After a month’s stay in Santa Fe it was time to head north. We drove through northern New Mexico, east- central Colorado and decided to rest a day or two in northwestern Nebraska. Our day or two stretched into two weeks.
We found a very nice city RV park just south of Scottsbluff and spent our time driving some of the back roads which followed the route of the old Oregon Trail.
On one of our drives we came across a reconstruction of an old trading post, the Wal-Mart of the day.
After a week in this area, we traveled north and spent a week in Crawford, a wonderful small town near historic Fort Robinson, the home of the Red Cloud Indian Agency. Here, toward the end of the Indian wars, the government distributed supplies to thousands of people.
When I think of Nebraska, I never think about scenery like this.
Or “wildlife” like this
Would you believe a Cowbird on a cow?
Near the small town of Chadron is the Museum of the Fur Trade.
Pat was looking for our next retirement place, but I thought this might be a bit too rustic.
Northeast of Crawford is Toadstool Geologic Park.
Pat was still looking for a retirement place. Better, but still a bit too rustic.
We proceed on to South Dakota, home to what may be the best state park in the country. One of the reasons we like Custer State Park so well is the greeters at the entrance.
Some say it is great art but some say it is graffiti on a large scale.
One of our most favorite things to do is to drive the back roads of this park, looking for herds of bison. The herds are constantly moving so we try to determine which direction they are going, find a place to park in front of them and then wait.
If we are lucky, it will not be long before we are surrounded.
And I do mean surrounded. Notice the view in the mirrors.
Of course there are many other interesting animals in the park.
A few miles east of the state park is the southern unit of the Badlands National Park.
This is actually a road in a national park. One of our favorite kinds of roads.
This is one very good example of why you should not rely on your GPS to find a good lunch spot.
Pat decided she would stop looking for a new retirement place and would look for a new RV instead. I think she may have gone a little too high tec on this one.
We headed east from South Dakota to the iron country of Minnesota. A large swath of the state is devoted to mining and processing iron ore.
Pat finally found a good candidate for our next RV. We could convert this baby into a great motorhome. Can you imagine driving this thing down the road? We certainly would be the hit of the RV park.
From the iron country we moved to the shore of Lake Superior and spent some time around Two Harbors and Duluth. We continued across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and spent a week in Sault Ste Marie. For photos of these two areas, check out the archives section of this blog starting on Aug. 2011.
It was time to head south so we went to northern Indiana to the farm of Pat’s sister and had a great visit with family and friends. By the time we got to southern Indiana to visit family there the leaves were just starting to turn.
Continuing south, we stopped at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY.
We drove the entire 450 miles of the Natchez Trace Parkway from just outside Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS. This park has always been one of our favorite trips.
After all this driving and all this fun, it was time to rest a while. At our age, you can have too much fun. We spent a week and a half just north of Houston, TX at Lake Conroe and another week just north of Galveston, getting rested up for our next big adventure; an 18 day cruise to visit the Mayan ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula.
