I have decided to exit the cube on more of a permanent basis this time. Some people say I am taking “early retirement” but my response to that is “it is not early”. The fact of the matter is I am 60 years old, my first professional job after college was in 1990 at the Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford Connecticut as a COBOL programmer. I have been working for 35 years! Isn’t that enough?
Here are some random thoughts I have had about “retiring”.
Who do I think I am? We are not rich, should I just keep working?
I have to do it now before it’s too late! How many good years do I have left to hike in amazing places?
In the end, nothing at work really matters, people leave, get fired, laid off, companies break up, lose money, change leadership, move people around.
Woo-hoo! I can do what I want when I want. I don’t have to go to the grocery store on the weekend when there are millions of people trying to run me over with their cart. I can go to Jazzercise any time, 8:30 AM class, no problem, no need to jump on a work call at 9 am. Hiking at noon on Tuesday? Sounds great, as long as it is winter. Happy hour at the brewery at 3 pm on a Wednesday? Count me in! Impromptu road trip, let’s go! The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.
What is going to happen to our country, our world. Everything is crumbling all around us, the world’s biggest democracies are falling, authoritarians are taking over, will there be any Social Security and Medicare when I am ready to collect? Climate change is destroying civilization, will our mortgage-free house go floating away or burn down to the ground leaving us homeless? I am not sure if it is a call to work more so we have more cash when civilization crashes or a call to party while we can before it is all over or a call to do something to fight back.
I could drop dead tomorrow.
There is no correct answer to the question “when should I retire?” No one knows what the future holds.
Our original plan was to head south to Florida for the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas) after leaving Tennessee. We have family and friends there that we would like to visit and I have always wanted to see the Florida Keys. However, my tolerance for living in humidity was all used up. I could not do it any longer. I had enough of this moldy lifestyle, I had to go west. The I-40 runs directly from Knoxville, TN to Flagstaff, AZ. Stopping in a different state each night we made our way across the southern US on I-40.
The first day we powered through the rest of Tennessee, crossed the Mississippi river into Arkansas and camped along the Mississippi in West Memphis, Arkansas at a place called Tom Sawyer RV Park. There were barges going down the river all night long. It was an interesting experience.
Barge on the Mississippi
Next night was at a KOA in Oklahoma, then on to Texas where we stayed in a campground that was also a rest area. When I got up in the morning and headed to the restroom there was an 18-wheeler parked there with its engine running. There was a historical marker in this rest area with a story of Bonnie and Clyde crashing into the nearby river as they were speeding out of the state.
The next night we were in New Mexico at Santa Rosa Lake State Park. It felt so good to be back in the Southwest, back in the desert, finally! Where the humidity is low and the camping is cheap. Only $14 with showers and flush toilets. In the campground we met a guy who trains hawks to hunt with him. On to Albuquerque where we meet up with a former coworker and I got the scoop on the situation at the old job.
Santa Rosa Lake State Park
Trained hawk with his dinner down by his feet
Okay we are finally dry, now what? Still exhausted, we made the decision that living in a van full-time is not going to work for us. I have always loved Colorado, Boulder in particular, so we decide to head that way and check it out to see if we could possibly live there. Keep in mind it is now November and winter comes early to Colorado. It is getting cold and campgrounds are shutting down. I am having hard time finding anywhere to stay that is still open. Finally, we find St. Vrain State Park in Firestone which is north of Denver. It is still open and they are supposed to have flush toilets and everything. On the way we meetup with Tim’s brother and his girlfriend in Colorado Springs. Good to keep in touch with family. Traffic going through Denver was a nightmare but we finally make it to the park. The lady at the entrance wants to put us very far away from the bathrooms and I ask specifically to be closer. She then gives us a site closer and we head to the camping area and park it. Later, I go into the restroom building and there are three doors – Women, Men, and Handicap. I pull the door handle to the Women’s room – locked, Men’s room – locked, Handicap – opens into a single room with one toilet, sink and shower. Really???? ONE toilet for the entire campground??? The lady at the entrance could have said something when I asked specifically about the bathroom. This pushed me over the edge, I told Tim I am ready to get an apartment in the city where I can have my own bathroom. The next day we start heading back to Phoenix with a stopover in Durango, another Colorado favorite, where we stayed in hotel that we have stayed in several times in the past. We even know how to walk to the brewery. Something familiar at last!
Our plan has always been to see the fall foliage in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, so after Connecticut we head south in that direction and stop in Virginia. Being an avid hiker I have seen a couple documentaries about the Appalachian Trail and they always talk about the Great Smoky Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley and how beautiful it is so I just had to see for myself.
We stayed at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia which is really a 100 mile road through the mountains called Skyline Drive where 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail also run through, criss crossing the road in many locations. At the campground Tim checks the TV in the van to see if there are any channels and he is surprised that the antenna is actually picking up several TV stations and even more surprising a lot of them are international news. I take a look at the map and immediately see the reason for this… sitting here in the woods, we are very close to Washington, DC, who knew? It is very hard to keep up with our orientation to other things, sometimes we even forget what state we are in. Something I could NOT answer however is why the cell phone had no service! Arrrgh!
Weather was great, sunny and cold, a couple days the highs were only in the 50s. One morning it was 46 inside the insulated van when I got up. We went on a ranger led hike on the Appalachian trail and it turns out this 100 mile section of the AT in this park is actually one of the easiest parts of the 2,160 mile trail that goes from Georgia to Maine. We saw part of the AT on Mount Washington in New Hampshire and I am sure that part is no picnic. Being around this hiking culture makes me feel like I should plan something big. Not sure if a thru hike is for me, and definitely not a thru hike in the East, but something big. In the park the AT is marked with these posts:
The AT
The trees are not very colorful here this year and after talking to a couple people we realize that this is due to an ongoing drought. This has been the story we have been hearing in all our travels, unusual weather. Most of the Eastern US has had a hot summer with little rain. They say the leaves will just fall off the trees without much display of color.
I have heard about the beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway and after reading up on it I see the road actually connects Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Parkway is part of the National Park System, it is like a road that is a national park, not unlike Shenandoah National Park. We started out on the Blue Ridge Parkway with the intent of driving the whole 469 miles, stopping at various NP campgrounds along the way. The road is very curvy and slow going, speed limit is 45 mph. After one day, 150 miles and one overnight on the parkway we decide it is just too slow and the views are not that incredible so we decide to pop off the parkway around Roanoke Virginia.
Blue Ridge Parkway
View from Blue Ridge Parkway
We make our way to a Virginia State Park, Natural Tunnel. We are finding that the state parks are really great places to camp. Most of them have nice updated campgrounds with showers and there is always something to do in the parks. A lot of them have hiking trails, lakes and visitor centers. The Natural Tunnel State Park has a rock tunnel with a chair lift going down to the bottom. The tunnel has railroad tracks going through it which are still used today to transport coal. All very interesting.
After leaving Cape Cod, Massachusetts we made our way to Connecticut, the place where Tim and I grew up, met and fell in love 25 years ago. We have been back a couple times since moving to Arizona but overall we are both glad we made the move to the west. While in Connecticut we were able to visit lots of family and friends which was really great but we couldn’t help but think how moving west all those years ago was the right thing to do.
While in Connecticut we stayed at a campground that is attached to an amusement park, Lake Compounce. It was a convenient location and turned out to be a good campground with electric and water hookups and decent showers. All this time Tim is telling me how they have the oldest wooden roller coaster and I am just saying yeah, yeah, yeah. Then while we are there the park is not actually open, they are basically closed for the season but the gates are open for the workers who are working on various construction projects. We wandered into the empty amusement park and I see this structure covered with greenery with the number 170…. and it says years, 170 YEARS, and I thought wait… what… 170 YEARS?!? Then we see a sign that says this park here in Bristol, Connecticut is the oldest amusement park in America, wow that is pretty amazing! Tim is now saying “see, I told you”.
Camping at Lake Compounce
As a side note we found a nice paved bike/walking trail near the West Hartford Reservoir:
We have had enjoyable experiences at National Parks in the west such as Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Glacier, Rocky Mountain and Sequoia so we are hoping that the only National Park in the northeast, Acadia, will be a good experience as well. We scheduled some time on the “quiet side” of the park, the Schoodic Peninsula and also some time in the main area, Mount Desert Island. Schoodic was very nice, we had a couple great weather days, cool and sunny. Campground was new, had big sites, hookups, great bathrooms but no showers. It was very quiet. We were able to hike across the peninsula and catch the bus back to camp. Saw the wild blueberries above on our hike. You can catch the bus to a small village called Winter Harbor where you can get ice cream. Not much else in town except a ferry to Bar Harbor, a five and dime, a library which is only open one day a week and a lobster co-op. Funny, when I hear the word “co-op” in a town I think surely it is a place that sells fruits and vegetables, not in Maine, here everything is about lobster, lobster, lobster.
View From Our hike on the Schoodic Penisula
Tim decided to get the bikes out and we had a great ride around the park. Roads are smooth and there is a big section where it is two lanes going one way, so the cars have plenty of room to go around. Everything was going great until we got back to the campground and were just looping around the roads when Tim’s chain fell off the chain ring, going uphill, he couldn’t get the chain to catch and couldn’t unclip and ended up going down. Well his wrist was hurting and swollen, the same one he broke a few years ago. We decide we should go to the “big city” and get an x-ray just in case it is broken again. This leaves me to get the bikes apart and back into the van. Wow, what an ordeal. At least Tim was coherent and able to give me instructions but it was very difficult. Front wheels and seats come off. Wheels go into their special bags after the spindle is taken out. Bikes have to be put in a certain way to get close together and take up the least amount of space, which means the pedals have to be in a certain place, the handlebars keep getting hooked on each other. And the front forks have to clamp into their preset holders. Wow, to me this setup really does not seem workable at all, but that’s another discussion. We make it to the urgent care place before closing, they take the x-ray and the PA says she does not see a break but it will be examined by the radiologist to be sure. They put a wrist brace on and send him on his way. So now, no more biking for a while. Also we are finding most of the hiking here in the east requires using your hands to climb over rocks, so that would be difficult with a bum wrist as well.
On to Mount Desert Island. Campground is not as nice, sites are close, no hookups, no cell phone/internet service, bathrooms are not bad but have no showers. We did go to the last evening program of the season in the campground which was about bats. Apparently bat numbers at Acadia have been dwindling and they are not sure why. The last few years they have been studying and tagging bats here.
There is a free bus that goes into the town of Bar Harbor which is a busy tourist town with restaurants, shops, boat trips, bus trips. At least there is cell phone service there. With rainy days here we find ourselves getting on the bus to go into town just so we can use the internet on our phones, pathetic. And who can resist the cupcake store when you are depressed? Oh and did I mention everything is wet? It has been rainy and humid, no hookups means we cannot run the dehumidifier in the van, it would take too much power. There is no sun for the solar panels to recharge the batteries. Sheets, clothes and bodies, damp. The floor in the bathroom at the campground has been wet for days, I am not sure why, it is indoors, why is it wet all the time? A new element here by the ocean, fog! There was a cruise ship in Bar Harbor blowing its fog horn, that was interesting.
Cruise ship in the fog in Bar Harbor
Lots of Fog
The last day we had nice weather. The highlight at Acadia was definitely hiking Cadillac Mountain which is the highest point on the eastern seaboard. The trail is really not very difficult at all, it is rated moderate. We were able to leave from the campground, hike up one side to the top then hike down the other side and catch the bus back to camp. All worked out great.
At the top of Cadillac Mountain
When we got to the top we saw all the people who drove up Cadillac Mountain
After sweating it out across the Midwest in August all I wanted was to be cool. The heat, humidity and mosquitoes of North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, it was all just too much to take without AC in the van. There was no escaping all the wetness. The water bottles were sweating all the time, the clothes, the sheets just felt wet. Tim did buy us a small dehumidifier which does help but to get it to work you have to close all the windows and that is not really practical when it is hot outside. Exhausted and knowing we had to keep moving east because we have plans to see family and also plans to see the Great Smokey Mountains in the fall, I looked at the map in my Weatherbug app and saw that the closest place where there is a pocket of coolness is the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Even though we both grew up in Connecticut neither one of us was familiar with the Adirondacks aside from my vague recollection of a trip to Lake George when I was a child. Looking at the tourist websites, Lake Placid sounds familiar, think Winter Olympics, think skiing, think mountains, sounds good! However, there is no camping in Lake Placid, it is now a busy tourist town. The closest camping is about 10 miles away in Wilmington, NY. We set our sights on the North Pole Campground. We thought about stopping at Niagara Falls but in the end we decided that it is not something either one of us is really excited about seeing so we do not bother. Tim wanted to check out his childhood home where he lived only until age four in small town upstate NY. He had an amazing recollection of where the house was located and other structures in the neighborhood.
Tiny Dehumidifier
Hiking
Hiking in the Adirondacks is all about the rocks, the mud and the crazy tree roots that look like they may come alive and wrap themselves around your ankle at any moment, very different from the desert hiking I know and love. Here, there are no switchbacks, the trails go straight up the mountain. We completed two hikes while we were there, the Flume Knob and Whiteface Mountain. We prefer to walk to hiking trails right out of our campsite rather than packing up the van, unplugging, taking the window covering off, spinning the seats back to forward facing position and driving somewhere. Also parking the van at trailheads can be difficult since it is 22’ 9” long. We walked 1.5 miles each way to the Flume Knob trail, which was only a four mile RT hike, so about 7 miles all together. Relatively steep, straight up the hill, nice views. The second hike, Whiteface Mountain was VERY challenging. We were able to start walking right out of the campground and it eventually connected to a trail that goes up Whiteface, which is the 5th highest mountain in NY at 4,865 feet. This elevation pales in comparison to some mountains I have hiked in the west, but that has no bearing on the difficulty of the hike, this was tough, very steep, endless rocks with scrambling. There is a road that you can PAY to drive up the mountain but when you are hiking and the road is open, you are not allowed to even walk on the road. There is one part where the trail comes out on the road but you just have to climb up some rocks to stay on the trail, don’t walk on the road!
View from Flume Knob
Trail up Whiteface
Arrows painted on rocks telling you where you are supposed to go
The road you are not allowed to walk on unless you pay!
View of Lake Placid (the Lake, not the town) from Whiteface
Lake Placid
I did not realize Lake Placid was not only home to one Winter Olympics in 1980, but actually hosted the event in 1932 as well. Also, the town of Lake Placid, a busy little tourist town with shops and restaurants, is not actually on the LAKE of Lake Placid, imagine that? There is a lake in town, but it is Mirror Lake. While in town we wandered into the Olympic Ice skating rink. Turns out there are two rinks in the building, one from the 1932 games and one from 1980. In our ongoing quest for coolness we decide to sit in the stands at the 1932 rink for a while and catch some cool air off the ice. Just so happens they have “Freaky Friday” ice skating competitions during the summer and one is about to start. It only lasted 10 minutes and contestants were mostly young girls but nice to see they are pursuing something.
1932 Rink
1980 Rink
North Pole
In Wilmington we stayed at the North Pole Campground which turned out to be a good campground. It was relatively quiet, bathrooms and showers were clean and they had some trails in the woods you could walk on. Not much wildlife to speak of aside from the white tail of a deer I saw running away one night. We did see a very unique wood pecker in camp one day. He had a bright red head and he was big, maybe more than a foot tall. We were also able to walk to a little town beach where they had a band playing one night.
Wilmington Town Beach Concert
Fort Ticonderoga
While in NY we went to see an old military fort, Fort Ticonderoga. As you know, history, not my thing, but Tim enjoyed it. The fort was built by the French on Lake Champlain in the 1750’s, then taken over by the British, eventually lost to the Americans in the Revolutionary War. In 1777 the Americans were forced to abandon Ticonderoga due to the British threat from above on Mount Defiance, which we did drive up and you can clearly see the advantage the Brits had from the high point. While we were at Fort Ticonderoga they fired a canon which was cool!
Fort Ticonderoga seen from Mount Defiance
Signs of Fall
Leaves are starting to change color, it must cool down soon.
Time to say goodbye to North Shore of Lake Superior and the tourist town of Grand Marais Minnesota and head south toward Indiana for the RV repairs. Going by way of Wisconsin we stay in the Chippewa Falls County Fairgrounds. Very strange place but a good deal for this part of the country, $20 includes electric and water. It is basically a field with spaced out hook ups. It is self-registration, you just fill out the envelope and put your money in the box. The place is kind of eerie with the empty building used to house livestock during the fair. The restrooms are in a big red barn-looking building. We were able to walk into town and get some dinner but there is a distinct lack of healthy food and vegetables in this part of the country. We end up with a veggie pizza. The next day we meet up with a former colleague of mine who is currently working in the Chicago Office spending weekends in Wisconsin. It was great to get caught up on the state of affairs at the old office.
Camping at Chippewa Falls County Fairgrounds
Empty Livestock Building, Chippewa Falls County Fairgrounds
Heading further south we make a stop in Madison, Wisconsin. I have always heard it is a cool college town so we figured why not stop. We were able to do some healthy grocery shopping at a Whole Foods which was like coming home. In the Whole Foods we were approached by an older lady who wants to know if we are the people with the Sprinter in the parking lot. With pencil and paper in hand she starts asking us questions on how we decided on the van and how it is working out for us. She wants to get out of Madison and is considering hitting the road on her own but not sure what type of vehicle to get. We also talked about getting rid of stuff verses keeping it in storage. We gave her our view of how stuff just holds you down and she said we are wise beyond our years.
In Madison, we stayed in a county park which had a paved bike path running right near it. With the path right there and a campground with showers and no rain in sight we were out of excuses for not riding our bikes. After Tim pulled the bikes out of the van, put on the front wheels and seats we sprayed ourselves down with bug spray (something we NEVER had to worry about in Scottsdale) and hit the bike trail. It was great to be on the bike again.
Capital City Bike Trail Going into a mosquito infested area!
On to Huntington, Indiana where Sportsmobile has one of three of their facilities. Looking forward to staying at the Comfort Inn with some AC. It turns out the Sportsmobile shop is much smaller than the Fresno California location where we actually purchased the van. In Indiana they can only fit two vans in the shop at a time, in Fresno they work on 12 – 20 at a once. The guys in Indiana are able to fix some of our problems but cannot replace the warped cabinet door because they use a different color wood for their cabinets. That will have to wait until we get back to California.I forgot to get a picture of the Indiana facility but here is the Fresno facility.
Production line in Fresno, California
Sportsmobile, Fresno, California
Looking for cooler weather, the closest place I see on the map is the Adirondacks in upstate New York. That is where we are going!
Heading East from North Dakota we start seeing more trees and some small hills in Minnesota. Finding a place to camp in Minnesota on the weekend in August is very difficult. All the Minnesotans are out with their trailers, boats, canoes, kayaks, kids, fishing poles and dogs (love the dogs) camping for the weekend. We stayed near Duluth one night on the St. Louis River but it is a muddy, stinky, mess. Walking around the local area it is moldy smelling with old houses and old sidewalks grown over with grass. I am reminded of my childhood in rural Connecticut and thinking if you grow up here, you know no different.
The next night we find ourselves at a casino in Hinckley, Minnesota. In an attempt to get a good deal on a hotel room Tim fills out a form to get a player’s club card. It just so happens it is his birthday and they give you a room for $54 on your birthday, what a deal! Tim also won $7.50 on some video poker, so a win all the way around.
We then decide to head back to Bemidji which we passed through earlier and it seemed like a great town, with a natural food co-op, brewery, Paul Bunyan, biking around Bemidji Lake and a college. Turned off by the heat and humidity, we then head north to Grand Marais which is right on Lake Superior and close to the Canadian border. As promised, it is much cooler in Grand Marais but still high humidity, cool and damp as they say. The Grand Marais town campground is right on Lake Superior, which is an unbelievably huge lake by the way. There is a marina there as well. On our second day we get up early and wait in line to get a lake side camp site, it was worth the wait, very nice. The town itself is within walking distance of the campground and is like a seaside tourist town with restaurants and shops, so here we go again blowing the budget on dining out. The lake is so large with crashing waves it feels as if you are at the ocean. We managed to get in a local hike near the lake one day. Unfortunately, it is now raining and tomorrow we plan to start moving toward Indiana for the RV repairs.
Bemidji, Minnesota
Hike near Lake Superior
Camping on Lake Superior in Grand Marais
Grand Marais, Minnesota
Grand Marais, Minnesota
A local food in Minnesota I keep seeing is wild rice. I had a wild rice burger at one meal and wild rice toast at another. So what’s with this wild rice? Well apparently it is not rice at all but a grain that grows in the cold waters of Minnesota lakes and rivers. There are specific rules about harvesting wild rice in public waters. Wild rice was the staple in the diet of the Chippewa and Sioux Indians,native to the region.
If I did not come to Minnesota I would never experience the vast ocean like feeling of Lake Superior. I am reminding myself to experience the uniqueness of each area and to stay open-minded and not compare everything to my former Scottsdale lifestyle or the mountains of Colorado which have been romanticized in my mind because of so many great memories of trips watching the USA Pro Challenge (a professional bike race), summiting two Colorado 14ers myself – La Plada (14,343 feet) and Mt Elbert (14,439 ft), Tim and I cycling up Maroon Bells road and visiting great breweries like Steamworks in Durango… ahhh Colorado….
Since we have enjoyed ourselves at other national parks in the past and there always seems to be a lot to do in the parks we thought we would try Theodore Roosevelt National Park on the western border of North Dakota. There is a South Unit and a North Unit to the park. We entered the South Unit. Normally, we like to stay right in the park and check out the ranger programs maybe do a few suggested hikes in the brochure. It so happens we tried to enter Theodore Roosevelt on a Friday night around 5 PM, big mistake. No room at the inn – campground is full. Who would have thought -Theodore Roosevelt NP in North Dakota is a popular place to go on the weekend – campground is FULL! Really? We ended up staying a mile down the road outside the park in Medora. We went into the park the next day and traveled the 36-mile Scenic Loop Drive and saw lots of bison, prairie dogs and most exciting, wild horses!
Prairie Dog
Wild Horses!
Baby Bison
Bison
Prairie Dog
Wild Horses!
Disgusted by the summer crowds that seem to be everywhere we move on to Bismarck North Dakota. We stayed in the municipal campground there, it is run by the town itself. We are finding that we really like the town campgrounds. They usually have showers, are close to town, sometimes walking distance and normally a great deal. In Bismarck the trailer sites with hookups were full so we stayed in the tent area for $12. It was pretty quiet and they had showers – what a deal! Humidity was high in Bismarck, in the 80% range.
Town Campground, Bismarck, North Dakota
Oil is still a driver of business here. Tim started a conversation with a couple guys at the laundromat who work on the oil pipeline. They work six days a week. Sunday is their only day off so they had to do their laundry! As the construction of the pipeline moves they have to move with it, living in a fifth wheel along the way. A lot of that time is spent out in the middle of nowhere so they were happy to be near Bismarck, a real town where there are services. There’s an alternative lifestyle for you, chasing the money, working the oil. The guy we talked to was married with kids and grandkids but only sees them once in a while.
Agriculture is also big in North Dakota. We drove across endless flat fields of corn, sunflowers, flax seed. Fargo was the next stop. It is the biggest city in North Dakota and actually had a restaurant with organic and vegetarian food which made me very happy. Healthy food has been hard to come by! Since it was my birthday and it was hot and humid I celebrated by staying in a hotel with AC and a shower. Working our way across North Dakota we end up on the eastern border in Grand Forks. We were able to meet up with some friends who moved away from the Phoenix area a couple years ago. They shared their small town North Dakota lifestyle with us. In contrast to big city Phoenix, they said the people in small town North Dakota are very nice, friendly and caring, however there is not a lot to do there and very few restaurant choices which I experienced first hand.
North Dakota shares a border with Minnesota, divided by the Red River. While visiting Grand Forks, North Dakota we actually stayed on the Minnesota side of the river at Red River State Recreation Area in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. The facilities seemed more modern than a lot that we have encountered in our travels. What we discovered is the buildings are newer because this whole area was flooded in the late 90’s and had to be rebuilt. There used to be a neighborhood where the campground is located today and all the homes here were destroyed. Then the park was built in it’s place and they actually left the streets in place when they put in the campground. It was strange to have wide paved roads in a campground. Other buildings in the area are new as well like the public library that was built in 1999.
Red River
Campground in East Grand Forks, Minnesota
Moving east, Minnesota is next where we should start to see some hills.
I haven’t posted in a while because truth be told we are struggling to find our way in this new lifestyle. Every place we go we seem to have a reason why we don’t like it or why we have to move on. It is too hot, it is too cold, it is raining constantly, it is too humid, there are too many mosquitoes, it is flooded, muddy and stinky. Keep in mind we are sleeping in a van with no air conditioning, we do have heat but there is little escape from the elements. Also, there are still appointments in certain locations that cause us to drive long distances on certain days to get to a particular location. There is now a looming deadline in Indiana for some RV warrantee work. Indiana in August, really?? Not interested! I knew the Midwest was humid in the summer, but I did not think about how much it would affect us. When we are driving all the time, then sitting in some campground in the stinky mud, it is very depressing.
With all these long days of driving we are not getting enough of something very important to me – exercise! Back in Scottsdale I had my Jazzercise several days a week which I loved then hiking on the weekend, sometimes a hike during the week before work when the sun is up early. Tim is also missing his cycling. I am definitely missing my old life.
We will need to work on changing things up and figure this all out. We had the idea we could park the van in a place and be able to go for road bike rides, hikes, walk or take the bus into town for a craft brew. Sounds nice, but the reality is different. I will let you know how we attempt to rectify the situation in further posts.
Now to our ongoing travels. In South Dakota we stayed at Custer State Park where we did see some animals, which we are always looking for, however unlike the natural habitat setting you expect in a park, it was very reminiscent of the wild animal parks we toured as kids. They even told us we could feed the “wild” burros anything we wanted. We found them begging for food in the street and people were feeding them from the car windows. We gave them some carrots and they were very gentle taking the food. The babies looked scared standing in the street while their mom was begging for food. This was all very cute, but just did not set well with us. The park also has an annual roundup of bison in order to “cull” the herd. The spectacle is open to public viewing. I believe they auction off the ones they don’t want, Bison meat is popular here. Bison calves born in the park are branded with an “S” and the year they were born. This all seems like a very unnatural environment. Seems all wrong to me.
Begging Burros
“Wild” Burros
Bison in Custer State Park
Since we were so close, we had to check out Mount Rushmore, picture at top of the post. My family visited the memorial over 50 years ago on a cross country camping trip in our VW camper from Connecticut to California and back. I was only a year old so I have no recollection of the trip but I have seen the pictures and heard the stories over the years. Camping was a staple throughout my childhood. We spent many a weekend on Cape Cod and there were a few longer trips to Maine and Virginia that stick out in my mind. I think Dad had a travel bug and camping was the only way we could afford it.
There is another mountain rock carving not far away that is much bigger than Mount Rushmore and is still in progress. It is a carving of Crazy Horse on a horse. You can see the head and the start of his arm but there is a long way to go. This memorial is not affiliated with any government project and is funded privately and by donations. The project has been ongoing since 1948, the original sculptor is dead and his children are continuing the work. The mission of the memorial goes beyond the immense rock carving. The mission is “to protect and preserve the culture, tradition and living heritage of the North American Indians”. There is a museum there and they have plans for a university. It is a huge project.
Crazy Horse Memorial – picture from internet
Model of what the Crazy Horse carving will look like when it s finished, and the current state of the real carving in the background
I think I could have spent more time in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a small pocket of cool weather and pine trees, it seemed very nice, but we are moving on to get to our next stop, North Dakota.
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