Ed and Claudia's Roadtrip
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Our Travels

We hope you enjoy reading our stories as we share our adventures with you.  Please feel free to browse through some of our photos.

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Cody, Wyoming

8/23/2017

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Once we arrived in Cody, Wyoming we started things off right away with an anniversary celebration for our friends Bruce and Sue.  We enjoyed a great dinner and drinks at Wyoming’s Rib & Chophouse followed by an after dinner trip to the Silver Dollar Bar for more drinks. 

The atmosphere in Cody gives you the feeling that you really are in an area that truly was part of the old west.  On our first full day in Cody we took the Trolley Tour.  This tour taught us a lot about the history of Cody and gave us some insight on all that we still have left to see around here before we leave. 

Later that day we took a trip to Old Trail Town.  This "town" consists of 27 buildings which date from 1879 to 1901, all authentic and brought here to be put on display along with a description of its history.  It is also home to an extensive collection of memorabilia from the Wyoming frontier as well as authentic Indian artifacts.  In addition, it contains the grave sites for several notable frontiersmen including the famous frontiersman Jeremiah Johnson and one of the great buffalo hunters, Jim White.  It was a fun visit. 

Our next stop began our two day visit to the enormous and beautiful Buffalo Bill Center.  The center consists of five separate museums that we had two days to enjoy.  We were able to visit the Natural History Museum that displayed examples of the power and beauty of the Yellowstone region including an extensive display of many of the native animals.  We also visited the Buffalo Bill Museum where the life of Buffalo Bill as well as the Wild West Show that was so much a part of his life was on display.  The final visit on our first day at the Buffalo Bill Center was to the Plains Indian Museum that displayed the lives and legends of the Plains Indian people. 

The day wasn’t over yet though.  That night the four of us headed out to the Cody Cattle Company for an evening consisting of a “chuck wagon” dinner, live country music and finally a rodeo, complete with calf roping, barrel racing as well as both bucking broncos and bulls.  It was another great night. 

The next day we returned to the Buffalo Bill Center to visit the remaining two museums.  We visited the Cody Firearms Museum that displayed firearms of every sort beginning with the earliest firearms right up until the current ones.  This museum also described how firearms shaped the history of the west.  Our final visit in the center was to the Western Art Museum that pictured the West through the eyes of its artists. It was like going through a photo album of early history and being able to visualize how life really was during that period.  

Monday, 8/21 was eclipse day.  Everyone knew it and there was a buzz in the air.  We decided to start the day with breakfast at the Irma, the hotel that Buffalo Bill built in 1902.  It’s a gorgeous old building that obviously was a high class, state of the art hotel in its day. After breakfast we returned to our campsite to enjoy the eclipse.  In Cody the eclipse was at 98% so although we didn’t enjoy totality, we sure did get pretty close.  A neighbor at our campground handed the four of us eclipse glasses shortly before it began so we were able to enjoy it in style.  The cereal box viewers we made were cute, but no comparison to the glasses.

That afternoon we ended up waiting around for an appointment we had made to have our RV windshield repaired.  The glass repair guy arrived to our campsite at 4:00 for our 12:30 appointment!  The good news was that the two chips that we received coming through South Dakota were both repaired so we should be all set for a while.  We wanted to be proactive in order to prevent the entire windshield from cracking. 

With two days still to go in Cody, Bruce, Sue, Claudia and I took a ride around the East Yellowstone Loop, a 221 mile drive through the scenic Wapiti Valley and through the northeastern portion of Yellowstone.  It was a beautiful drive where we were able to see herds of buffalo and all kinds of gorgeous landscape and scenery.  We stopped for a late lunch in Cooke City, Montana, an old mining town with a current population of 140 and with an elevation of 7,608 feet, the seventh-highest US city by altitude. 

On our final day in Cody, Claudia and I took the short drive over to the Buffalo Bill Dam for a tour.  When completed on Wyoming’s Shoshone River in 1910, the Buffalo Bill Dam was one of the first concrete arch dams built in the United States.  At 325 feet high, it also was the highest dam in the world at the time.  It was an enjoyable and informative visit. 

Our next stop takes us 132 miles down the road to West Yellowstone, Montana through Yellowstone National Park where we’ll spend two weeks enjoying a whole lot more of Yellowstone National Park.


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Heading West to Yellowstone

8/21/2017

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Once we met up with our friends Bruce and Sue, it was time to begin our trek west towards Yellowstone.  Our first stop along the way took us to Mitchell, South Dakota to visit the famous Corn Palace.  The "palace" is decorated annually with ears of corn and can be quite beautiful.  The palace was decorated with a musical theme this year and we were able to watch as some of the workers added some fresh hay to the structure around some of the murals made of ears of corn in various colors.  We toured inside and learned about the history of the palace that goes back to 1892.  The girls also had a chance to do some shopping which of course they thoroughly enjoyed.  After the palace we enjoyed a nice lunch before heading over to the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village.  This is a registered historic landmark that consists of a very nice museum as well as an ongoing excavation that has gone on for over 20 years now.  A dome was built around the spot where the excavation is taking place so that it can be worked on year round.  This spot was once populated by members of the Mandan tribe over 1000 years ago. 

Following Mitchell, we parted ways with Bruce & Sue for a few days as they headed to Rapid City and we enjoyed the area around the Badlands.  On our way to the Badlands, Claudia insisted we stop at what I thought would be just another tourist trap we had seen advertised on multiple billboards along the road.  1880 Town did allow us to stretch our legs as we walked down the main street that contained more than 30 original buildings furnished with thousands of unique relics from the 1880 era.  It also contained a great museum containing many of the props used in the movie “Dancing with Wolves”.  It turned out to be a very nice attraction and Stella was allowed to accompany us as we walked around. 

We began our return visit to the Badlands by hiking an area that we missed the last time we were here. It was in the eastern edge of the Badlands that we only saw as we were driving out.  In addition to some beautiful scenery we also stopped and visited the Prairie Homestead, a site that was originally established as a homestead of 160 acres back in 1909.  It included the original sodbuster home, a cave or food cellar, a chicken house and a barn.  It was amazing to see how people struggled to survive back then in an area of the country that was extremely isolated.  We also took a day to visit Wall Drug, a tourist area since 1931 that featured all sorts of shops and dining options where we enjoyed a great breakfast.  Then it was back to the Badlands where we enjoyed more views and hiked a few of our favorite trails. 

Our next stop took us to Spearfish, South Dakota where we were reunited with Bruce and Sue for a four night stay.  On our first day the four of us took a ride and explored Spearfish Canyon and some of the local waterfalls.  It was a beautiful area and we enjoyed several short hikes.  We also drove out to and visited the area used in the final winter scene of the movie Dances with Wolves.  It was a nice area but hard to envision it as the area for that scene with so much new growth.  Our next day took the four of us on a drive through the Black Hills and down to Hill City.  After a beautiful drive we spent our time there with the girls browsing the shops until they got hungry and then we had lunch at the Bumpin Buffalo Bar & Grill, a great old place with lots of charm including a bar built around 1890.  On our final day in Spearfish, Claudia and I headed off to visit Devils Tower.  The weather was a bit iffy but we decided we just didn’t want to miss it again since we missed it in 2014 when we were returning from Alaska.  We arrived and hiked around the tower even though there was a steady rain the entire time.  The tower was magnificent as we expected and we didn’t mind getting wet.  Really wet.  We took our time hiking around the tower until about the half way point when a bolt of lightning followed immediately but an extremely loud clap of thunder brought some life into our legs and we finished the hike quite quickly.  It’s all just part of the adventure.  And in case you’re wondering, no we weren’t the only fools out there.  The place was packed. 

The next four weeks take us to the Yellowstone National Park area.  There we’ll be enjoying Cody, Yellowstone and Jackson Hole before heading south.  And yes, the fun continues!!

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Time with Friends and Other Stops along the Way

8/7/2017

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Following our visit to the Upper Peninsula, we took a short two hour drive down to Mukwonago, Wisconsin for a two night stay at the Country View Campground.  The day of our arrival was our thirteenth wedding anniversary and to celebrate, we met up with some good friends of ours, Jon & Donna from Texas.  We met at the Route 20 Outhouse, a great local restaurant in Sturtevant, Wisconsin where we spent several hours enjoying good brew, a great meal and wonderful company.  On the following day we enjoyed the afternoon at the home of my old friend Joe at his home in Lannon, Wisconsin.  Joe and I were in the same Navy unit from 1971 till 1975.  This was only the second time we’ve been together in the past 40 plus years and we had a lot of fun talking old times and sharing old pictures.  While there we enjoyed a great meal of steaks that he prepared for us on the grill. 

Our next stop took us to Starved Rock State Park in Oglesby, Illinois where we stayed for two nights.  This was the first park we had been to in quite some time that only offered electricity.  No water or sewer was available there but with our motor home, we certainly could do without either one for a two night stay.  We enjoyed our one full day at Starved Rock State Park where the three of us hiked throughout the park and learned a lot of interesting things about the area that once contained one of the oldest Native American settlements in Illinois, going back thousands of years.  The settlement is long gone of course but the area has been turned into a beautiful park with miles of wooded trails and some very nice boardwalks. 

We spent the next few days enjoying the Amana Colonies in Iowa.  The Amana Colonies are a group of seven villages that were established over 150 years ago as a communal society of Germans that wanted to practice their own version of the Lutheran religion.  It is a very interesting area full of great history and consisting of many of the original farms and structures.  We began our visit by taking a tour that turned out to be one of the most interesting tours we’ve been on.  We then enjoyed dining at a restaurant in one of the original buildings that used to be one of the communal kitchens followed by some shopping in many of the old shops within the quaint and beautiful villages. 

Following Amana we headed to Altoona, Iowa for a four night stay at Adventureland Campground.  This campground is part of an amusement park where we were greeted by our close friends Randy and Sue who were waiting for us.  Their dog Herk was also there to greet the three of us and the dogs were as excited as we were.  We spend our winters together in Texas and were excited to learn that they had taken the next three days off and would be able to spend some time with us.  The first day had some gorgeous weather so we decided to spend it at the amusement park.  We were thrilled when we learned that Randy & Sue’s daughter, husband and grandson were joining us.  The four of us have shared so many stories about our families.  When you do that, and you finally meet them you feel like you already know them and this was definitely the case.  Randy & Sue surprised us by reserving a cabana in the water park right along the lazy river for the day.  This meant that we had a place to relax out of the sun when we weren’t out on the rides and could go in and out of the lazy river directly from the cabana.  We spent most of the day in the waterpark, riding some water slides of course but mainly just relaxing and floating along the lazy river.  Iowa allows beverages, including beer to be served at the waterpark and can be taken with you as you float along the river.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  Yes, I spent a good part of the day just floating on a tube on this bright sunny day with a cold beer in hand with some wonderful people.  It was a very good day for sure.  Once we did leave the waterpark we rode a few of the amusement rides.   The highlight of my day turned out to be a ride on The Monster.  Randy had been looking forward to this ride so there was no way I could chicken out.  Believe me, I thought about it.  133 feet straight up on your back, then a vertical drop MORE than straight down followed by a half dozen or so loops and corkscrews.  I actually enjoyed the ride quite a bit but it sure was an adrenaline rush.  For the next couple of days we received a personal tour of the Des Moines area, dined at a couple of great restaurants, enjoyed a visit with another friend of ours and were treated to a fabulous steak dinner at Randy and Sue’s. 

Our next stop took us only 16 miles away to Prairie Flower Campground in Polk City, Iowa where we spent the next three nights.  This was a beautiful recreation area with plenty of hiking as well as some dog friendly beach areas for Stella to go swimming.  We started our first morning off by having breakfast with Randy, Sue and three more of our friends from Texas.  Then it was time to do some hiking.  We ended our hike at one of the dog friendly beaches where Stella was able to run around and swim off leash.  Claudia started the next day off by taking a walk back to the beach with Stella so she could have another swim while I took care of some computer housekeeping.  Next it was time for some grooming for Stella so Claudia took her out for a bath and we gave her a pedicure.  We wanted her all nice and clean for our reunion with several of our Texas friends at our next stop.  That night we were surprised and thrilled to be joined by Bruce and Sue, our two friends from Texas who will be traveling with us for the next 10 weeks.  They arrived in their new motor home and camped in the site next to us.  We enjoyed a nice dinner together and were able to catch up on each other’s adventures since leaving Texas. 

The following morning we hit the road and headed north to our next stop where we met up with many of our Texas friends whose company we enjoyed for the next week as we visited Avatan, a beautiful camping resort in East Bethel, Minnesota.  Two of our friends, Dick & Frankie are caretakers at the resort and when word got out that a few of us were planning to visit, others wanted to join us so we enjoyed the company of over 20 friends we normally only see in Texas.  It was such a wonderful time.  Dick & Frankie kicked off our visit by hosting a spaghetti dinner where we all had a chance to enjoy each other’s company.  In addition to lots of pool time including some great water volleyball, we carried on the tradition of happy hours each afternoon at various campsites throughout the week.  I was also able to get in some tennis as we headed out a couple of times to play at the local high school.  We had one rainy day while we were there so we took the opportunity to drive into Minneapolis to visit the Mall of America.  It’s a mall like no other we’ve ever seen with an amusement park filling the atrium and an aquarium with glass windows along the walls.  We were happy we got the chance to see it.  We headed out for dinner on two separate occasions, first at Moonshine Whiskey’s where about 20 of us enjoyed some great grub at the pub and then again at the local Golf Club on our final night with many of our close friends as we said our farewells.  We also got the chance to meet lots of new friends who are regulars that spend their summers at the resort.  I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be back some day, maybe for more than a week. 

The past few weeks have been so much fun as we’ve visited with and enjoyed the company of so many friends, both old and new.  We really are very lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives.

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    Authors

    Ed and Claudia always dreamed of retiring and travelling the country in their motorhome.  They retired in 2013 and this is the continuing story of their adventures on the road.

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