily but we were none the worse for wear.  

Our next major activity was to join the 25^th Anniversary Rally of Safari International. This was held at the Rapid City Fair Grounds. About 130 motorhomes, most of them Safari brand, were in attendance. It was interesting to see so many of these coaches- the variety of murals, body and coach designs were astounding.  Think we were one of the oldest ones there, BUT one of the “PRETTIEST”! This 4-day event was well organized with several seminars, activities, events, happy hours and meals. While Mike and I are generally not the type to join with lots of other folks we found this to be fairly enjoyable and we are glad that we did it. It was one of those events that just happened to fall into our itinerary and give us another experience.  We met a number of very nice people, visited Ellsworth Air Force Base and saw a fly over by their B-1 stealth bombers, visited a couple of wineries, and looked at some new and used motorhomes that tempted us but did not cause us to loose our “good sense “ and trade up!!

We enjoyed our time in South Dakota and are ready to head west and north toward the tours we have booked in Calgary and Alaska. Lots more fun to come.

Illinois, Iowa, Minnestota

Midwest maneuvers through Illinois. Iowa and into Minnesota

June 14-16, 2013 brought the North American Safari travelers through more of the Midwest region of the U.S. Friday the 14^th was our 44^th anniversary. We spent the morning driving from Indianapolis, Indiana to Peoria, Illinois a relatively quick 270 miles. Mike puts the rig in drive and “OFF” we go. The roadside was once again covered with acres and acres and acres of corn. I “Goggled” that the American farmers will plant 97.3 million acres of corn this year, think that we have seen much of that crop in the last week or so. Many of the fields still look pretty wet from recent rains, not sure that some of the corn will grow? Maybe there is a “bog” variety? Along with the huge amount of visible corn, we have also seen 100s of wind turbines – the farmers appear to be taking advantage of their ability to generate energy and grow corn underneath. We got into Peoria in time to go to a very nice steak dinner at Jim’s Steak House (a Peoria Land Mark) to celebrate OUR DAY.  A great dinner of oysters, steak & crab and a bit of adult beverages was enjoyed by both of us.

Wind Turbines

Leaving Illinois in our rear view mirror, we entered Iowa. Yes, yes: there was much more corn to be seen today as well. The most notable few miles of our 250-mile route today was the NARROW ROAD EXPERIENCE. Unfortunately there are no photos of this because Karen was too busy praying and hanging on for “dear life” and Mike, well he was just busy hoping to keep the rig in-between the very narrow lanes. This adventure was one of those that reflecting back on - we know we are VERY LUCKY to have made it through with no damage. We saw the warning signs that read “Wide Loads” to exit at the next exit.  Are we a wide load??? We quickly reviewed our measurements; the rig is 10’4” wide – add 1’ for each of our side mirrors. Sooooooooo, when we saw the sign that we were entering the narrow zone that was only for vehicles 10’ or less, there was suddenly a dead silence from the driver AND his navigator. YIKES! Well after what seemed like a very long construction zone, all remained unscathed. It was VERY -VERY narrow, especially the 3 times that there were big-rigs coming head-on towards us. Phew - once again Mike was amazing: cool, calm and collected making it through this scary experience. Still trembling, we pulled into our campground in Clermont, Iowa, quickly changed our under garments and enjoyed a quite afternoon sitting along side the Quarry Lake.

Fathers’ Day, our very special Dad drove 350 miles through Iowa. We stopped for a mid-morning break in Mason, Iowa – also known as River City, home of Meredith Wilson the composer of the Music Man.  The town has a rich heritage of music, with many music, band and drum corps competitions scheduled. Unfortunately we were not there on one of the weekends when there was an event scheduled.  We motored on into Minnesota to join up with the US I-90. This kept us on our continued westward route. CORN was still the most visible roadside attraction, although we did see a sign pointing out that the 60 foot Jolly Green Giant was in a town just off the highway a few miles. We did not go visit him, but believe he probably does reside in this “vegetable growing” region. We made our goal for the day to get to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We spent the evening in camp barbequing a nice piece of pork loin and relaxing.

Mason City or River City

Ohio and Indiana

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Ohio and Indiana Experiences:

June 8-13, 2013 saw us heading west and hoping to leave the wet weather behind. We drove part of the day through Ohio (one of the states we hadn’t visited yet) – beautiful countryside, some more vineyards and a lot of cornfields.  We skirted Cleveland and spent the night in Norwalk, Ohio.  Pleasant little community with a hospitable Elks Lodge where we camped for the night. This was day # 79 of our adventure, boy time is flying, and yes we are still having a lot of FUN!

Farm land, corn and more corn

We have been taking advantage of New York, Ohio and Indiana’s “speedways” – We enjoyed the New York Through-Way, the Ohio Turn Pike and the Indiana Expressway. Cost a bit, but saves us miles, and improves fuel economy. The roads are generally better quality and makes Mike’s job of driving a bit easier. Coming into Elkhart Indiana we saw several horse and buggies, driving along the roadside, this area has a large Amish population.  We both really enjoyed the beautiful countryside and the many things to see and do.  We started our visit by going to the Recreation Vehicle (RV) and Motor Home (MH) Hall of Fame. There was an interesting display of RVs from 1909 to present. Always amazing to us how innovative people can be with their vehicles/trailers/recreation vehicles.  One of our favorites was a 1954 – 42 foot Spartan Travel Trailer. Mike remembers his family living in one just like the one on display, he recounted falling out of the upper bunk when trying to peak into the living room to see if Santa had been there the night before J. Later that day we went on a factory tour of Thor Industries, the 3^rd largest manufacturer of trailers, and motor homes. It was very informative and interesting to see how a motorhome is built from the chassis up. Always very tempting to see these beautiful rigs with all of their new bells and whistles and think how nice it might be to have one.  Just dreaming, we love our Safari and aren’t seriously thinking about replacing her.

Amish area

Spartan Trailer 1954

Our next point of interest was a drive to South Bend – about 25 miles west of Elkhart. We enjoyed exploring the town, some beautiful older homes and buildings with diverse architectures. Notre Dame University is one of those beautiful mid-west campuses: big old mature trees, sophisticated looking buildings of stone and brick, and an incredible looking sports complex.  From there we drove to Goshen where we visited the Old Bag Factory an artisans’ complex witn an incredible quilt shop, Amish furniture store, pottery barn, antiques and much more. Also there, was one of the quilt gardens that are planted around the heritage trail area. There was a lot more to be seen in this area, wish we had a chance to visit the Conn-Selmer factory (company that built Mike’s French Horn some 50 years ago) and to visit some of the Amish inspired restaurants, and shops. Maybe we will get back this way again.

Notre Dame

Old Lady at Old Bag Factory

Floral Quilt

Moving along on our itinerary saw us driving south to Indianapolis. The weather was hot and sticky – Ahhhh yes that is the mid-west, huh? We spent the night under a severe weather alert – there were tornado watches just north of us. We had thunder and lightening, wind and rain, but nothing too serious. Mike was a bit disappointed he was ready to “storm chase”.  We visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (the Brickyard). Neither Mike nor I are serious race followers, but we always enjoy taking tours of such institutions.  We had a good afternoon going through their Hall of Fame/Museum.  There was an interesting display of 30 formula 1 cars.  We saw the wining car from the 1^st race in 1911, it averaged 79.3 mile per hour lap; the winner this year was 172+ M.P.H. – technology has certainly changed the race activity.  We then took a narrated bus tour of the track and associated facilities. We got to ride the 2-½ mile track only 200 M.P.H. slower than the current race drives can take it.  Mike got to kiss the brick yard start/finish line; we toured the master control tower pagoda, stood on the winners’ podium and got a good over-all view of the entire complex. Pretty amazing, we’ll never look at the race quite the same way again after our visit.

Finish Line

Straightaway, home stretch

Winning Cars

Today marks the end of our 13^th week of our North American Safari – ½ way through our 26-week trip. Fun and adventures just keep on coming.  

Niagara Falls

Western New York Experiences:

June 1-7, 2013 was generally wet and soggy days in New York. Nothing really new for this trip, we have had an awful lot of rain, and we realize that traveling this time of year does bring that chance. We try to just ignore it and carry on with our adventures. The route from the 1000 Lakes Region to the Niagara Region was quite long, and fairly uneventful until we had almost reached the Elks in Lockport N.Y. We have our GPS set to help us avoid low bridges, narrow roads…. This time either Maggie was miss-informed or we miss-navigated – found we attempting to cross an extremely narrow bridge over the Erie Canal. The “SICKENING” screeching sounds caused the dogs to bark, and us to swear!!! We put a wee bit of a scrape on the frame of our door, the damage was luckily very minimal and Mike was able to back our way off of the entrance to the bridge. A very helpful local re-directed us away from this bridge and we were able to get to our camp sight only a little worse for wear. Phew that was stressful, but we happily found a very welcoming Elks complete with nice cement pad and 30 amp power and huge grounds (beautiful soccer field) for our backdrop.

Stormy Weather

This stop had been set up on our itinerary as sort of a maintenance and repair stop. We knew we would want to have the Prius checked out, Karen badly needed attention to her hair and a pedicure (spa day J), and we also tried to get some help with our computer, it has been having some issues with our photo program. We took the better part of 2 days running around the Buffalo area taking care of the afore mentioned chores and a number of errands.

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day, so we took advantage of it and took a cruise on the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal connects the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean at sea level with the Niagara River and the Great Lakes at 570 feet above sea level. This 363 mile engineering feat was built between 1817-1825. What a treat, this was – the 2-hour float had us Locking through Locks 34 & 35 (going up and then back down some 50+feet), and being amazed at the 20-foot stonewalls of the 1800s that were cut and blasted by hand.

Erie Canal Locks

Erie Canal

Niagara Falls was on our must visit list. We stopped ant the Niagara Power Plant Pavilion – they have quite an interactive display explaining how hydro electricity works. Even with the rain we managed to get out and walk the boys and see the beautiful falls. We drove across the boarder into Canada and spent the better part of the day enjoying the scenic little town of Niagara on the Lake. It is very similar to our Ashland – it hosts plays written by George Bernard Shaw at 4 different theatres. The season was just starting so it was fairly busy. We did a bit of window shopping and enjoyed a nice cozy lunch in the lounge at the Prince of Wales Hotel – classy little place.

Niagara Falls

Horseshoe Falls

This area has a pretty extensive wine region. It is known as the Niagara Escarpment –an area naturally protected from frost by Lake Ontario. The lake acts as a large heat sink, which powers wind forward of the lake when the lake water is warmer than the air, and away from the lake when it is cooler. There were just acres and acres of vineyards and a wine trail in the Lockport area of some 20+ wineries. Being the fermented grape juice lovers that we are, we visited 5 different wineries enjoying many tastes of wine. We bought a few bottles to take home and share with our wine club (will see how many actually make it J). New York has been a great stop, this area is extremely beautiful with a great variety of things to do and see.

Niagara area winery

1000 Islands, NY

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Back in the USA – after 25 days in Canada we return stateside

May 28 – 31, 2013 saw us entering the Thousand Islands Area of northwestern New York State. We made the drive from Montreal to Clayton, NY, the trip were marked with a lot of traffic driving through the city, road construction, and a trip to the “Twilight Zone” by our GPS, Miss Maggie. We suddenly lost Maggie’s directions, her dials were spinning, she was making weird noises and she would not respond to my pushing her “buttons”.  We realized that we must be on a new freeway, crazy, because we were the only vehicle we could see for a long way – had we run a road block?? Guess that Mags had not been programed with this new road – interesting experience, we were pleased to finally find our way out of the zone and got back on the route and Maggie came back on line just as quickly as she had disappeared.

For the next few days we explored the beautiful St. Lawrence River area of upper New York.  We spent some time in Alexandria Bay, a cute little tourist town, enjoyed a bit of shopping and a nice river view dinner. We took a boat cruise on the river seeing many of the 1,386 islands (1000 Islands just sounds better) that inhabit this area.  Yes, this where 1000 Island Salad Dressing was created.  We had taken a cruise a few years ago, and again enjoyed the views of these islands.  The islands must have at least one tree and most with cabin, house or mansion.  WOW some of these people have a lot $$$$.  We stopped at Dark Island and toured Singer Castle (owned originally by the president of Singer Sewing Machine Company) – a beautiful structure built in the 1900’s. On the way back to port we circled Deer Island, a 40-acre retreat owned by the Skull and Bones Society, a secret society associated with Yale University. Guess it has become a bit run-down in the past few years, but still a bit of mystique?

We enjoyed visiting the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, which houses a collection of over 3000 antique and classic boats, about 300 are on display at any one time. We were amazed at the great variety of beautiful speedboats, some from the early 1900’s, several wooden canoes, many with small sails and walked through the shops where volunteers work to restore the boats.  There was a houseboat we were able to walk through that had been owned by the McNally family (Rand-McNally – map folks) It was a beautiful vessel that sailed the St. Lawrence River most summers from 1915-1940 (so that is how the other half lives J).

This area is a wonderful resort area to visit – the Wraights would come back here again if and when the MoHo wanders back this way.  It would be nice to try it in season, but then again it is nice to not fight the summer crowds.