The Dakota's Capitols and Other Places on the Prairie

Hi there, welcome back. Our last chapter concluded on Monday, June 8^th, when we arrived in Pierre, South Dakota. We traveled to Pierre from Wall, South Dakota and settled into a nice spot at the River View RV Resort. On Tuesday we went out after lunch to do some exploring of Pierre. We have never been here before. We spent an hour or so driving around the main part of town, just getting a feel for the city. Pierre is not a large city, only about 14,000 population, the second smallest state capitol city in the U.S. Pierre was founded in 1880 in the Dakota Territory and became the capitol of South Dakota in 1889 when both North and South Dakota achieved statehood.

We stopped at the Chamber of Commerce and picked up some material and we did a little geocaching and got five new finds, along with one DNF. By that time the temperature was about 98, so we decided to quit caching for a while. We went into the capitol building, which opened in 1910, and did the self guided tour. It is a very pretty building with lots of marble staircases and trim, and very extensive and interesting mosaic floors.  The story in the guidebook is that when the capitol was being built they brought in 66 Italian artists experienced with mosaic tile.  Each of the artists was given a single blue stone, a color not used for any of the other tiles.  The artists could place these blue tiles anywhere they wanted.  Supposedly, only 55 of the 66 have been found.  Since the artists made no record of the tile placements, it is not known if they simply were not set, or if they are covered up by changes in wall placement over the years, or just haven't been found.  We were able to locate three of the tiles during our tour, but a single blue tile in a sea of tiles is a little hard to spot.

The second tile story relates to the renovation of the capitol building in the 1980's.  Workers were brought in to repair hundreds of feet of cracks in the mosaic floors, caused by settling of the building over the years. Each of these workers were given a small, heart shaped tile to place as a "signature stone."  These were of various colors.  We were able to find two of these, one white and one black.  The black one had a crack and the legend is that the worker had received a "dear John" letter while working on the building and had cracked his tile to symbolize his broken heart.  Maybe, maybe not, but it makes a nice story.  The entire interior of the capitol dome is stained glass, as are the ceilings in most of the other major rooms like the legislative chambers.  We had a very enjoyable hour or so walking around the building. After the capitol tour we did a driving tour of turn of the century mansions based on a booklet we got at the Chamber. This city has dozens of really fine examples of late 19^th and early 20^th century homes. Once our touring was done we did a Walmart run and then went back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, June 10^th, it was raining on and off, and was likely to be doing that all day. We headed out after lunch and drove to the South Dakota Governor's Mansion, which is located across a small park and lake from the capitol building. We had discovered yesterday morning, while reading some of the tourist material the gal from the RV park gave us, that there were tours of the mansion, but only on Wednesday and you had to sign up at least a day in advance. We had called in our reservation and picked up our tickets at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday. The tour started at 1:00 and there were probably two dozen people on today's tour.

The first thing they had everyone do when they came into the foyer was to put on paper booties, like they wear in the operating room. Then, while we were all in the foyer, Linda Daugaard, the Governor's wife and the First Lady of South Dakota, came in with one of her young grandsons, and welcomed us to the tour. This is actually the residence of the sitting governor and his or her family, as well as a public building. One of the two volunteer guides explained that the house, which is about ten years old now, is just under 15,000 square feet and about a third of that is the private residence portion. That part, obviously, was not in the tour. The rest of the house is used for official functions and VIP guests.

This building is the third State-owned governor's residence to be in this location. The first was a fairly small wood house purchased by the State in 1925. In 1936 that building was sold and moved to another location in town. The new residence was built as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and served as the official Residence until 2003. At that time it too was sold and moved, this one going to Rapid City, almost 200 miles southwest, where it became an events center. The newest residence is very pretty and is a combination of wood and stone construction, with aluminum siding, like many of the other houses in South Dakota.

The tour took us through the downstairs “great room”, which is basically a big dining/reception hall with a very beautiful two-sided fireplace in the center. There is also a big, commercial kitchen, which is used for events. The private residence side has it's own regular household kitchen for the first family. Upstairs on the public side are two VIP bedrooms and a sitting room. The residence side has five bedrooms for the family's use. We also saw the Governor's home office, which is in addition to his office at the State Capitol. The tour took a little over an hour and was very interesting.

After the tour we took a drive up to the Oahe Dam and Power Plant. Oahe dam is a Corps of Engineers project, built between 1948 and 1959. It is an earthen dam on the Missouri River, with a downstream power plant, and it creates Oahe Lake, the fourth largest man-made lake in the U.S. It stretches 231 miles north along the course of the river, reaching all the way to Bismarck, North Dakota. We drove along the top of the dam and around the power plant, getting a couple of geocaches in the process. We ended up with four new caches on the day. After touring for a while we headed back to the coach for cocktails and dinner and stayed in the rest of the night.

Thursday, June 11^th, I went out after lunch and took the Jeep to the dealer in Pierre for an oil change. The work took about ninety minutes and then I did a quick trip to Walmart for some things that we had forgotten the other day. Jackie spent the afternoon doing some administrative stuff related to her duties as a Regional Director for Monaco International. She was sending some letters out to new coach owners and that sort of thing. After I got back from my errands we spent the rest of the day and evening in the coach.

Friday, June 12^th, we left the RV park after lunch and went out for a final day of caching and exploring Pierre. We were able to get five new finds, and two DNFs, for the afternoon. We stopped at the mall and walked the length of it just for the exercise. It is not a huge mall and the anchor stores are Penny's and Kmart. We were able to find the Folger's Simply Smooth coffee that we drink at Kmart. We have had trouble finding it at food stores recently. On the way home we stopped at KFC and let the Colonel cook us dinner.

Saturday, June 13^th, another travel day in our push towards Madison, Wisconsin. We left Pierre a little after 10:00 and started north towards Menoken, North Dakota, a little town about ten miles east of Bismarck, North Dakota, the capitol of the state. This trip was just over 200 miles, longer than we have driven recently, and about at the edge of what we like to drive in a day. This trip was all non-freeway, U.S. 83 to be exact, and was two lane road for the most part. There was very little traffic and the weather was really nice, so it was an easy, enjoyable trip that took a little over four hours. We arrived at the Prairie Breeze RV park in Menoken about 2:30 or so and in ninety minutes we were all hooked up and settled in, just in time for a series of afternoon thundershowers. All of the storms missed direct hits on us, so all we got was rain and a light show from the distant thunderstorms. We will be here near Bismarck for another five day stay and are looking forward to exploring another place we have never been.

Sunday, June 14^th, Flag Day and the 240^th Anniversary of the United States Army. We headed out from the RV park after lunch and drove into Bismarck, about ten miles west. Bismarck is the Capitol of North Dakota and the second largest city after Fargo. The population is about 62,000, significantly larger than Pierre, South Dakota's capitol. The city was founded in 1872 as a rail stop on the Northern Pacific Line and was named after the then Chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck, in hopes of attracting German investors and settlers to the area. We drove past the capitol building, which is a 19 story skyscraper and is the tallest building in the state. It does not have a dome and really doesn't resemble what most people think of as a capitol building. Locally it is known as the Skyscraper on the Prairie.

Our first stop was a laundromat, as we needed to do our laundry. After we did laundry we did a couple of geocaches, our first in North Dakota. We had two finds and one DNF before deciding to stop at Sam's Club and Walmart for some supplies. We finished everything up and were back home about 6:00 where we stayed in the rest of the night.

Monday, June 15^th, we left the coach about 12:30 and drove into Bismarck to the Bismarck-Mandan Elks Lodge for lunch. The Lodge does lunch five days a week and dinners six nights a week. It is Lodge #1199 and was chartered in 1910. They claim to be one of the largest lodges in the country with 4,500 members. They have a very nice, large building with great facilities. They have a big auditorium and ballroom, a huge bar, a very nice restaurant, exercise facilities, and large grounds. We heard they had RV parking, but didn't see them this trip. There were not very many people in the dining room for lunch and it was a buffet with one hot item, and a sandwich bar. The food was OK, but I probably wouldn't make it a regular place if I lived here. We were able to get a lodge pin for our banner since we have never visited this lodge before.

After lunch we went out to do some geocaching. We had a great afternoon, getting 14 new finds, including our number 7,100, as well as one new DNF. After caching we stopped at Sam's Club again to get a couple of clothing items that we saw yesterday. After that stop we headed back home and stayed in for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, June 16^th, my oldest daughter Tye's birthday. Happy birthday! Today is also the 45^th anniversary of the day I was sworn in as a Maricopa County Deputy Sheriff in Phoenix. Wow, time flies. It had been raining most of the night and was still raining in the morning. The forecast called for rain most of the day. No storms, just a lot of steady rain. We decided to still go out and do some exploring, trying to go to inside places. We drove into Bismarck and headed to the capitol grounds so we could go inside the capitol building. We arrived just in time to catch one of the free tours around the inside of the capitol.

The building, as I said earlier, is the tallest in the state and was opened in 1934. It was built after the original capitol building was completely destroyed by fire in December 1930. The building has an art deco motif with lots of granite, exotic woods from all over the country, and lots of polished brass. It has an understated elegance, but is clear that functionality came first in the design. We were able to go into both the Senate and House chambers since the North Dakota legislature only meets for 80 days every two years, unless the Governor calls a special session. A true “citizen legislature.” We were also able to go into the Supreme Court courtroom as there were no hearings going on. The final stop was the observation floor on the 18^th floor of the tower. It was too bad that it was so cloudy and rainy as the views must be spectacular when the weather is clear. We spent an hour or so in the building, looking at pictures and walking around.

After we left the capitol building we drove to the former Governor's Mansion, about a mile from the capitol. It is now a museum that is open to public. The site consists of a large two and one-half story, restored Victorian house and a carriage house. Constructed in 1884, it housed 20 chief executives between 1893 and 1960. There are various room exhibits featuring the restoration process, architectural style changes, and furniture used by several governors. This house was the North Dakota governors' residence from 1893 to 1960. It was built in 1884 as a private residence and sold to the state for $5,000 in 1893.

In 1975 the State of North Dakota gave the State Historical Society the house with the hope that it would operate as a historic house museum. Extensive research and restoration has been completed, restoring the house to its former appearance as it might have been in 1893. Throughout the house are restoration features which are highlighted to show visitors what work has been done. One of the more interesting of these are frames on the wall in which they

preserved the various layers of wallpaper used in the particular room. The old wallpaper was never removed, just covered over, so they are able to “drill down” to the various layers. We spent a half hour or so walking around the house, all the way up to the attic. We had also driven by the current governor's residence, which is located on the capitol grounds, and just looks like a nice, big brick ranch style home. They don't give tours of the current residence.

After the old governor's mansion we drove around downtown for a while and then stopped a big antique mall. We were shopping in there for about ninety minutes. I was finally able to find a reasonably priced example of the Jim Beam Elks decanter. When we first went full time I had both of the Jim Beam decanters dedicated to the Elks, but one of them got broken not too long after we started. I have seen a few in stores, but most wanted forty dollars or more. This one was $12, so it went home with us. When we were done with the antique store we headed back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the night.

Wednesday, June 17^th, we went out after lunch to visit the zoo. The weather forecast was for partly cloudy and cool, but no rain. The zoo in Bismarck is called The Dakota Zoo and is located on the west side of the city, adjacent to the Missouri River. The zoo was founded as a non-profit private entity in 1961 with fewer than 100 animals. Over the years additional land was donated by the City of Bismarck and the zoo now has over 600 animals of 125 species on 90 acres of land. It is still primarily supported by a non-profit foundation through donations and memberships to the zoo.

Once we got into the park we took the tram ride through the entire facility, which took about a half hour. Once we got off the tram we walked around most of the exhibits and watched the animals. Since it is spring time there were a lot of baby animals, which are always fun to watch, especially the monkey babies. The Dakota Zoo does not have some of the larger animals, such as elephants, giraffes and bears. They did have a couple of grizzlies, but no other bears. Most of their big animals are the ungulates, moose, elk, deer, antelope, and mountain sheep and goats. They do have a nice selection of big cats, Bengals, both white and regular, cougars, and bobcats. No lions though. We spent about three hours in the zoo, enjoying the animals. They also have a lot of barnyard animals for the kids (and animal lovers like us) to pet. A couple of miniature horses and donkeys, pigs and goats.

After the zoo we went to the mall and walked around for a while doing some window shopping and killing time before going to the Elks Lodge for dinner. We went into the Elks around 6:15 or so and ate in the dining room. They have an extensive menu and serve six nights a week. I had the liver and onions, which was outstanding. Jackie had the local Walleye and enjoyed it as well. We had an appetizer of chicken gizzards, which were tasty and inexpensive. We were very happy with the food, although the service left a little to be desired. I think we had a new server. We finished dinner around 8:00 and headed back to the coach, very full of food, and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Thursday, June 18^th, another travel day. We were packed up and on the road by 10:30 or so. We were traveling 87 miles east today to Jamestown, North Dakota. We had some rain showers early in the morning and a brief period of rain while on the road, but the closer we got to Jamestown the clearer it got. By the time we got to Jamestown and checked into the Jamestown Campground the sun was out and it was just partly cloudy.

Unlike many of our stops recently, we have been to Jamestown before, back in 2005, our first year on the road. We were on our way to our first FMCA rally in Minot, North Dakota, in August and we stopped here in Jamestown for a couple nights to meet up with a group of friends from Southern California. We then all traveled to Minot together, and stayed together for a couple of weeks while we toured the Black Hills after the rally. We had even stayed in this same campground on that trip.

Jamestown was founded in 1872 as a railroad stop and is the ninth largest city in North Dakota with just under 16,000 population. It is primarily an industrial and agricultural support center, having easy access to the main northern rail line. There are a couple of museums and they boast the world's largest buffalo, a huge cement structure that we have pictures of from our first visit here in 2005. We will be here for three days before moving on to Fargo, North Dakota. After we got settled in we did a Walmart run and then relaxed in the coach the rest of the day.

Friday, June 19^th, we left the coach after lunch and went out to explore and do some geocaching. We had a decent afternoon, finding nine new geocaches and two DNFs for our efforts. We also spent some time driving around Jamestown, checking out the small downtown and some of the neighborhoods. While driving around we were pleased, and surprised, to find an Elks Lodge near downtown. I say surprised because when we were here ten years ago we were with a large group of friends, all of whom were Elks. Had there been an Elks Lodge here then, I have no doubt we would have gone, and we hadn't.

We stopped at the Lodge, which is in a commercial building, to see if they had hours posted. The door was unlocked, so I went in and checked out the place. There didn't appear to be anyone around until I found the Secretary of the Lodge in her office. The bar wasn't open yet, but we talked and I told her about being here ten years ago and not seeing a Lodge. She said that was about the time the Lodge sold it's old building downtown and was without a home for a few years. She said they had been in this building for about four years. I was able to get a lodge pin for our banner from her.

We continued our touring until about 4:30, when we went back to the Elks for a drink. There were quite a few people in the bar and one of the older members, a guy named Tex, talked to us for a while. He was an old time member, former ER for a couple of terms, and he confirmed what the Secretary told me, that the lodge was closed for a while. We had a couple of drinks, one of which was on the house, and left after about an hour. We went back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the night.

Saturday, June 20^th, we went out after lunch to do some caching and exploring. We were able to get eight caches and two DNFs for the afternoon. We also spent a little time at the Frontier Fort, a tourist attraction featuring an ersatz western town, a buffalo herd, and the giant cement buffalo. We wandered through a few shops and watched their mock gunfight for a while. It was really more of a street play and it got a little boring. We ended up leaving before the lead started flying. After we got back to the coach we just relaxed the rest of the day.

Sunday, June 21^st, Happy Father's Day! Today was a travel day for us. We were packed up and on the road by 10:30, headed to Fargo, North Dakota, about 90 miles east. We arrived at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds RV park about 12:30 and got settled into a nice spot overlooking a big green field. We were originally going to stay here for five days, but when I checked in I noticed that the fee was $30 a day, but only $120 a week. Five days at the daily rate would have been $150. I paid for the week, if we decide to leave early, we still save money. We have some slack in the schedule and will probably stay for the whole week, depending on the weather. After we got setup we stayed in for the rest of the day, taking care of some home chores.

Our arrival here marks a good point to publish this episode. It has been almost two weeks since the last chapter was put up. Until next time, remember the words of well known travel writer, Rolf Potts. “Long-term travel doesn’t require a massive bundle of cash; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.” Good thing, because we can't find our massive bundle of cash. See ya soon.

Exploring the Prairie and the Northern Plains

Hello again friends. Our last episode ended on Friday, May 22nd, when we arrived in Casper, Wyoming and settled into the Fort Caspar Campground for a four day stay. Casper is the second-largest city in Wyoming, with a population of over 55,000. Casper is nicknamed "The Oil City" and has a long history of oil boom town and cowboy culture, dating back to development of the nearby Salt Creek Oil Field, starting in about 1890. The town was initially founded as a rail stop a few years before the discovery of the oil fields. The name comes from Fort Caspar, which was founded in the mid 1800's during the Indian Wars and the migration west along the Oregon Trail. The Fort was closed a few years later but the name stuck when the city was founded. I couldn't find any documentation regarding how the name became spelled with an “E” rather than an “A”. In the last 25 years there have also been significant nearby discoveries of coal and uranium which has become a big part of the local economy also.

Saturday, May 23rd, we left the coach around noon and went out for lunch, some exploring, and, of course, some geocaching. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant called Guadalajara which had been advertised in the information from the campground. It was a large, nicely decorated place that reminded me of a Garcia's or one of the other large chain places. It is a local chain with four locations in Wyoming and Colorado. The service was good and the food was plentiful and very good. I had the usual mix of enchilada, relleno and taco and the food was as good as any in Arizona or California. Jackie had machaca and she thought it was good, although perhaps slightly overcooked.

After lunch we went out to explore the downtown area and do some geocaching. We got seven new finds and one DNF before the rain started again and we continued our sightseeing in the rain. We found the Elks Lodge in a nice old brick building downtown, but unfortunately, it was closed for the entire holiday weekend, so we would not be able to visit. After an hour or so of driving around town we headed back to the coach for the rest of the day. We discovered that after the many, many days of rain we seemed to have developed a small leak in the ceiling of the coach. Not in one of the slides, but rather right in the middle of the coach. I suspect that the caulking around one of the vents or skylights has started to leak. It was not a lot of water coming in, but we had to put out some towels to keep the floor dry.

Sunday, May 24th, we had a little rain overnight, but there were actually patches of blue sky when we woke up. I went out and got a Sunday paper and we had a nice morning with the paper, the Sunday news shows and coffee. After lunch we went out with still partly cloudy skies. Our first stop was the nearby County Fairgrounds for the annual Casper Car Show. We had seen a bunch of the cars yesterday parked at a “cruise in” on one of the downtown streets, but we hadn't been able to find close parking, so we didn't stop. Today was the actual car show at the fairgrounds so we stopped and spent an hour or so walking around looking at the cars. It was the usual mix of street rods, restored old cars and newer hot cars. After the car show we set out to do some geocaching. We were able to get three new finds before the rain came down off the mountain and we had to quit. We decided to stop at Walmart before heading home to get some supplies. After Walmart we headed back to the coach where we stayed in for the rest of the day.

Monday, May 25th, Memorial Day. Although the skies were still cloudy when we got up, we hadn't had any rain all night. After lunch we went out to do some geocaching and had a pretty good afternoon. In a few hours we got a dozen new finds and one DNF. After caching we hit a couple of grocery stores, still looking for our brand of coffee. We then headed back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the evening. We only had a couple of sprinkles all day, a nice change.

Tuesday, May 26th, another travel day. We actually woke up to mostly clear skies and lots of sun. We were packed up and on the road by about 10:30, continuing north on Interstate 25 to our next destination, Buffalo, Wyoming. Buffalo is a small town on the front range of the Big Horn Mountains. It was founded in the mid 1800's mostly as a cattle town. In the late 1800's it was the center of the Johnson County war, which pitted the cattle barons, expanding their operations west from the plains, against local small ranchers and homesteaders. Today the town's economic engine is methane gas from the coal fields surrounding the area. The population of Buffalo is about 5,000. We arrived at the Deer Park RV park about 12:30 and got settled into a very nice site. We decided to just stay in and enjoy the nice weather, so we hung around the coach the rest of the day.

Wednesday, May 27th, the morning was pretty clear and there had been no rain overnight. Since it was dry I ran into town in the morning and got some caulk and went up on the roof and sealed a couple of areas I though might be the source of our small leak. We left the coach after lunch to do some exploring of Buffalo and some geocaching. We have never been to this part of Wyoming, so we were looking forward to checking out the town. The downtown is small, but very quaint. There are a dozen or so late 19th century buildings along main street and some really nice homes from that same era. Most everywhere we went in town it appeared that people took really good care of their property and it was a very nice place.

There were not a lot of caches in town, but in the course of the afternoon we were able to get seven new finds. One of them took us to the original Fort McKinney site just west of town. The site is now occupied by the Wyoming Veteran's Home and still uses the fort's original hospital building as part of the complex. One of the caches took us about ten miles south of town, out in the open range, where we got a good, close look at some of the many antelope wandering the area. We also saw a couple of deer wandering around the grounds of the RV park. After caching we headed back to the motor home and relaxed the rest of the night.

Thursday, May 28th, we woke up to another cool but fairly clear day. We went into town and had lunch at a place called Taco John's. They are a big fast food chain in this part of the country and would be comparable to Taco Bell or Del Taco. The food was OK, I would put it between Del Taco, my favorite, and Taco Bell, not so much. After lunch we drove downtown and parked and spent a couple hours in the afternoon walking around, going into antique shops and just

enjoying this very nice, small town. We went into the historic Occidental Hotel to look around. The lobby of the hotel takes you right back to the turn of the century. The hotel was established in Buffalo in 1880 in a log and lumber building. Between 1903 and 1910 the large, brick building was built that now houses the hotel. We had a good time looking at all the historic pictures on the walls of the downstairs hallways. The saloon has dozens of stuffed animals and heads on the walls and really pretty back bar. Among the guests of the Occidental have been Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, and Ernest Hemingway. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were frequent visitors as their hideout, the “Hole in the Wall” was not too far outside of Buffalo up in the Big Horn Mountains. We had an enjoyable afternoon exploring the town. After our tour we went back to to the coach and spent the rest of the evening watching TV.

Friday, May 29th, we woke up to a fairly clear day after a night of steady rain. The good thing is that there was no water in the coach, so I must have fixed the leak the other day. Yea! After lunch we went out and did our laundry. We finished about 3:00 and were going to go do some errands, but when we got everything packed in the car it wouldn't start, the battery was dead. I had noticed that it was a little slow starting the last few days, but I attributed it to the cold weather. A guy at the laundry had a big Dodge truck and he jumped us to get us started. I dropped Jackie and the laundry off at the coach and went to the NAPA store in town. They had one battery in my size, which I changed out right in front of the store. All better now. Yea again! After getting the car fixed I went back to the coach and we stayed in the rest of the evening.

Saturday, May 30th we woke up to blue skies and bright sun. Yea! Today is another travel day, so we were packed up and ready to go by about 10:00. This is the point in our travels where we make a right turn and start east again. Buffalo is at the intersection of I-25 and I-90, so we left the park and got on I-90, headed for Sturgis, South Dakota, about 185 miles east. The trip was uneventful except for the winds, which made driving tricky, and we arrived at the No Name City RV park a couple miles east of Sturgis, about 2:00. Odd name for an RV park, but a nice place with big, full hookup spots, lots of grass and a nice view of the green hills and forest across the freeway. It is close to the freeway, but there is no where near as much traffic as you find on freeways in places like California. There is also a railroad track right in front of us, but I think it is a spur line without a lot of traffic. One small train went by in the afternoon, nothing since.

Sturgis, of course, is best known for the huge motorcycle rally held usually the first full week in August. The rally began in 1938 and was originally based around riders who did stunts and held races. Over the years it has just grown into a gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts. Sturgis is a small town of less than 7,000 people, but hosts hundreds of thousands of guests during the rally. The average attendance is something over 400,000, but in 2000 there were 633,000 attendees. It is estimated that the rally brings in $800 million in revenue to the state, most along the 50 mile stretch of Interstate 90, from Spearfish to Rapid City. We will be here for five days, touring the Black Hills area. We have also never geocached in South Dakota, so it will be a new state for us. After we got setup we relaxed in the coach and let the wind blow.

Sunday, May 31st, we awoke to a bright, sunny morning and left the coach after lunch to do some exploring. We first headed for Deadwood, South Dakota, about 18 miles southwest in the Black Hills. Deadwood was founded in 1874 at the beginning of the Black Hills Gold Rush, which had it's start when General George Custer announced the discovery of Gold about 40 miles south. The town was located in Indian Territory, originally ceded to the Lakota Peoples, so it was basically lawless. The town struggled in the early 20th Century and was nearly destroyed by fire several times. It was declared a historic landmark in 1961 and in 1989 gambling was legalized in Deadwood and the town began to prosper. It is probably best known as the place where Wild Bill Hickok was killed in a local saloon in 1876. He is buried in the local cemetery, along with Calamity Jane and several other notable people of the time.

We arrived in Deadwood and went to the Deadwood Social Club for lunch. It was upstairs, over a casino in a turn of the century building. The lunch menu was somewhat limited, so I had a meatball sub and Jackie had a bison burger. I also had a cup of bison and rice soup, which was very good. The restaurant had high ratings, but we thought it was OK at best. My meatballs were tasty, but not much sauce. Jackie's burger was good, but the onion rings were greasy. It was a mixed bag, although the service was pretty good. After lunch we spent an hour or so walking around main street, checking out the casinos and doing some gaming. We didn't win anything, but had a good time.

We also did a couple of caches in Deadwood, our first South Dakota geocaches. We then went to Lead, pronounced “LEED”, the next town over which was also a gold mining town. We explored a little there and did a couple more geocaches before leaving the area and driving back to Spearfish via the Spearfish Canyon route. This scenic road goes from south of Deadwood-Lead up to Spearfish, a fairly big town on Interstate 90, about 25 miles west of Sturgis. We stopped in Spearfish to shop at Walmart, and also did a couple of caches there. We ended up with four new finds for the day. After shopping we went back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the night.

Monday, June 1st, was forecast to be the warmest day we have seen yet this year, in the low 80's. We left the coach after lunch to do some more geocaching and exploring. We cached the area around the RV park and then in towards Sturgis. I already provided some of the facts about Sturgis, but driving around town we really noticed how centered around the motorcycle culture the town is. Nearly everything in town has some reference to

motorcycles. The town has a half dozen bars, but they are HUGE. One took up an entire city block. There are also a lot of well maintained empty lots, which I am sure are there for parking during bike week. We had a good afternoon of caching, getting 14 new finds before we decided to call it a day and go back to the park. After we got back I spent a little time in the park's indoor hot tub and then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the coach.

Tuesday, June 2nd, we left the coach after lunch and drove to Rapid City, about 24 miles east of the park. Rapid City is the second largest city in South Dakota, after Sioux Falls, with about 70,000 population. The town was founded in 1876 shortly after the discover of gold in the Black Hills and is known as the “Gateway to the Black Hills.” The main economic engines are tourism, light industry and nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base, formerly one of the Midwest’s ICBM bases, now home to the B-1 strategic bomber fleet. The city is famous for the great flood of 1972 when the Rapid Creek, from which the city takes it's name, flooded after more than 15 inches of rain fell in a few hours on the watershed. More than 250 people were killed in the flooding and nearly 1,500 homes destroyed.

We spent a couple of hours driving and walking around parts of Rapid City. We also did a couple of geocaches, but mostly just played tourist. We got back to the coach about 3:30 and I went to the hot tub again for a while. Around 8:00 we started getting a series of storms coming through the area, dropping a lot of rain, but thankfully no hail. We still have no new leaks, so the rain is confined to the outside. When we went to bed it was still raining, but about two in the morning I woke up and all was quiet. Wednesday we decided to just have a stay at home day. Both of us got a few chores done and I spent a little time in the hot tub again.

Thursday, June 4th, another travel day. Today is the tenth anniversary of our moving into the motor home full time. The house closed on the 3rd of June, 2005, and we took delivery of the coach on the 4th. We had to travel from Indio to Ehrenberg, Arizona with a professional driver in the coach, to take delivery. We signed the papers in the Wendy's at the Flying J Truck Stop, the driver unhooked his car from the back of the coach, handed me the keys to the motor home, and left. I had to drive the 100 miles from Ehrenberg back to Indio on my own, after never having driven anything bigger than our 27 foot Class C. That was ten years ago and we are still happily enjoying being “homeless” with our 40 foot shopping cart.

We packed up and left the RV park in Sturgis just before 11:00 and headed east on Interstate 90 again. Our destination was Wall, South Dakota, about 77 miles away. After a stop for fuel we arrived at the Sleepy Hollow RV park in Wall about 12:30 and quickly got settled in. It was an easy drive, with no rain for a change. We are going to be here in Wall for four days. Wall is a small town of less than 800 that was founded in 1918 as a railroad stop. Today is mostly known as the gateway to the South Dakota Badlands, and Wall Drug.

This small town drugstore made its first step towards fame when it was purchased by Ted Hustead in 1931. Hustead was a Nebraska native and pharmacist who was looking for a small town with a Catholic church in which to establish his business. He bought Wall Drug, located in Wall, which then had 231 people, in what he referred to as "the middle of nowhere," and strove to make a living. Being the recession, business was very slow until his wife, Dorothy, got the idea to advertise free ice water to thirsty travelers heading to the newly opened Mount Rushmore monument 60 miles to the west. From that time on business was brisk.

Wall Drug grew into a cowboy-themed shopping mall and department store. Wall Drug includes a western art museum, a chapel, and an 80-foot brontosaurus that can be seen right off Interstate 90. Wall Drug earns much of its fame from its self-promotion. Billboards advertising the establishment can be seen for hundreds of miles throughout South Dakota and the neighboring states. In addition, many visitors of Wall Drug have erected signs throughout the world announcing the miles to Wall Drug from famous locations, treating it as a geodesic datum. By 1981 Wall Drug was claiming it was giving away 20,000 cups of water per day during the peak tourist season, lasting from Memorial Day until Labor Day, and during the hottest days of the summer. Most of Wall Drug's advertisement billboards can be found on an approximately 650-mile-long stretch of Interstate 90 from Minnesota to Billings, Montana. Wall Drug spends an estimated $400,000 on billboards every year. On our trip from Sturgis there was at least a small billboard every quarter mile.

Wall Drug still offers free ice water, but as they have become more popular, they have started to offer free bumper stickers and signs to aid in promotion, and coffee for 5 cents. Some popular free bumper stickers read "Where the heck is Wall Drug?", "How many miles to Wall Drug?", and "Where in the world is Wall Drug?".

When the United States Air Force was still operating Minuteman missile silos in the western South Dakota plains, Wall Drug used to offer free coffee and donuts to service personnel if they stopped in on their way to or from Ellsworth Air Force Base 50 miles west of Wall. Wall Drug continues to offer free coffee and a donut to honeymooners, veterans, priests, hunters, truck drivers, and other travelers. We are also close to the Badlands National Park, a Minuteman Missile Museum, and a few other interesting areas. We are looking forward to our first stay in this area. After we got setup we stayed in for the rest of the day.

Friday, June 5th, we headed out after lunch to explore Wall, South Dakota. Since the town is only four square miles, we figured we could get it done in an afternoon. First stop was, of course, the Wall Drug Store, on main street. The “store” now takes up an entire city block with what is basically a giant souvenir shop. The interior is divided into a number of different shops, western wear, western art, souvenirs, clothing, a huge restaurant, and an actual drug store, although it is only a couple hundred square feet in size. They also have lots of tourist trap things like a huge, animated T-Rex, an eight foot jackalope, a lot of stuffed game animals, and a huge collection of historic photos from the central west area.

We spent about two hours in the Wall Drug store, then walked the two block main street, looking in all the other shops that have sprung up to soak up some of the Wall Drug business. It was interesting, but this is clearly a one time thing. It's a kitschy bit of Americana that you have to see once, but only once. Jackie was sort of expecting a giant hardware store of sorts, and was a little disappointed that it was just a tourist trap.

After touring the Wall Drug, and getting a tee shirt, of course, we went out to do some caching. Surprisingly, given the tourist pull of the town, there are very few caches around. We did three in town, including one at the Wall cemetery, and one next to the giant cement brontosaurus that sits next to the freeway, courtesy of Wall Drug. We then drove some of the back roads and found some really interesting little places. We did a couple caches in the town of Quinn, about fifteen miles east of Wall. This was a little farming community of a couple hundred. We then drove to Cottonwood, South Dakota, population 12, to do another cemetery cache. We had to DNF the cache, just couldn't find it, but found the town, or what's left of it, fascinating. I had to take a picture of the old wooden church, now abandoned that looks like a prop from a horror movie. We ended up with five finds for the afternoon before heading back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Saturday, June 6th, the 71st anniversary of the D-Day invasion that marked the beginning of the end of WWII. We left the coach a little after noon for day of exploration. We started by driving about 21 miles south of Wall on Interstate 90 and stopping at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. They are housed in a brand new visitor's center at exit 131, so new it hasn't even been formally dedicated yet. The visitors center has a few exhibits and a book shop, but the real interesting sites are the preserved Launch Control Center at exit 127 and the preserved Minuteman Missile silo at exit 116. Both of these were active parts of the system in the 60's and 70's. The park service now maintains the facilities and offers free public tours. We didn't do the tour since we have already been inside one of the old Titan sites in Arizona and since they all used pretty much the same 1950's design and hardware, we didn't need to do it again.

Our next stop was the Badlands National Park, where we went in the east entrance a few miles south of the freeway, also off exit 131. This park, which covers nearly 380 square miles, was established as a National Monument in 1929 and elevated to National Park status in 1978. The park protects a hundred mile long area of eroded prairie, composed of fairly soft soils, which has been carved into a series of mesas, pinnacles, peaks and steep canyons. It was known in frontier times as “the wall” because of the way it just appears on the prairie as you approach from the south. This is how the town of Wall, where we currently are, got it's name. We stopped at the visitor's center and learned about the park, how, when and why it became the way it is. We then drove the 35 mile interior loop road that goes back northwest and eventually leads back to the town of Wall. We spent a couple of hours in the park and took a lot of very neat pictures. It is quite a sight to see.

After we got back to town we stopped at the Visitor's Center for the National Grasslands, which is similar to a national forest, but for prairie lands. There are currently twenty National Grasslands protecting nearly 4 million acres of grasslands. The one in the area around Wall is know as the Buffalo Gap Grasslands and is about 700,000 acres in size. We also stopped at the museum in Wall dedicated to the Massacre at Wounded Knee. It was a very small museum and they wanted an admission fee, so we just browsed the gift shop and left.

The actual site of the Wounded Knee Massacre is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, about 60 miles south of Wall. The Massacre occurred in 1890 when a regiment of U.S. Calvary attempted to disarm a large group of Lakota Indians. Fighting broke out and the Calvary ended up killing between 250 and 300 men, women and children. The Calvary lost about 25 soldiers in the battle. The reservation town of Wounded Knee was also the site of the 1973 standoff between Russell Means and other members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the FBI and Marshall's Service. That standoff ended after 71 days during which three people were killed and over a dozen injured in shooting incidents between the occupiers and the government. After a tribal elder was killed by a sniper the Indians called off the occupation and the government took control of the town. After our tours of the various natural and historical sights, we went back downtown and did a little more shopping before heading back to the coach for the rest of the night.

Sunday, June 7^th, we had a relaxing day at home. I went out and got the Sunday paper, the Rapid City paper, not the Wall one. I think the Wall paper only comes out once a week. We stayed in and got a few chores done and just relaxed. 

Monday was another travel day. We were packed up and on the road around 10:30, heading east on Interstate 90. Today's destination was Pierre, South Dakota, about 135 miles northeast of Wall. Pierre is the state capitol and is another place we have never been before. We will be there for five days. We arrived at the River View RV Park about 2:00, after having time traveled by passing into the Central Time Zone. This park is on a bluff about 200 feet above the Missouri River, overlooking the river and the City of Pierre on the opposite bank. We have some really nice views up here.

Our arrival here in Pierre marks a good place to close out this chapter and get it published. Until next time remember not to be so busy watching out for what's just ahead of you that you don't take time to enjoy where you are. See ya soon.

A Soggy Trip Up The Front Range

Hello again, welcome back. Our last chapter concluded on Wednesday, May 6^th, with our arrival in Monument, Colorado, just north of Colorado Springs. We arrived on a rainy, stormy day, and the forecast for the next four days doesn't look any more promising. On Thursday we spent most of the day at home, watching the rain come and go. We had about 20 minutes of pretty heavy pea sized hail that accumulated on the coach and car and looked very much like snow. We also saw on the news that further south in Colorado Springs they had very heavy small hail that closed the freeway for a while so they had to get the snow plows out.

One storm went right over the top of us in the early afternoon and there was a lightning strike VERY close. It was right outside our front window and I would have sworn it hit inside the RV park, but I talked to one of the workers a little later and he said they didn't find any evidence that it hit in the park. We did lose all electric power, however. We did go out during one break in the action to Walmart and the local Safeway, looking for coffee since we are running low and are having trouble finding the Folger's Simply Smooth brand that we use. After we got back to the park we played cards for a couple of hours since we didn't want to put too much strain on our batteries by running the TV. We didn't know how long the power would be out. As it was, the power came back on about 4:00 and we were up and running again.

The storms continued to come and go throughout the evening and night. About 1:30 in the morning I woke up and noticed that the lights that we leave on at night in the living room were flashing. I also noticed that the monitor panels for our inverter and power system were flashing and giving weird indications. I also heard a very loud rattling or clicking noise coming from outside by the power box. I threw on some pants and shoes and went outside and found the noise coming from the area of the power box. It was raining pretty hard, but I shut off the breakers and the noise stopped. I went back into the coach and the power was back to normal, although running off of the inverter now since the shore power was off. I knew we had plenty of battery capacity to get us through the night, no different than dry camping, so I shut off all the unnecessary lights and appliances and went back to bed.

The next morning, Friday, I was up early and went outside to do some trouble shooting. It didn't take long to discover that the noise was actually being made by our surge protector that we use between the RV park power box and the coach. We bought that surge protector not too long after we bought the coach, so it is at least nine, maybe close to ten years old and has been in constant service. I guess it just gave up the ghost. I got my multi-meter out and checked the voltages in the power box just to be sure everything was OK, and it was, so I plugged the coach directly into the power and everything worked perfectly. Fortunately, the malfunction of the surge protector didn't cause any damage in the coach.

I was not comfortable not having a surge protector, especially with all the thunderstorms we have been having and that are forecast to continue. So I started making some calls and found that Camping World in Colorado Springs had the one I need on sale. We had lunch and then got in the car and drove the 30 miles to Camping World and bought a new $400 surge protector. The drive down on the freeway was kind of wet, with a lot of rain showers, but the drive back was fairly clear and by 3:00 I had the new surge protector plugged in and we were protected again. Yea! We spent the rest of the day in the coach, watching the storms come and go.

Saturday, May 9^th, the forecast was for another round of storms today, so we decided to just stay in. We had rain most of the morning and the first part of the afternoon, but by about 2:00 it turned to snow and we started getting some good accumulation. Within a couple of hours the satellite TV went out as the snow built up. At least we can still watch recorded programs for a few days before the receiver resets and won't work at all without a signal. I setup my 100 watt light bulb that serves as my freeze warmer inside the water compartment and filled the water tank so we could use the internal water and disconnect the hose in case it freezes. It is supposed to get below freezing tonight, but not by much, only 29 or 30 in the early morning hours. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching the snow build up. We played some cards and watched some TV and just relaxed. At least once the snow started it was too cold for any thunderstorms, so the weather died down. There were a couple of tornadoes in Colorado, maybe fifty miles from us, but nothing that was threatening to us.

Sunday, May 10^th, Happy Mother's Day. Not much of a holiday for us since both are mothers are gone and Jackie never had kids, but I hope all the other mothers out there had a great day. We woke up to about four inches of beautiful snow coating everything, but relatively clear skies. We took some pictures and enjoyed the beauty, only pretty because we knew that we didn't have to go anywhere, and it was going to be all gone when we did have to move. We spent the day in the coach, played some cards and watched a movie we had recorded on the DVR.

By early afternoon the snow on the sat dish had melted off and we had TV again. I did make an ugly little snowman on the picnic table next to the coach. Can't have snow without a snowman. By sundown most of the snow was gone and we were back to just wet. The forecast had called for possible showers today, but nothing materialized and we had the first dry day in a while. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly clear and we may be able to get out for a while.

Monday, May 11^th, we finally awoke to clear skies after a pretty cold night. The forecast calls for a couple of days without rain. The last of the snow is melting and it now looks like we never had four inches on the ground. We left the coach after lunch and went shopping. We ended up at a King Soopers market, which, based on it's internal styling and the Kroeger house brand, is Colorado's version of a Fry's market. After our shopping we did four geocaches, or first caching since arriving in Monument six days ago. We then headed home and stayed in for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, May 12^th, we left the coach around noon and drove down to the northern fringe of Colorado Springs to have lunch with our friends Jim and Pat Goetzinger. Jim and Pat are fellow full timers, with about 11 years of travel under their belts, and we met them at a rally about seven or eight years ago. They are retired school teachers from New Mexico, but they always spend some time in Colorado Springs because their two daughters live here. When we were last in the area in 2011 we met Jim and Pat for lunch also.

We met at a place called the Colorado Mountain Brewery. It was a nice place with an interesting menu. Lots of bison dishes and some interesting pairings, like bison poppers and bison chili. I had a bowl of the bison chili and it was wonderful. I had the prime rib dip with fries, which was also very good. Jackie had a bison burger and was only able to finish half of it, taking the other half home. The only down side was that this is a brewery, featuring it's own craft brews, but when I ordered their version of a Heisenberg I was told that they were changing kegs. An hour later they were STILL changing kegs. I ended up getting one of their blond ales, which was OK. At least they didn't charge me for it. Later, about the time the food got to the table, they finally brought me a Heisenberg, also on the house. At least it was a good beer.

We ate and chatted with the Goetzingers for about an hour before we left the restaurant and went out to enjoy the clear weather and do some geocaching. In a couple of hours we had scored eight new finds, along with one DNF. After caching we went back to the coach for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, May 13^th, moving day. At least we woke up to sunshine again with only a 30 percent chance of showers and minimal chance of thunderstorms. We were hooked up and on the road by 10:30, and back on Interstate 25, headed to Westminster, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. It was only a 60 mile trip, but traffic was bad, there was a lot of construction, and I had to stop at an urban Pilot truck stop for fuel. Getting in and out of the truck stop was a bear. We then got to the street I am supposed to turn on to get to the Westminster Elks Lodge, our destination, and it was closed for construction. We had to call the lodge to get alternate directions. I was pretty stressed out when we finally got to the lodge. They did have a water and electric site available, which is all we have ever had in the past, and we were in and parked by about 1:30 or so. They do have some 50 amp full hookup sites here, but the lodge has no stay limits, and all of the premium spots are taken by people who come in early and stay all summer. We got all setup for our five day stay here in the Denver area and relaxed in the coach for the rest of the day and evening.

Thursday, May 14^th, we left the coach about noon and drove to the south side of Denver to the Bagel Deli for lunch. We had eaten at this great Jewish deli in 2011 when we were here and the food was outstanding. The place had been featured on the TV show Diners, Drive ins, and Dives. This time we both had versions of a pastrami sandwich. We also had an appetizer of chopped liver and I had a cup of chicken soup. A real Jewish meal. The food was just as good as last time.

After lunch we went to a laundry to wash clothes. Once the clothes were done we headed back to the coach, stopping for one geocache on the way. We had a couple of brief bouts of rain, nothing serious, but the forecast calls this on and off afternoon sprinkles for the rest of the weekend. After we got home we relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Friday, May 15^th, Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife Jackie! And, it's also our baby cat Benji's birthday. He turned three today. Jackie did not. After lunch we went out to do some geocaching. We got in three new finds, including number 7,000, before the rain started again. We decided to do a couple of Elks Lodge visits, since most are not open on weekends and we didn't want to cache in the rain. We drove to the Denver Lodge, Number 17. We had last been in this lodge back in 2008. We got there right after opening time and were the only one's in the building besides the bartender. He was actually the Exalted Ruler of the lodge and was filling in for the bartender who was sick.

The ER's name was Ron and we sat and chatted with Ron over a couple of Cokes for close to an hour. He took us on a tour of the lodge and we saw one of the most magnificent dedicated Lodge rooms we have seen. In their Lodge Room they have about 3 million dollars worth of 19^th century stained glass from the original downtown Denver lodge building. Ron told us some interesting stories about his past. He was an Alaskan State Trooper, a Denver cop, a drug enforcement agent, fire chief and a few other things.

After the Denver Lodge visit we went to the nearby Lakewood Elks, another Lodge we had visited in 2008. We had a cocktail there and visited with the bartender and a couple of the members. They were unable to get us a lodge pin because they couldn't get into the display case, no one had the right key. We did have an old pin on the banner from this lodge, so it was not a big deal. After visiting Lakewood Lodge we started towards home. We stopped at a Safeway store for a couple of things and were able to get another couple of cache finds, bringing the total for the day to five. The weather in the immediate area was cloudy with sprinkles, but to the east and north there were some severe storms, including a couple of small tornadoes. Fortunately, most of the tornadoes in Colorado don't form until they get a few miles out on the prairie to the east of the Denver metro area.

After a brief rest at the coach we went down to the Westminster Lodge, where we are staying, for dinner. We both had the New York steak entree, which was wonderful. We also each had a piece of very good cheesecake to celebrate Jackie's birthday. After dinner we went into the bar for a couple hours for some drinks and karaoke. They had a very long rotation, so I only got one song in, but we had a good time listening to the singers and talking with some of the people at the bar. About 9:00 we left and went back to the coach for the rest of the night. A very fun day.

Saturday, May 16^th, we left the coach after lunch to do some more exploring and geocaching. We were only able to go after a couple of caches before the rain started coming down again. We switched to sightseeing mode and drove downtown to look around. We thought that the weekend would be better for driving around downtown, but there was still a lot of traffic and a lot of construction going on. We had a major driving rainstorm while we were touring, but after an hour or so it cleared up. We continued just randomly driving around Denver, looking at neighborhoods. We did a couple of geocaches, and stopped at a Costco that we happened to pass. We ended up with only two new finds and three DNFs for the afternoon. We finally got back home around 5:00 and just stayed in for the rest of the evening.

Sunday, May 17^th, we had a nice Sunday paper and coffee morning and decided to just stay in for the day. We didn't have any rain, although the skies were cloudy for much of the day. About 4:00 I decided to take the sun screens off the windows since they were dry, just in case it rained overnight. I don't like putting the shades away wet. As it turned out, we had rain a couple hours later, so, good decision.

Monday, May 18^th, we were packed up and on the road about 10:30, still heading north on Interstate 25, this time to Cheyenne, Wyoming, about 100 miles to the north of Denver. The skies were overcast for the whole trip, but we never got more than a few sprinkles on the trip. We arrived at the A-B Campground in Cheyenne about 12:30 and were parked and setup by 1:30. We had a quick lunch and went out to do some exploring, since it still wasn't raining. We spent a couple hours driving around downtown and the Capital area. We also stopped to get one geocache since we were not sure how much caching we would get done here. The weather for our stay is supposed to be cold and wet. After sightseeing we went to Walmart for some supplies and then back home for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, May 19^th, woke up to more rain and cold. It's only supposed to be in the low 40's today and rain on and off all day. Some of the forecasts even call for snow flurries. I went out after lunch on a mission to find an electric space heater. Jackie didn't

want to leave her warm couch. We had no idea we were going to run into these kinds of temperatures this late in spring. We are running low on propane and I thought if I could find a small space heater it would let us stay warm in the living room without having to run the furnaces. If we run out of propane we will have to pack up the coach and drive somewhere to get refilled. I would rather be able to get by until Friday when we leave here and can stop and get propane.

I stopped at Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, Target, and Bed, Bath and Beyond and no one had any heaters. Everyone had fans and air conditioners, but no heaters. I guess this is warm for this part of the country. I was able to get some new wood blocks for our jacks from Lowes. I have been looking for some new ones since the ones I am now using have gotten wet and are not very useful anymore. Our jack pads are only about eight inches around so I use two foot square pieces of three quarter inch plywood as jack pads to keep them from sinking into soft ground, or hot asphalt as has happened in the past. After I got home we just stayed in for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, May 20^th, we woke up to 33 degree cool with cloudy skies, again. We decided that we needed to get out of the coach no matter what, so we bundled up nice and warm and left about noon to go out and have lunch. The highly rated local place we went to was closed until next month, so we ended up at the local Outback. We had a very nice, filling lunch, and then went out to do some shopping and caching. We went to the indoor mall, more to get exercise than anything else, and walked around the mall for a couple of hours. We did a few geocaches, ending up with four new finds for the day, and then headed for home. On the way we passed a pawn shop and decided to stop in just on the chance they might have a small electric heater. Well, they had a dozen or so. We ended up with one that still had the box and operating manual and looked brand new, although the original receipt inside the box said they bought it in 2005. We got it for $12 and took it home and we now have a little heat source. It doesn't heat the whole coach, but it works for the small area we are in during the evening and we don't have to worry about running out of propane now. We stayed in for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, May 21^st, it was again cold in the morning, only in the low 40's. The forecast called for rain again, but all we had in the morning was fog. We went out after lunch for some last minute caching and such. We were able to get five new finds, and one DNF, before we decided it was a little too cold. Unlike earlier cold days, today there was a pretty stiff breeze the accentuated the cold. After caching we went back to the mall and we both got haircuts. Jackie gets one about every month or so, I was about six months since my last trim. After our haircuts we headed home and stayed in the rest of the night.

Friday was another travel day and we were closed up and ready to go by about 10:00. It was cold, in the mid 40's, and raining, which didn't make for a pleasant preparation time. We were back on I-25 again, heading north and a little west to Casper, Wyoming. The trip was 168 miles, one of our longer recent trips, and it rained for nearly the entire time. However, there wasn't much traffic and the roads were good, so it really wasn't a bad trip. Except, our older cat Smokey had a bout of motion sickness near the end and made a bit of mess in several areas of the coach. Gave us a little something extra to do when we were getting set up.

We arrived at the Fort Caspar Campground around 2:00 after a stop for fuel and propane just outside Casper. The campground is located inside a State park, but it is a private operation. We got a nice full hookup pull through site and the weather was nice enough to stop the rain for at least as long as it took me to get us hooked up and settled in. By the time we got settled in it was nearly 4:00, so we just stayed in the coach the rest of the day. The decision was helped by the fact that the rain started again and it was pretty wet.

We are here in Casper for another four day stay. This is our first time in this town, so we are looking forward to exploring, doing some caching and enjoying new things. This is also a good place to publish this chapter, since it has been just a little over two weeks. Until the next time, remember the words of author and entrepreneur James Altucher. “Learning to find happiness with less is true wealth. Ultimately, we are the sum of our experiences, and not the sum of our belongings.” See ya soon.

Standing on the Corner in Winslow, Arizona, and Other Fun Stuff

Hello readers, glad you're back. Our last chapter concluded on Thursday, April 23^rd on our last day in Camp Verde Arizona. On Friday we packed up and left Camp Verde about 10:30. I was a little concerned about the weather since there was a storm front moving through the area and there were predictions of rain and even some sleet in Flagstaff. Flagstaff is over 7,000 feet, so there is always the threat of ice if it gets cold enough. We are not staying in Flagstaff, only passing through on the way to Winslow, which is only 5,000 feet elevation. The biggest problem on the trip was the wind, which was blowing about 20 mph with gusts to 40 along I-40 out of Flagstaff.

We did run into some rain, heavy at times, on the way up the hill to Flagstaff, but by the time we got to Flagstaff we were in partly cloudy, mostly sunny skies and we did fine. We arrived at the Homolavi State Park campground, just north of Winslow, Arizona, about 12:30 or so and quickly setup camp. We only have water and power, 50 amp, but we are only here for three days so sewer is not an issue. This is the first time we have ever been to this park. It is quite barren, sitting on the high prairie that marks most of northeast Arizona. There are not too many other RVs in the park, but we were greeted by a park volunteer who checked us in. The wind is blowing up here too, so we didn't put anything outside, not even the sun screens. It is supposed to rain on Sunday and I don't like the

screens being put away wet when we leave on Monday. After we got setup we just had a relaxing afternoon, watched some TV and I made a pot of chili for dinner. We will go out tomorrow to explore a little.

Saturday, April 26th, we woke up to partly cloudy skies, morning temps in the low 50's and lots of wind. The wind blew all night and I expect it will blow all day too. We left the coach after lunch to go out and do some exploring and geocaching. We first went to the Visitor's Center for the State Park we are staying in to see what it was all about. Homolavi State Park was founded in 1986 to help preserve and study over 300 Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites. Homolavi a Hopi word meaning "place of the little hills". The Homolavi cluster of archaeological sites includes seven separate pueblo ruins built by various prehistoric people, including ancestors of the Hopi people, between approximately 1260-1400 AD. This fertile area is on a floodplain of the Little Colorado River, and the inhabitants grew cotton, corn, beans, and squash. The visitor's center was interesting, but we learned that the sites are actually little more than ruins, piles of rock, and we have been to better preserved pueblo sites before. Given the cold and wind we decided to forgo visiting any of the ruins today.

We then drove down into old town Winslow. Although we have been through the town many times over the last ten years, we haven't really spent any time here. Winslow was incorporated in 1900 as a rail stop on the Sante Fe line. It sits an an elevation just under 5,000 feet and has a population of just under 10,000. Winslow was located on the famous Route 66 cross country highway, and the main street of town reflects this history with dozens of old motels, eateries, shops and ersatz Indian trading posts. Some of these buildings are still in use, many are barely standing ruins.

Although Winslow missed out in being named in the lyrics of the song Route 66, it does make a big deal of being a part of the 1972 Eagles song, “Take it Easy.” “Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. Such a fine sight to see. It's a girl my Lord, in a flat bed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me.” There is now a park in old town called “Standing on the Corner” with a bronze statute of a guy with a guitar and a big mural depicting a Ford flatbed truck reflecting in a shop window. In one of the second floor windows shown in the painting is a large Eagle. There is also an actual restored red 60's model one-ton Ford flatbed truck parked at the curb next to the park. In the middle of the nearby intersection is a large “Route 66” shield incorporated into the pavement. Of course, we had to take our pictures at the park. We also visited a couple of the souvenir shops nearby.

After “standing on the corner,” we started doing some geocaching, and actually, the park had a virtual cache and was our first find of the day. We ended up with 13 new finds and no DNFs for the afternoon. Two of the caches were located at the historic La Posada Hotel. The La Posada was the last of the famous Fred Harvey railroad hotels to be built. Harvey began partnership with the Santa Fe Railroad in 1876. He started by opening eating houses along the railroad. At its peak, there were 84 Harvey Houses, all of which catered to wealthy and middle-class visitors alike and Harvey became known as "the Civilizer of the West." Harvey also gained a boost in business with his incorporation of the "Harvey Girl". He hired women between the ages of 18 and 30 and did not permit them to marry until they had put in a full year of work. Harvey Girls resided in housing adjacent to the restaurants, where they were supervised by the most senior Girl, who enforced curfews and chaperoned male visits. Roughly 5000 Harvey Girls moved out West to work and ultimately marry. The corporation also built more than a dozen large, luxurious hotels at various stops along the Sante Fe line.

The La Posada opened May 15, 1930, just after the stock market crash of 1929, and remained open for just 27 years. In 1957, the hotel closed to the public. The museum-quality furnishings were auctioned off in 1959. In the early 1960s, much of the building was gutted and transformed into offices for the Santa Fe Railway. Several times over the ensuing 40 years, the building was nearly demolished, as recently as 1994 when the railway announced its plans to move out for good. The building received protection from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and was finally purchased by a private company from the railroad and was completely restored and reopened in 1997 as a full service, luxury hotel. It also still serves as Winslow's Amtrack station. We walked around the public rooms and grounds of the hotel for a while before continuing our caching.

After our caching adventures we went to the local Walmart for some supplies, then headed back to the coach for the rest of the night. Sunday we had a stay at home day. The weather called for possible rain most of the day and we did have some on and off rain showers. We got a few chores done, but mostly just relaxed.

Monday, April 27^th, we finally woke up to clear skies and light winds. It was another travel day and we were packed up and on the road by 10:30. We headed east on Interstate 40 towards Gallup New Mexico, about 120 miles. The trip was uneventful except that the further east we went the more clouds we encountered and the winds picked up some too. The trip only took a couple of hours, however, when we crossed the border from Arizona to New Mexico we lost an hour as we entered the “actual” Mountain Time Zone as opposed to Arizona Mountain Time, which is the same as Pacific Time during the summer. Arizona does not do daylight savings time. We got settled into the USA RV Park in Gallup, New Mexico, a place we have stayed numerous times in the past. We decided that we didn't need to do anything today, so we just spent the rest of the day in the coach.

Tuesday, April 28^th, we went out after lunch and did laundry. After laundry we did one geocache, just so we would have somewhere to visit all our travel bugs in Gallup, and then went to Home Depot to get some light bulbs for one of our fluorescent lights. We then went back to the coach for the rest of the night. Wednesday was another travel day. We left Gallup around 10:30 or so and got back on Interstate 10 heading east to Albuquerque, New Mexico, about 140 miles. We made a fuel stop about 20 miles out of Gallup, but the rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived at the Enchanted Trails RV park on the west edge of Albuquerque about 1:00. We have stayed in this park before and they have a couple of their sites setup as kind of an RV museum with some nice old restored late 40's cars and some vintage trailers that are also restored. We decided to stay in the rest of the day and we just got some chores done and relaxed.

Thursday, April 30^th, we left the RV park about 11:30 and went out to do some exploring in Albuquerque. We first went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Sophie's Place. This was a restaurant that was featured in the Food Network program, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We watch the show and like to visit some of the featured restaurants from time to time. This one was a little bit of a disappointment. It was a pretty dumpy taquaria that didn't even have a sign outside. It did appear to be pretty popular with the locals and there were a lot of shirt and tie types in there for lunch. The feature dish on Triple D had been duck enchiladas, but nothing on the menu about those. Jackie had fish tacos and I had carne asada. The meals came with beans, rice and a little salad, but you had to pay extra for chips and salsa. Everything was OK, but a little bland, especially for New Mexican cuisine which tends to the hot side normally. I will say you get a lot and everything is freshly made, including the chips.

After lunch we did some geocaching. We had a good afternoon, getting eleven new finds with no DNFs. We ended up in Old Town and we spent an hour or so walking around shopping and sightseeing. As many times as we have been to Albuquerque we never went to Old Town before. It was very nice and reminded me of the Old Town area of Sante Fe. After our great afternoon we went back to the RV park and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Friday, May 1^st, Happy May Day. We left the coach after lunch to run some errands. Jackie had cleaned out her shirt closet the other day, so we first went to the Goodwill store and dropped off a bag of shirts. We then went to Costco to buy some vodka. We still have a couple bottles in stock, but Jackie brought to my attention that we should check the liquor laws for the next couple states to see if spirits can be bought at the grocery store. As it turns out, Colorado and Wyoming, the next two states on our travels, both have very restrictive liquor laws, which always means higher prices. New Mexico is very permissive, but the next permissive state we go to is North Dakota and that's a month away. So, we bought a six pack of vodka at Costco, which will certainly hold us until the next permissive state.

After Costco we did a quick run to the Post Office and then did a couple of geocaches. We had three new finds and one DNF. We then went to Walmart before heading back to the coach. About 5:00 the winds came up and it looked like we might get a storm, but nothing came around and we had a quiet night watching TV.

Saturday, May 2^nd, our next travel day. We were packed up and pulling out of the Enchanted Trails RV park about 10:30. We were traveling about 125 miles north to the little town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. We have stayed here several times before because it is a convenient stop between Albuquerque and points north in Colorado. The trip went OK except that it was a long grade out of Sante Fe and the coach was getting a little hot until I slowed down some. We made it to the KOA campground in Las Vegas just before 1:00 and quickly got checked in, parked and setup for our two day stay here. We are at about 6,200 feet, so I don't see us doing a whole lot while we are here.

Sunday, May 3^rd, we went out after lunch to do some exploring of Las Vegas and a little geocaching. We spent a couple of hours driving around town, checking neighborhoods and enjoying the sightseeing. We also picked up three geocaches, two of which were cemetery caches, although they were on the edges, not inside. This is a very Hispanic area and that culture is really into decorating grave sites. We spent half an hour driving around inside one of the cemeteries checking out all the fencing, lighting and flowers that are on many of the graves. After our tour of town we stopped at Walmart for some supplies and picked up some chicken from the Colonel for dinner and then headed home for the rest of the night.

Monday, May 4^th, Star Wars Day! (May the 4^th be with you) Another travel day for us. We packed up and left Las Vegas, New Mexico about 10:00 and headed north on Interstate 25. After going over the 7,832 foot Raton Pass we entered the State of Colorado. We only went about ten miles into Colorado before exiting and stopping at the Cawthon RV Park in Trinidad, Colorado. We had run into a little rain in northern New Mexico, but it was just a very light drizzle when we checked into the RV park. We got our spot and I no sooner got the utilities hooked up and the coach leveled and the skies opened up. We heard a little thunder and we had some small hail for about ten minutes. After that it was just on and off rain for the rest of the day. About sunset it cleared some and we had a little bit of blue sky and some sun, but the forecast says the rain isn't over. Because of the weather, the altitude and the fact that it was a travel day, we just stayed in the rest of the day and listened to the rain on the coach. Thankfully, still no leaks so we are dry inside. Before I got the leak in the slide fixed a few months back we would have had to pull the kitchen slide in for the rain and we would not have been able to have it out for about a week now.

Tuesday, May 5th, Happy Cinco De Mayo. We decided to celebrate Cinco De Mayo by having some Mexican food for lunch. We went to a place about a mile from the park that we had seen on the way in yesterday called El Rancho. The place had quite a few cars outside, so we were hopeful. Inside was quite strange. It was a very old, stone building and the inside looked like an old nightclub, big dance floor, stage in the corner, and a bar. The restaurant was way over in the far corner and very small. The rest of the place looked abandoned. There were quite a few people in the place, including one big party, so we thought it must be popular with the locals. As it turned out, I don't know why. We both ordered a combo lunch with an enchilada, a taco and a chili relleno. That is kind of our “go to” dish in new restaurants. I had wanted a burro, but the waitress told me the beef burro was ground beef, and I don't care for ground beef burros. It turned out the taco was ground beef also and very tasteless. The enchilada was OK, the chili relleno was deep fried, very small, and the red sauce was very hot. Jackie had the green sauce, which was even hotter. She couldn't eat the enchilada. It turns out they smother mediocre food in super hot sauce and hope no one notices. They didn't even have any chips and salsa. They ran out – on Cinco De Mayo! Never be back to that place again.

After lunch we went out to do some exploration of Trinidad and some geocaching. It was sprinkling on and off, but we still got four caches. One of the caches was located near an old, abandoned coal mining town called Ludlow, about ten miles north of Trinidad on Interstate 25. There is a monument there commemorating the 1914 Ludlow Massacre. The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Some two dozen people, including women and children, were killed.

The massacre, the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulted in the violent deaths of at least 26 people. Reported death tolls vary but, all include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent in what was later called the “death pit.” The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, lasting from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF).  The picture is one that is on the memorial and shows the Colorado National Guard machine gun pit situated on a hill top overlooking the miner's camp.

In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg. The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives and is often described as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States". The monument was erected by the union and was quite interesting to see. There were a number of plaques with the story of the strike and the massacre. We also drove around Trinidad for a while and got a couple of caches in town too. After caching we headed back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, May 6^th, we woke to cloudy skies, but no rain. This was another travel day and we were packed up and ready to go by a little after 10:00. We started north on Interstate 25 again, this time headed about 150 miles to Monument, Colorado. Monument is a small town at the north edge of Colorado Springs. The exit we take to get off the freeway is just a few miles north of Air Force Academy, which we visited when were last here in 2011. We got settled into the Monument Heights RV Resort pretty quickly. This is one of our Resorts of Distinction membership parks, so we stay here for free. We did have to pay $5 a day to get one of the 50 amp sites, but it was worth it. We are going to be here for a whole week, our longest stay since we left Camp Verde. We have nice site on a mesa that overlooks the surrounding hills and mountains. It would be really nice if it wasn't so cloudy and rainy. We had a bit of rain after we got checked in and setup, but not too much. It is supposed to be quite stormy for the next few days, so we are prepared to batten down the hatches.

It has been a couple weeks since we published, so this change of location marks a good spot to close this chapter of the blog. We will publish in another couple of weeks, so stay tuned. Until next time, remember that to create more positive results in your life, replace 'if only' with 'next time'. See you soon.