The Rest of Our Trip

We stayed one night at America's Best Value Inn in Albert Lea. Jon rode his bike in the parking lot while I read a few chapters in my book in the courtyard, then we ate at the restaurant and watched TV in the hotel room until we fell asleep.

The next day they broke the news to us about needing the computer part (ECM) and that it would be Tuesday (hopefully) before we could expect it to come in. I almost wanted to cry selfishly because of the damper on our trip and Jon wanted to cry because of the estimate I'm sure... but instead he helped change my crummy attitude and we decided it might be nice to explore some of Minnesota's State Parks in the meantime? Also, the sweet guys at Albert Lea decided to let us use one of their cars for the week at no charge! We packed the small Versa, piled high with our camping gear and headed out.

So our first one was right down the road, Myre Big Island State Park. We put our 2 second Eureeka tent up, cooked that night, and had a campfire with the indigenous firewood of Albert Lea (because of the beetles). The camphost came rolling up to us in motorized scooter chair (for lack of the right word) several times throughout the night and morning to check on us and just to talk. We walked around the trails, looked at fungus and ate pancakes in the morning. We made one more trip to Albert Lea to the van to get the many things we had forgotten, then headed.

we arrived for beautiful late afternoon light

Pancake fungus

a real pancake

ummagumma fungus

We ventured out to a campsite near Mystery Cave the next day, and camped in what Jon called "the subdivision of camp grounds" because people were millling around like crazy and directly behind and to the sides and front of us, too close together. I remember hearing snorings pretty loud and we drowned it out with Steve Miller Band, marshmallows on the fire and a little red wine.

a theatrical performance at the SPAM museum

Oh, I didn't mention... but we did venture into the "SPAM" museum, and it was disturbing. The gift shop sold flying angel pig stress relievers, the kind you squish in your hand, it was weird. Angel pigs everywhere.

Wine tasting on the way at 4 daughters Winery, toward Mystery Cave, we purchased a Reisling b/c it was Jon's favorite, but I had almost all of it.

The park rangers let us keep Rudee out back while we did the 1 hour cave tour with a group of people and a guide. One of the rangers told us of a site newly purchased by the DNR that contained some easy to find fossils, so we headed there and looked for imprints of cephalopods after getting inspired from the fossil our guide showed us in the cave. I actually found a rock with an imprint of one, no joke!

Cephalopod fossil

Our group looking at stalactites

The pretty lake

Jon tippy toeing through the creek

Next we headed to the Great River Bluffs State Park. We stopped first at a small farm, advertising fresh cheese curds and Jon received his first cow lick. The cheese curds were sold out because of the festival they were having in town, so we checked it out and ended up eating fried cheese curds and watering them down with a Stella from the VFW. We finally made it to the park, snagged the very last tent site, cooked something, went to sleep, drank our coffee, then walked down a pretty boring trail the dreary next morning. It actually wasn't that bad - we did see some really pretty yellow breasted birds that I could never catch a photo of, and some very pretty scenery... but we were getting a little bored starting this day.

Jon getting his first cow lick

girl with 2 cute dogs at the fair

flower with a perm at Great Bluffs campground

Jon's pancake

cute little boy in a camper

Rudee loved the trail

Cute Corgie

I think we were losing good sleep and wanting our futon cushion... because Jon started complaining about his back and I was almost catching a cold but sucking down airborn just to keep on top. We were soooo needing a whaambulance at this point.

We decided to head toward Minneapolis and get a hotel room with Jon's credits. We stayed on the outskirts of town, beside this awesome Indian restaurant called India Palace. The next day we visited the mall, got a caricature and took a ride on the easiest roller coaster.

The more I look at this, the more I love it

We left and headed to another state park called Rice Lake. I can't remember anything particularly scenic about this one, just that the ranger told Jon there was a set of twins and triplet fawns at that Park. We got a call that morning that the part didn't come in so we picked another park not far from Albert Lea in hopes that we'd be leaving the next day at least. After cracking up about our caricature, we decided to try our own drawings of each other.

Jon by me

Me by Jon, this is my PMS face

Rudee by Jon, this is right on!

Rudee by me, she kept moving around

The next park we chose was Minneopa, because I googled that it had a twin waterfall and old mill nearby. We stopped in Mankato to do laundry, then stopped at a cool coffee shop called The Hag for a couple of hours to catch up on emails. Unfortunately the waterfalls were inaccessible due to construction on the old awesome bridge, but we could only hear a trickle at the time anyway. We checked out the old mill instead and then camped again.

The next day we received the good news and headed out finally for the rest of the trip!

from left to right: Dave with Rudee, Jon, Jarred (Opie), Al, me

Jon and I were really glad to move back into the van

Our pad is back!

We bolted to South Dakota and camped at Circle 10 campground, right at the outskirts of Badlands National Park.

Outside of 1880's town

Lamp that lost it's light

Our campsite at Circle 10 outside of the badlands, it was sooooooo windy

The next day we entered the Badlands and checked out the awesomeness. Free camping was offered at Sage Creek campground, down a long dirt road about 35 miles from where we were, so we slowly made our way in that direction.

Jon and Rudee at the Badlands

Rudee meets another traveler

On the moon

Jon on the moon

Us on the moon

looks like he's on a dinosaur back!

The scenery became more beautiful as we got deeper into the park, and we started seeing prairie dogs, big horn sheep and bison everywhere.

Prairie dog looking like Rudee

Popcorn rock

striation of color

Big horn sheep in our rearview

stopping for bighorn sheep

Prairie dog town

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bison were all around the campsite

The dirt road to Sage creek became prairie and bison were everywhere! HUGE poo chips littered the primitive campground and the bison were just starting to leave and head back over the hills.

The cool park ranger and his dog

We headed back out, trying to make the last bit of sunset and I saw my absolute favorite part of the Badlands, watching the bighorn sheep watch the sunset from ledges of the badlands.

I call this one nipple plateau

i love the way the the prairie drops into erosion

our van on the road

bighorn sheep watching the sunset!

We woke up around sunrise and ran up on top of the highest hills around our campsite. We passed a father and son who had camped there overnight without a tent.

our morning hike along the hills

like moon rocks and earth

our campsite from the hills

moon and the earth again

this was mostly made up of the popcorn rock

me and a shadow hand at the popcorn rock

jon by the popcorn rock

rocks against the yellow prairie

looks like a woman on a hill by herself

the road, shooting straight into the sun at about 8:30am

We decided to head out the next day to check out a couple more places that were close. The minutemen missile site and tour facility was right next to the Badlands entrance so we did the tour and it was eerily interesting.

the dayroom for the minutemen

lunatic turning a key

visiting the silo with the inactive missile

We paid to view Rushmore, walked in and got reprimanded for having Rudee, so we left and checked out the Crazy Horse memorial from the park entrance. On the way out we stopped by the famous Wall Drug.

the kitchen at Wall Drug

a Basset Hound at Wall Drug

Next we headed up the scenic highway to Deadwood. We checked out Mount Moriah cemetery, hiked way, way up to Seth Bullock's grave, then headed way back down to a watering hole. We ended up finding a Saloon that let us have Rudee inside, and were the only 2 watching an adorable Burlesque show with one performer and a live storyteller/musician. We didn't really know what we would find there, but amidst the casinos there was definitely a charm about the town.

there's gold in those hills!

some of Wild Bill Hickok's grave offerings

Handsome Wild Bill

Seth Bullock is buried at the very top

a street in Deadwood

Theatre with the Burlesque show, the performer is laying on the couch

the Duke

We headed next to Devils Tower via a scenic route some local Deadwoodians suggested, stopping at a wonderful restaurant called Cheyenne Crossing along the way for breakfast.

Cheyenne Crossing diner

Our drive to Devils Tower along...

breakfast and delicious huge coffee at Cheyenne Crossing, right before i spilled it

We started seeing Devils tower from the town right outside of it and got excited to see it up close. An antique car show was in progress right outside of the park entrance, so we checked it out first.

Devils Tower from Hwy

Jon finally found the flux capacitor

We parked the van at the little campsite in the park after taking showers at the KOA, then hiked around the base of awesome Devils Tower. Here are tons of photos of it:

Jon finds the cave where he's from

Cute prairie dog

close up of Devils Tower texture in late afternoon sun

Devils Tower from the trail

view from around Devils Tower

Devils Tower at sunrise

Creek by our campsite at sunrise

That night we listened to a presentation on Turkey Vultures at the outdoor amphitheater, cooked up some steaks and mashed potatoes on the Coleman, along with salads, then tried to make exposures of Devils Tower. I didn't bring a tripod so we just set the camera on bulb on a stationery object, then timed it for 6 minutes for this one.

6 minute exposure from the campsite of Devils Tower, I put a little too much flashlight on the left...

Our steak, potatoes, and salad in the dark with a flashlight

The next day we tried to watercolor Devils Tower and both did a crappy job but had fun trying. That day I had a new idea to try to find a ghost town, so we headed back to the badlands.

exterior of a saloon in Wyoming on our way back toward South Dakota

taking a side road

in the Black Hills scenic hwy on the way to Badlands toward Scenic

Scenic, South Dakota is a town just outside of one of the entrances to the badlands, and actually the back way to Sage Creek campground where we camped for free before. I had seen photos of the empty buildings (now newly purchased for 800,000 by a church) and wanted to visit the badlands one more time, so we stopped to take pix for a minute.

We entered the campground the back way and saw some really beautiful scenery, but only a couple of bison this time. This is definitely the way to enter the Badlands because it offers a nice progression from prairie to erosion to crazy rock formations. Jon chef'd up some chicken and rice in the dark again (campfire ban all around), then we tried our night exposing again of the Milky Way b/c it's so completely visible there. The stars are beautiful!! We placed the camera on our table and used the fisheye lens, propped on a couple of books and a small whiskey bottle and managed a couple of good 3 minute exposures. Jon kept cracking me up as I was pressing the shutter for the 3 minutes, so most of the exposures are slightly soft. I now want a good tripod and shutter release for my birthday (; )

the Milky Way with my fisheye pointed up to the sky, around 3m?

We left the beautiful good badlands and headed toward home, going south through the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation b/c we had just read about the Oglala Lakota in the August issue of National Geographic, thanks Brett! We bought a couple of things from a stand near the Wounded Knee memorial and were approached several times for donations, but we also had a couple of interesting conversations with locals.

Wounded Knee mass gravesite

Bull and rusty car remains

Thats pretty much it... except for this pretty tree we saw in Nebraska..

Now as I conclude this long blog finally, we've made it to Tennessee and are sleeping our last night at a Rest Stop in the van before heading home in the morning back to reality.

Thanks Everybodys,
We miss our friends, family, house, and Athens so looking forward to being home again and I'd love to eat at Sr. Sol and have a coffee at Hendershots!