Day 43 Chicago

Well apparently wind farms are not just a Washington State thing. In Minnesota they don’t appear on a desert landscape like a scene from another planet. In Minnesota they appear in endless corn fields much like they do in southwestern Ontario except here they go on forever – the windmills and the corn fields! I’m still a little puzzled as to why Saskatchewan had (for me at any rate) the reputation for being incredibly flat prairie. We have been traveling for some days now and with the exception of our dip down into the Black Hills, it’s all been open expanses of fields that go on forever. We have been traveling for two hours now and if it weren’t for the fog I’m sure I could see the campground!

Welcome to Minnesota!

Windmills is unending corn fields.

We’ve crossed the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. I was so surprised especially at the Mississippi. Shame on me, I had no idea it came this far north.

The Mississippi!

Unfortunately, here is the picture of the state line sign for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin .... really it is! Thanks a lot David!

I was driving at this point and as everyone knows, David is the better photographer. Apparently not in moving vehicles though! I don’t know what his problem is. I managed some pretty awesome shots that way! He is actually now trying to figure out exactly how I do that!!

Wisconsin officially won the prize for the worst roads we’ve travelled. They built these things on old railway ties I’m sure. If I left my heart in San Francisco, I left my fillings and loose change in Wisconsin. And it’s not just a part of the road – it’s the whole state! The best part though was when we passed highway marker Mile 152 and saw the sign that warned of rough road ahead! We hadn’t been able to talk for ages because the roads are so bad your voice shakes and quivers as you speak, and now they warn of rough roads! Now if the severe flooding reached this region and the roads have been damaged as a result (not sure this is the case, doesn’t look like it, I’m just trying to be fair here) then I’m sorry, feed of crow #2 here I come. But even if that’s the case, somebody grab a reflective vest and get to work – this is crazy!

Travelled through some pretty wicked storms again today. Can’t really blame Wisconsin for that but although we didn’t officially camp here we can claim to have slept here in two naps in a rest area because it just wasn’t safe to drive!

Even bad storms have their upside!

Not hard to tell when we entered back into the land of the Great Lakes. The primarily coniferous forests that have been our landscape for weeks now are making way for the deciduous trees that surround the Lakes. The scenery is looking so very familiar even though we are still a few days drive from home.

The campground is lovely again (last night was a place to sleep beside the highway) and folks here have been very helpful is getting us set for a day in the city tomorrow. They have provided transit schedules so we don’t have to drive, maps that are marked with orientation points and tips on how to get the most out of our day in Chicago. Stay tuned.

Welcome to Illinois - OK so maybe not every truck shot I take is great!

But the GPS proves we crossed the state line!

Day 42 Sioux Falls, SD

I certainly have loved this vacation and have few regrets (in my life in general!), but the regret of this trip was that it prevented me from attending the Horan family reunion. Being one of the Horans is an interesting legacy. My Dad was one of 22 children. No, that is not a misprint … Grammie and Grampie Horan had 22 children. Now as happens, when they all started to get married and have families of their own (that’s where I enter the picture!) the extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins became huge! When I was growing up in Newfoundland only Uncle Keith and his family were not living there, and so the annual family reunion in August, at Uncle Pat’s house in Topsail, was an event that brought us all together and created cherished memories. As with so much that happens in childhood, I took those times for granted and can’t remember ever considering that it might change. But things do change, and as the family expanded and my generation began to marry and have children of our own, many of us relocated and built lives away from the island. More than a year ago now I was curious about all those folks I hadn’t seen in years. There were still the occasional visits with some, in smaller groups and as circumstances presented, but many of us had lost touch. In an effort to “find” everyone I started a Facebook group for the descendents of my grandparents, Thomas and Ellen Horan. The group grew and we became acquainted once again, online. Last summer on our trip to Newfoundland I was able to reconnect with many folks and I think many of us cousins adopted a renewed commitment to maintaining those family relationships that our parents fostered with their siblings. Unfortunately after our planning had begun for this trip, a plan for a family reunion was set in motion.

These musings are relevant for me today as the reunion weekend has just ended and wonderful pictures are being sent! I’m sitting in the backwaters of South Dakota pouring over the shots. I’m feeling so grateful for them and incredibly envious all at the same time. I understand talks are in the works to do it again and next time I won’t miss it!

Driving through South Dakota it is clear without checking the map that we are directly south of the Canadian prairies. The geography (heck even some of the names – Badlands National Park!) is very similar, the winds that sweep across the open land to rock the trailer alarmingly familiar! Even the damage left from the late spring flooding of the Souris River is depressingly familiar. Unbelievable still to witness what for us was, at the time, just a story on the news. The highway billboards her are larger, but other than that the landscape very familiar. Makes me wonder yet again why the American perception of Canada is sometimes so skewed?? If they took a good look around their own country they’d get a pretty good idea. This part of the US is just like Canada... just not as pretty!!

Badlands State Park

At lunch today we pulled into a picnic area next to a camper with Ontario plates. They were from Brampton and he was a teacher in Mississauga! They had left on July 1^st to drive through Canada to Victoria, then down to Seattle and back through the US… sound familiar? It sure did to me! We compared notes and spent our break in pleasant conversation and commiserating about motorcycles… hey, they brought it up! Continuing along our way we soon saw herds of buffalo along the Interstate… and to think we went looking for these guys?!!! We arrived at our destination, Sioux Falls SD, late in the afternoon. We just made it before the severe thunderstorms started. If you’re reading this we’re fine, but I have to say, the way the trailer is rocking at the moment and the entire countryside alive with lightning I have my doubts!

If we do indeed weather this prairie storm it’s on to the Windy City tomorrow.

Day 41 Mt. Rushmore

Today we are serving a small helping of crow washed down with a partial blog retraction!

Yesterday in our effort to orient ourselves to the area we were bombarded with the attention getters … the tourist traps (of which there are plenty) that are seldom our scene. We decided today to stick to the original plan and go to Mt. Rushmore National Monument, despite initial impressions, and check out Custer State Park.

We were up good and early – not our plan – the motorcycle din started in again just before 6:00 AM. Mt. Rushmore is quite close to where we are staying and so although we arrived fairly early it was still quite busy. It’s quite a big site as it turns out so not really crowed when you got past the parking lot. The first thing we began to suspect is that first impressions can be deceiving. This place is really well done and very cool! It’s still not as big as the publicity shots imply, but no less remarkable for all that!

There are various interpretative programs where park rangers provide guided information on everything from American history to the creation of art, to the construction of the actual sculpture. You enter the park through the Avenue of flags, representing the 56 states, districts and territories of the union.

Avenue of Flags

The studio used by the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum (who studied under Rodin!!), has been preserved as a museum, housing many of the artifacts that were used to create the memorial. Ninety percent of the monument was created with dynamite (and I can’t manage a reasonable facsimile of a face with a pencil!!). Four hundred men worked for 14 years under Borglum’s direction to create Mt. Rushmore as it appears today. They hung in bosun chairs, suspended from a winch house that sat on the top of each head and remarkably no one was injured. They came alarmingly close at one point when dynamite was being set. A storm moved in without warning, as we can attest they so often do in the Black Hills. Lightening struck the mountain and detonated the dynamite with the fellow still suspend in the chair. The blast blew off the soles of his shoes and swung him high! He was knocked unconscious when the chair came back to hit the mountain. He came to moments later and was miraculously not hurt! We also learned that the monument is actually unfinished. The 1:12 model that still sits in the studio clearly intended the figures to be busts not just faces. The carving actually includes an angular protrusion that was the beginning of Lincoln’s hand. Work stopped on Mt. Rushmore in 1941 when Borglum died. Although his son, also a sculptor, supervised a few finishing touches on the work, the decision was made not to continue to planned completion since they had discovered flaking rock below the heads that was difficult to carve and his death coincided with the U.S. entry into WWII. It was difficult to justify additional spending on carving when it was necessary to defend the principals the carving intended to immortalize.

Mt. Rushmore

Borglum demanded full autonomy in creation and chose the four presidents that he wished to see “… endure until the wind and the rain alone shall wear them away”. George Washington, the 1^st President, representing the birth of a nation; Thomas Jefferson, the 3^rd President, responsible for the Louisiana purchase and the expansion of the nation; Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th President, credited with saving the Union during the Civil War, representing the preservation of freedom; and finally Theodore Roosevelt, the 26^th President, representing the development of a nation, primarily for his influence on the Panama Canal.

The monument provided several interpretive centers with loads of self-guided museum displays and short videos that certainly led to a greater appreciation of Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills. By far my favourite way to see the sculpture was by hiking the Presidential Trail. A hike through the surrounding forest offered various angles for pictures, additional information on trail markers along the way and led to the base of the mountain where one little guy claimed you could see right up their noses!

View from the Presidents Trail ... up the nose!

Rock blast debris was left where it fell at the base of Mt. Rushmore ... complete with dynamite markings!

Yet again a National Memorial that was extremely well done. I think I’ve learned my lesson! Suspend judgment until you actually go in. While the surrounding area was unimpressive, you can’t always judge a book by its cover. National Memorials are quite inexpensive, $11 for an annual vehicle pass at Mt. Rushmore … that’s it, no additional charge for anything, and it is well, well worth the visit.

After a quick late lunch we were off again to another great find on this trip, the local state park. In this case it’s Custer State Park and our thought is to just go for a drive, maybe a little hike and see if we can spot the herd of 1500 wild buffalo who call the park home. The ride through the park is beautiful. The rolling rangeland seems to go on forever and although we spot white-tailed deer and mule deer, prairie dogs and rabbits, pronghorns and countless burros that roam free under the protection of the park, there were no buffalo. You would think it difficult to hide if you were 6 feet tall, weighed over 2000 pounds and hung out with 1499 friends, but clearly this is possible! Who can blame them with the constant din of Harley’s though? I would hide too if I could! Discovering that Custer also had interior roads that allow you to roam the grasslands we decide to hunt a little further. These are dusty, dirt roads that are probably not attractive to bikers but are fine for us in our pickup. What a great choice! We rode for probably 90 minutes, seeing only two other cars the entire time. The rolling grasslands were beautiful and we could see why a ride along the main road may not produce buffalo sightings. The prairie here is so expansive that even 1500 buffalo could remain elusive. But alas, while the adventure was beautiful and peaceful and peppered with other wildlife encounters (I am beginning to think of deer like I do squirrels in Ontario!), there were no buffalo.

Wild burro ... but not very wild!

Another burro - Mama and baby.

By this time it was approaching 7:30 and we wanted to get back to Mt. Rushmore for their dusk lighting ceremony. Abandoning our search we headed out of the park to make our way north to the monument when two things happened. First, turning a corner, on the main road, some distance away from the open grasslands we found buffalo! We should have known better than to try and plan the sighting. David and I specialize in serendipitous travel adventure. We always seem to have the most incredible things “just happen”. We should have known better than to try and control this stuff!

Roads through the park grasslands. So isolated and beautiful.

First sighting of the buffalo herd.

Some came quite close!

The second thing that happened is that we decided to travel back on the Needles Highway, claimed on the map to be a scenic drive. Good Lord above never was there such a road! Not through the Rockies, not in Tofino, not even in Mexico, not anywhere did we ever see a road that tracked a path like this. It wove its way up Iron Mountain, over and under itself, along the cliff edge, through the rock, and uphill through a series (we lost count of the number after 6) 270° turns! Now it was all good since we weren’t towing the trailer but there were sections of that road that were exactly as wide as the truck tires. Scenic it certainly was though! I couldn’t get any good pictures because of the waning light, and David certainly couldn’t pull over!! But the 13 mile road, which took over an hour to navigate, left us breathless with a combination of the views and incredulous laughter, and with just enough time to make the evening program at Mt. Rushmore!

The sign lied ... this road turned back and crossed over itself

In three places the road was simply a hole blast through a rock! I guess they figured if Borglum could make a face with dynamite, they could make a road!

Sitting in the outdoor amphitheater directly under the sculpture, the ranger led the crowd through a trivia quiz on the four Presidents. We watched a film that justified the choice of these four men over others to be immortalized in granite. As the crowd stood to sing the national anthem (I was surprised by how few sang … Canadians did a much better job at the Stampede!) the night lighting illuminated the monument. Pretty cool! Anyone in the crowd who served in the military or was a veteran was invited to the stage to take part in the flag ceremony! I was shocked, I supposed I shouldn’t have been, but I was, at the number of people who made their way to the stage. What was more striking perhaps were the introductions. As people gave their names, and identified their rank and service record, there were not more than a dozen who served during peace time. There were two gentlemen who served in the air force in WWII and many who served in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq … you know the conflicts. Regardless of how I might feel about war or political decisions that lead to conflict, it was tough not to be moved as the crowd rose in a standing ovation to honour their sacrifice.

Flag ceremony at Mt. Rushmore with servicemen/women from the audience.

Mt. Rushmore with night lighting.

Certainly feel today that I had the American experience and feeling a little badly that I wondered yesterday if it would be worth the stop. As for the bikers … they are still really annoying!

Bikes of every size, shape and colour.