WeAreLivingTheDream.us

Hello Everyone,

We are back home with friends and family in the Great Pacific Northwest, where we’re fortunate to have hit the weather just right as the temperatures have been in the 80s with unlimited sunshine every day since our return. Yahoo!!

What we Learned from Our Trip:

• Nick and I can live in the 5th Wheel and really like the simple lifestyle. We were 70+ days on the road and loved the adventure and exploration that comes with RV travel.
• Even with all the electronic gear which allowed us to keep in touch, we still missed family and friends at home.
• There are an infinite number and variety of interesting historic, natural, and other sites to visit and learn about in the good ol’ USA, many of which are not in the tourist guides. You just come across them as part of exploring a town or area.
• There are many more trips in our future.

What we Would Do Differently Next Time:

• We will RV to the Midwest only in the spring or fall months. I’m just putting you all on notice that in the future, we will fly to family events scheduled during the heat of the summer – June  to August. We were reminded of this even though we were lucky to have had full-RV air conditioning or had lovely fully air conditioned accommodations at the homes of friends and family
  we stayed with. We knew the heat was crushing; we just forgot how overwhelming it can be in the excitement of planning the trip.
• We will try to avoid hard-stop days in our RV travel itinerary. They result in having to move on from an area before we’ve seen and done everything we’d like in order to be at a designated location on a certain date. Having to continue to move on before we were ready was frustrating at times but it also means we will just have to go back on another trip.

Information about the Visitors to This Blog Site:

• There were a total of 554 unique visitors to the site. That number is a little misleading since the number of unique visitors starts over at 0 each month in the analytics program for this blog. The highest month for number of unique visitors was June at 226. Not a bad number, eh?
• There were a total of 2,688 visits to the site. Also a misleading number since the number of visits starts over each month. The highest month for number of unique visits was June at 1,035. Also, a good indicator you all kept up with the blog updates.
• There were a total of 16,362 pages read on the site, so you not only visited the site often, you also read all the update pages. June led the pack again with 7,321 pages read that month.
• Not all of the site visitors were from the USA, although the largest number of hits by far were from the US (1009 hits). Site visitors were also from Canada, Germany(old friends from Germany days?), Turkey (spammers?), Russia (cosmonauts from the ISS?), and a bunch of small, Eastern European countries (who knows?).

Mostly, we really want to thank everyone for sharing our RV adventures this year, and making an effort to stay in contact with us. It was a great experience for Nick and I, made even better because we could share so much of it with you all.

We can’t wait to experience all of the stops on the Lewis and Clark Trail, the Civil War battlefields, the Oregon and Mormon Trails, the American Indian reservations, the remainder of the National Parks and Monuments, the Canadian Provincial Parks, the fall colors in the Northeast…(the list is long and each stop worthy of attention and focus).

Til next time, much love and safe travels.

July 31 to August 1 – Nebraska City, Nebraska

So here we are in Nebraska City, Nebraska, where I’m working Monday and Tuesday.  The city is located in the eastern-most part of the state, less than 3 miles across the Missouri River from Iowa. But it might as well be 300 for all the ability folks have for getting from here to there. The Missouri  continues to flood this part of the country, closing Interstates and secondary roads from Omaha, NE to St. Joseph, MO, with some places under 50 feet of water.

We viewed the flooding from several different places, and were amazed at the extent of the flooding and damage to crops and farms. Projections are the roads won’t be open for months after the flood waters fall since the road infrastructures have been severely damaged. This flooding is still the result of the wet spring weather across the northern plains and is a continuation of the flooding we all heard about on the news back in May and June of this year.

This is, or was, one of the major interstates between Iowa and Nebraska.

After all of the visiting with family and friends for the past month, I was surprised at how quickly we got back into what we love doing most when we travel – which is to find the oldest event, place, or person in the area we are visiting and learn as much about that person or activity as possible.  This was easy to do in Nebraska City since it was established on the Nebraska prairie in the early 1800’s, is on the history-laden Missouri River, and is on the Lewis and Clark expedition trail.

We chose a couple of the town’s highlights to explore – the Missouri River Basin Lewis and Clark Interpretive Trail and Visitor Center and the Morton Mansion, also known as the Arbor Lodge.

Each of the Lewis and Clark centers along the Lewis and Clark trail specializes in a particular aspect of their “Corps of Discovery” journey. The center in Nebraska City is designed to show the flora, fauna, and scientific discoveries made on the journey. Since the expedition is known for the identification of several new species and the documentation of all plant and animal life seen on the journey, we thought it was pretty cool that we were able to see this particular center. Among other artifacts, the center also had a life-size replica of the keelboat used on their travels. Hard to imagine traveling the distance they traveled on these keelboats. The center whets our appetite for traveling the entire trail – a goal for another trip!

The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center

Everybody outta have an elk this size in their living room, don't you think?

The Morton Mansion was another pleasant find in Nebraska City. It was the home of J. Sterling and Caroline Morton, who came to Nebraska in the 1850’s when Morton became editor of the “Nebraska City News”. For 50 years they built and added onto their home on the treeless prairie until it grew into a 52-room neo-colonial mansion that housed their 4 sons and was a shining example of the Victorian style of living and furnishings on the prairie.

The side entrance to the mansion.

This drive started as treeless prairie.

Just a portion of the magnificant staircase.

One of the many guest rooms in the mansion.

More importantly, J. Sterling was Secretary of Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland, at a time when that office held significantly more power than it does today, and along with his wife, was an ardent nature lover. Missing the trees they were used to in Maine and Michigan, they started planting acres of trees and shrubs on their land. The 160 acre state currently has over 260 species of native American trees, as well as some not found elsewhere in the region, and is a beautiful park full of various gardens and trails. J. Sterling is also the founder of Arbor Day – and thanks to J. Sterling and Caroline’s efforts, millions of trees have been planted in the US over the years. Every April Nebraska City kicks into high gear with their Arbor Day celebrations and the city has several institutions devoted to the planting and preservation of trees.

Oh, and if the name Morton sounds familiar, J. Sterling and Caroline’s oldest son, Joy Morton, went on to found the Morton Salt Company. When it rains, it pours….

On Wednesday, as we left Nebraska City, Nick and I decided that the “states visited” map we have on the side of the RV had a very big hole in it because, although we’d gone just about all the way around the state of Iowa, due to the flooding, we hadn’t actually been IN Iowa. Nothing more to be done about that than to head north about 50 miles to a bridge that wasn’t closed, cross the Missouri into Iowa about 20 miles, fix ourselves some lunch in Glenwood, IA, then turn around and run back to I80 between Omaha and Lincoln. OK, that problem solved.

We continued our journey across Nebraska and into Wyoming, both of which have incredible history to share, with the Lewis and Clark, Oregon, California, and Mormon trails all running together across the two states, not to mention frontier US Army forts, and Pony Express routes. We stopped at a few sites – and know there are many more to see next time.

Finally, some of you have been asking, how’s Tucker? In a word, great. Absolutely doesn’t like the hot weather, and if we lived in these climes, he’d be shorn frequently, but A/C works wonders for him as well. Pictures, you say? Then pictures you shall have.

"I'm Just A Travelin' Man, A Travelin' Man"

"On The Road Again"

Still to come – The Pony Express, The Wyoming Territorial Prison, and Fort Bridger. I know, I know. I can feel your excitement from here.

Obviously, more later, but until then, much love.

Well, it’s been some time since we’ve posted, and I’ve already used the “it’s sooooo hot” excuse, so I’ll tell you the little secret I discovered about blogs. They’re wonderful for keeping everyone up to date, and for posting pics, and all that, but they also require more attention and devotion to that effort than I’d realized. And it’s way too easy to say, I’ll do it later, and then never do it. What with the visiting, and BBQing, and card playing, and on and on, putting off blog updates got easier and easier. And for that, I apologize.

So, my intention here is to get us caught up in one fell swoop, so to speak, with some pics going back as far as Minnesota. I’ll give you the highlights of our wanderings in the Midwest, and how we got where we are. And from here back to the PNW, we’ll try and be a bit more motivated about letting you know where we are, and what we’re doing.

Minnesota – June 29 thru July 6th (yea, that long ago).

You know who on one of our almost nightly cocktail boat trips

 

Buddy is Steve and Beth’s golden lab, who will jump from the dock into the water at the drop of a hat, just for the sheer joy of it. Tucker would have none of it. Oh, he loved the water, he just didn’t see any need to jump off the dock when he could bound off the beach. We tried everything.

Sharon trying everything. Yes, that's a stick. No, Tucker didn't want it that bad.

Weather was what we thought of at that time as hot, with relatively low humidity. We learned later what ‘hot’ really was.  We did have one afternoon of thunderstorms, which were awesome, and the evening of the 4th, after fireworks, the skies opened up for a couple of hours, but that was about it. We had 6 days of visiting, boating, swimming, sea-dooing, reading, eating, card playing, sleeping, etc. at Steve and Beth’s cabin. We LOVED it! And they were the perfect hosts.

A couple more pictures from Minnesota.

Half the group sitting at the Great Table, pondering great things. The other half wondering who's pouring wine.

Just about every time the Birke's get together, Steve has to find an excuse to take his shirt off.

My version.

The way we all felt, every night. Tuckered.

Our time in Minnesota was too short, but we loved every minute of it.

Indiana – July 7 thru July 17

Had an adventure on our way to Indiana, by which I mean to say, things weren’t as ho-hum as we’d have liked. Just outside Madison, WI we had the misfortune to hit a semi truck retread core at about 60 mph. We were in a bit of traffic, I had a semi about 8-10 car lengths ahead of me, and the core came popping out from underneath its rear trailer. With traffic on both sides of me, there was nothing to do. We hit it on the passenger side of the truck and the trailer, and my first thought was “we’re going to have a blowout.” Immediately took the next exit, and pulled into a gas station to see what damage had been done. Nothing to the truck, but the core did bounce up between the rear of the truck and the front of the 5ver, so we’ve got a crunched-in right front panel on the trailer that will need to be repaired when we get back to Seattle. We’ve been told by more than a few people that we were very lucky. Evidently, hitting tire casings on the highway is more common than you might think, and a lot of them don’t turn out nearly as well as ours.

Beyond that, pulled into Bob and Colleen’s, our niece and nephew’s place a day earlier than we’d originally planned, and got the rig settled in down near Bob’s shop/barn. God bless him, he even had power for us to hook into, which meant A/C without the generator. Sweet. We were there for their daughter, our great niece Kelsey’s wedding, but also just to visit and spend time with them. We slept in the RV while in Indiana since the house was full of other out-of-town guests in for the wedding.

Picked up Nick and Alicia the next day, and got ready for Kelsey and Joshua’s wedding. Below is a picture of all of Kelsey’s family, both local and from out of town. The groom is standing in the dark suit behind Kelsey, the gorgeous thing in the middle of the first row.

Pretty good looking bunch if you ask me. And you did.

Bride and groom.

Good friend of Bob/Colleen's and yours truly. Yes, he truly was that tall. No, I'm not standing in a hole.

Our, or I guess you could say, my second big adventure of the trip occurred while taking Alicia to the airport on Monday after the wedding. After I had dropped her off, and was almost home, when she called me to say her flight had been cancelled, rescheduled for the next day, and could I come get her. Yep, I could. Took the next exit off the freeway and headed back through some construction. Unfortunately, as I was reentering the highway, I hit, at speed, a 3 or 4″ concrete edge running across the entrance lane that the highway crews had left when they finished working on the highway for the day. No warning, no signs. Just wham.

Less than 15 minutes down the highway, I have a flat on the driver’s front. The tire was completely destroyed. Called road-side assistance, sat on the side of the highway for an hour, got it changed, headed on down and picked up Alicia. Coming back up the freeway, I get another flat, this one on the driver’s rear side. Tire #2 completely destroyed. This time road-side assistance brings a tow truck. So, late Monday afternoon, I’m sitting at Bob’s house, having a glass of wine (or two or three), the truck is sitting in the front yard with two flats, and I’m trying to figure out how this is all going to get fixed. That’s what Tuesday turned out to be all about. Bottom line, we found a dealer in town that not only had the right size tires in stock, but was willing to go to bat for us with Michelin, who, after understanding that our tires had about 3K miles on them, was willing to basically replace the destroyed tires. Go Michelin. And because the tires on the passenger side had hit the same bump, neither Sharon nor I relished the idea of heading on down the road with  tires we weren’t completely sure of, so we replaced the tires on the passenger side for good measure.

Yeah, crap happens. But again, no one hurt.

After all that, we decided we really wanted to stay in Indiana for a couple of more days to attend our Great-grand niece Kinsley’s 1st birthday party. So, out comes the atlas and the calendar. After consulting the oracles and the entrails, Sharon figured out how we could stay and still stick to our itinerary.

Kinsley’s B-day party was held at Bernie’s Lake, a seven acre man-made lake just across the road from Bob/Colleen’s place. Very convenient, just a tractor ride away. Water was warm, but the day, and the people, were warmer.

These photos I stole from my niece Deb. Thanks Deb.

Proud Great-grand Aunt and Uncle with Kinsley. Me imitating Kensley.

How Kinsley does it.

Monday the 18th, we headed for St. Louis.

Our time in Indiana was too short, but we loved every minute of it.

St Louis – July 19 thru 31

We pulled into St. Louis on Tuesday, the 19th, middle of the afternoon. Hotter than the gates of hell, and I’m not kidding. Ambient temperature about 101, with a heat index of around 11o. Even the St. Louis folks looked hot. Our plan DID NOT include staying in the rig while in town, but rather had us putting it in storage and staying in Barb and John’s home. Good plan. We pulled everything we needed out of the trailer, gave it a pat, and headed for whole house A/C.

We spent time in St. Louis staying out of the heat and humidity as much as we could, and with more family and friends, all of whom went out of their way to make us comfortable and show us a good time.  Some of the highlights were:

• The excellent accommodations at Barb and John’s. We’re talking quiet, full house A/C, and all the golf/baseball Nick could ask for (to say nothing of the running back and forth from the RV storage to the house to get Nick’s meds).
• The wonderful dinner and evening of visiting and card-playing at Marianne and David’s.
• a day at Soulard Market, a historic farmer’s market in St. Louis, established in 1779 and looking very much like a real hard-working version of Pike Place Market; the Hill, a St. Louis neighborhood built on the highest point in St. Louis whose population is predominantly of Italian descent and known for it’s food,  churches, and sense of community; and Shaw/Tower Grove Park and Missouri Botanical Gardens. All finished off with a wonderful dinner and evening at Dan and Carol’s.

No displays like Pike Place, but the produce and fruits were wonderful.

Dan looking for the perfect watermelon. He eventually found it.

• A wonderful visit to the Birke farm near Beaufort, Mo. to see Sharon’s Uncle Leo, 88. The farm has been in the family for over 100 years and is where Sharon’s great grandparents August and Anna, grandparents Herman and Katie, and father Herman were born, and/or raised families, and/or farmed. Sharon’s father Herman went to St. Louis as a young man to live and work since there weren’t opportunities on the farm (he was the middle of 8 children). There he met Sharon’s mother and you know the rest of that story. Uncle Leo spent his life on the the farm and lives there today with one of his 7 children, Leroy. We spent the day re-living old memories of when Sharon and her siblings came to the farm. She is so grateful it is still in the family and is still a working farm.

Only a part of the farm. But a treasured part.

Only one of the reasons the Birke farm is special.

Uncle Leo. Far more lively than this photo would suggest.

• a fabulous 4 day trip to Mark Twain Lake and Campground near Hannibal, Mo. with Vince and Lovea where the camping was great (even with a rain storm thrown in), the boating was fabulous, and the swimming in their favorite bays was spectacular.

Me, waiting for my b'fast. Yes, it was humid. Very humid.

Vince also waiting for his b'fast. Yas, it's still very humid. Very humid.

We feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful family, and appreciate all the effort to make our visits to Minnesota, Indiana, and Missouri memorable – even in the record-breaking heat.

Our time in Missouri was too short, and we loved every minute of it.

Sunday, we headed west, with the expectation of turning north at the border between Missouri and Kansas, to enter Iowa and then west across Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah. That plan lasted until Sunday afternoon, when we found out that the Missouri River had flooded where we’d intended to cross over from Iowa into Nebraska. Long story short, we had to turn around, run back south until we could cross over into Kansas, head west until we could turn north, and from there, into Nebraska. So, a hundred or so miles more driving than we’d planned, we find ourselves in Nebraska City, Nebraska. And from here, we turn west toward home.

As we arrived here on a Sunday night, here we be until Wednesday morn at least.

More later. Until then, much love.

June 20

A quick update to let you all know we’re still here, and the absence of posts has everything to do with lazy and hot, and nothing to do with little to talk about or our love for all of you.

Our time in Minnesota was fantastic, and our time in Indiana was awesome (yes, I got those words from Sharon) so we’ll be posting pics and comments as soon as we can.

Sitting right now in St. Louis, with the rig in storage for the week we’ll be here. We’re staying with Sharon’s sister Barb and her husband John, which means we’re very comfortable. Our agenda for the next week includes lots of staying out of the heat, although Sharon is working to include some of that as well, another grooming for Tucker, and lots of visiting with the St. Louis folks. Temps here are in the high 90′s, low 100′s, with humidity in the 80 to 90% range. That translates to a heat index today of 110. Yeah, only mad dogs and Englishmen.

As I said, I’ll post our adventures shortly, so stay tuned.

Until then, much love.

June 20-23, 2011

We spent 4½ days in Interior, SD, just outside the Badlands National Park (BNP). Imagine living in a town with a population of 67 at the edge of an area with the name of ‘Bad’ where not long ago, homesteaders built their sod houses and collected buffalo chips for fuel. May not surprise you to learn that many of the homesteaders didn’t make it for one reason or another, and the few remaining ranches are thousands of acres in size.

The nearest towns are Scenic, pop. 87, about 35 miles in one direction, and Wall, pop. 818, about 30 miles in the other. South of here lies the Oglala-Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, with 3,500 square miles of land where approx. 28,000 Sioux now make their homes.

View of the Badlands Wall from the campground.

Interior is still big enough to have a City Jail.

It was neat to be so isolated for a few days. While internet/cell phone service was spotty (yes Nick, even Verizon), it was interesting to get a feel for such a lifestyle. My conclusion: I loved visiting the area, but I wouldn’t want live there permanently, especially during the winter, which begins early, is very harsh, and very, very long.

We stayed in a campground owned by Larry, an 87 year old man, and his wife, who built the campground 50 years ago and have lived in the area their entire lives.  He was raised in a very poor family, but at 87 he owns the campground, a cattle ranch 12 miles away, and a place in Rapid City, SD. I think Larry was an ambitious fellow and has done OK.

Today he is still ambitious. He related how he had made some bad business decisions over the years, and had he known better, his campground “coulda been a Wall Drug”. Maybe every business in SD aspires to be just like Wall Drug.

We spent another 2 days exploring the Badlands, established by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt as a National Monument in 1929, then made into a national park by Pres. Jimmy Carter in 1978.

The badlands were formed from Rocky Mountain sediment eroding into a shallow sea that covered the U.S. interior gazillions of years ago, and was formed into sandstone rock by the geologic pressures exerted. Through continued erosion, the badlands “wall” and surrounding areas were formed and continue to erode into a literally impassable landscape consisting of unusual peaks, gullies, and buttes – all interspersed in the vast prairie. The sediments are carried by the Cheyenne and Missouri rivers, to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico.

In case you hadn't guessed, Wall SD is named after the Badlands "wall".

We walked some of the scenic trails in the park, including the ‘Door’ and ‘Window’ trails that led to incredibly beautiful vistas.

It appears to be a barren land without wildlife, but actually supports deer, coyote, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, bison, and a wide variety of birds (and birders) all blending into the landscape.

As an example, the picture below has a very large mule deer in it. I named him Waldo, after the BNP wall and Wall Drug  – famous all over the world – can you find him? Where is Waldo?

How ’bout now?

This has to be one of the most desolate, yet beautiful areas in the country. We’re glad we found it and we’re glad we had a chance to experience the emptiness and quiet.

Friday, it was on eastward toward Sioux Falls and our run up through Minnesota. But that’s for Nick to tell you about.

Hang in there – it’s hard to believe, but the first leg of our journey is almost over.