Home, Sweet Home

Final report of the trip's last 30 hours:

In the mid-afternoon, we drove from DeSmet down to I-90 East.  We stopped at the Minnesota Welcome Center for a pit stop.  After a few more hours, we enjoyed dinner at the Farmer's Daughters Kitchen in Blue Earth and had a very good meal.  We were overseen by a picture of a goat on the wall.

As we approached Wisconsin, we saw a good price for gas at an exit ramp and took it.  Little did we know that the eastbound re-entry ramp was under construction, and the detour sent us ten miles back on I-90 West to turn around.  I think we lost whatever we saved in gas.  We certainly did in time.

Getting into Wisconsin, we crossed the Mississippi River.  It was getting dark by this time, and we still had many miles to travel to reach our hotel in the Wisconsin Dells.  A rainstorm that had been threatening us all day finally let loose, so this ended up being a challenging part of the drive.  We arrived late, but safe, at our destination for the night.

The next morning, we got up, had our last hotel breakfast (yay!), and drove toward Madison and ultimately Chicago.  Driving around Chicago was every bit as fun as I remembered and expected it to be again.  Still, it was a relief to get around the city and know that home was drawing ever closer.

We stopped at a rather rough truck stop just inside Indiana for a late lunch.  Very meh.  The weather was still unfavorable, but we pushed on.  By the late afternoon, the skies were clearing and we were entering Ohio!  

Debbie then took over and did a bit of the driving, and ended up leading us to supper at one of our favorite college places: Pisanello's in Bowling Green!

On we went, and arrived in Alliance before dark, around 9 pm on Friday, June 5th.  Blessedly, all was well at home.  (Shout out of thanks to Ben Favazzo who had mowed our grass twice while we were away!)

Over the previous 17 days, we had traveled 5,551 miles in our CR-V.  We had visited 14 states.  We had eaten eleven free hotel breakfasts.  We were exhausted.  But so glad we had went.  And, of course, so glad to be home again...

Until next time...

Little Town on the Prairie

Our last major stop of our 250th Birthday Celebration of America tour was near and dear to Debbie's heart.  For as long as I've known her, Debbie has been a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan.  (We previously visited Laura's home in Mansfield, Missouri in 2008.)  Apparently Debbie always wanted to visit DeSmet, South Dakota, where four of the Little House books are set, but figured it was too out of the way for her to ever get here.  Of course, when you're already traveling as far as North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park, what's a few extra miles, right?  

We were nearing DeSmet in the late afternoon of Wednesday, June 3, when Debbie spied this historical marker.  We had to pull the CR-V off the highway so we could get a pic!

  

We next headed into the town of DeSmet itself (memorialized in the books as "The Little Town on the Prairie") and checked into our Bed and Breakfast for the night.  

Our B & B had an association with the books, having been built to be the home of a character named Banker Ruth - and it also happened to be just a couple doors away from the last home that Charles and Caroline Ingalls lived in!

We enjoyed a pizza supper at a restaurant called "Half Pint" and then roamed the town, looking at some of the historical buildings mentioned in the books.  

Since we hadn't driven enough, we got back in the car and drove to the outskirts of town to see the land that had been Charles' claim in the early 1880s.

We next drove out to the twin lakes a few miles outside of town which are described in the books.  There was a whopper of a lightning storm moving in, so I was able to prevail upon Debbie to return to our lodgings for the night.  Tomorrow would be a big day for her!

On Thursday, we woke early and packed up.  We enjoyed a very nice breakfast from our hosts at the bed and breakfast.  Then we headed over for the tour!

We have many more pictures, but here a couple of highlights.  I think Debbie's favorite was the Surveyor's House where Laura spent her first winter in DeSmet.  It had a dresser that Charles "Pa" Ingalls had made.

There was the original school in De Smet where Laura was a student.  They also had a re-creation of the Brewster School where she first taught.

The tour participants loaded up their vehicles and drove into town where we toured Charles and Caroline's last house (near our bed and breakfast.)  Here is our guide telling us what happened to all the family members after the books ended:

After the official tour was over, we drove out to the DeSmet cemetery and saw where several members of the Ingalls family are buried.  We stopped in town at a couple of gift stores to look for souvenirs and hear some stories about the town's connection to Laura.  Finally, we returned to the museum where the tour began and looked at the artifacts and exhibits there.  I think Debbie could have spent hours there!  

We were getting pretty hungry by this point, though, so we headed to the Oxbow Restaurant where we had a very nice lunch.  Debbie said that she had seen everything that she had wanted to, so we were now ready to hit the homestretch of our trip! 

Prairie Dog Day Afternoon

Now in Dickinson, North Dakota, Debbie wasn’t too happy with our room.  Here were the problems:

- A partial gallon of expired milk left in the refrigerator.  

- Several light bulbs that were out.  

- Many channels not working on the TV.  

- A dripping tub faucet.  

- A loud neighbor yelling at his daughter over the phone.  

- A missing shower curtain.  

After sharing these issues with the front desk on Tuesday morning, we were upgraded to a king suite.  We decided we would move in to our new room when we returned in the evening.

We stopped at a Subway to pick up our picnic lunch, knowing in advance that there wouldn't be many opportunities in the vicinity of the park.   In fact, it would be a long drive to even get to the park that day, over an hour.  (There's a lot of empty space in North Dakota!). We journeyed to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit first.

We took our entrance sign picture, looked around the visitor center, and stamped our passport.  Then we took the unit's scenic drive with its pull-offs and overlook areas.  There were some beautiful areas of banded badland formation.  We drove to the oxbow overlook and turned around for the drive back.

We then returned to I-94 and drove west toward the South Unit of the park.  But first we stopped at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center.  Unfortunately, the visitor center was undergoing some upgrades and was closed, but the scenery was open!  We enjoyed a FaceTime call with our Grandson David while there.  We found a picnic spot with a beautiful view of the painted canyon and enjoyed our subs.  

We took some more pictures and then headed for the South Unit near Medora.

We toured the unit's visitor center, stamped our passport (for the last time on this trip!), watched the park film, and checked out the exhibits, including a visit to the Maltese Cross Cabin.  Then we took the 2 hour scenic loop drive.  There were beautiful vistas with more sights of the Little Missouri River.  A highlight was the several prairie dog colonies with thousands of cute residents!

From afar, we could see the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library that is due to open on July 4.  Maybe something to come back for some day?  We stopped at a gift shop in Medora and bought our iconic souvenir of the trip - a buffalo statuette.  Seemed appropriate.  

We finished the day with dinner at Dairy Queen in Dickinson where we got light fare.  We then returned to our hotel, changed rooms and retired for the night.

Monday = Mostly Montana

It was time to check out of our room at Canyon Village and begin our long eastward journey home.

We got up, packed, and loaded up the CR-V, dropped off our key cards, and headed out of the park.  We had one stop to make on the way: the Virginia Cascades.  Although the view wasn't great, Debbie appreciated the opportunity to see one final waterfall in Yellowstone.

We continued our way toward the park's northern entrance in Gardiner. We caught sight of a couple elk and took time for a pull-off to take some photos.

We stopped in Gardiner to snap some pics of the Roosevelt Arch.  We stopped for a final passport stamp at the Yellowstone Forever store and grabbed breakfast at the Cowboy Grille.  Pros: great decor (guns), huge pancake, cons: slow eggs and Debbie was hangry.  (You wouldn’t like her when she’s hangry!).  We bought five gallons of over-priced gas to make it to our next destination.

On we went, heading northeast for most of the day, cutting across Montana and following the Yellowstone River.  Our path took us near beautiful snow-capped mountains, great stretches of 80 mph roadway where we were the only car in sight, and big sky country.  We stopped for lunch in Billings where we tracked down a not-very-conveniently located Chick-Fil-A.  

The next stretch was a bit nerve-wracking as I had planned to stop for gas about an hour after lunch.  The only problem was that there were no services to be found at that time!  Finally, Hysham had a nice gas station, although several miles off the highway.

We stopped at the Montana Welcome Center, which was ironic because we were leaving Montana.  Getting into North Dakota was a first for both Debbie and me.  The badlands were cropping up, and we knew we would have a chance to explore them on Tuesday for our Theodore Roosevelt National Park day.

We stopped in Dickinson for our 2-night stay.  We hit up a KFC for supper, a Walmart for supplies and a gas station to fill up.  Then we checked into our hotel and chilled for the rest of the evening.  

Another Day in Paradise

Our Sunday morning (May 31) in Yellowstone National Park went like this:

- Woke up in our room on the second floor of the Rhyolite Lodge.

- Went for breakfast at the Canyon Village cafeteria.

- Dealt with the trauma of the kitchen being out of eggs. (Apparently their shipment arrived frozen?)

- Waited for several long minutes for the French Toast to be done.

- Hit up the Grand Canyon Visitor Center and got our passport stamp.

- I toured the museum and watched the film while Debbie did some souvenir shopping.

Now that we were awake and alert, we took a drive for most of the late morning/afternoon.  First, we went to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone's Northern Rim and overlooks.

We worked our way south to the Lake Lodge area - only to discover that it was still closed. So much for our lunch plan! We decided to drive to the Fishing Bridge for lunch instead where we split a honey ham sandwich.  We got our passport stamp there and drove north.

We went to one of Jon's favorite spots in Yellowstone - the Mud Volcano Area.  There are many cool thermal features in this section of the park.

On the way back to the Grand Canyon, we saw many cars pulled over.  Debbie said, "It's just another bear."  I asked, "Is it a grizzly?"  She immediately realized it was, so we pulled over and got a good look (at a distance!)

Finishing up on our tour for the day, we did the Grand Canyon's Southern Rim and overlooks.

We took the evening off from sightseeing and Debbie did laundry in the campground after going on a scavenger hunt for quarters.  We went back to the Canyon Village cafeteria where we enjoyed tasty roast beef dinners and shared an ice cream cookie sandwich for dessert.  

We returned to our room for rest and reading and blogging.  This is our last night in Yellowstone!