Getting Closer to Wisconsin!

We are getting closer! After leaving Sioux Falls, we entered Minnesota and hugged the southern border on I-80. It was a beautiful day even though it was very warm and humid.  The truck is so comfortable to ride in and the temperature control is perfect. We arrived at the Myre-Big Island State Park in Albert Lea in mid afternoon and after setting up our campsite, we had time for a nice long walk around the island and the isthmus that connects the two parts of the park.

We stayed here a few years ago on our way through Iowa and really enjoyed it. It is quiet, peaceful and the lake hosts a wide variety of birds. We enjoyed a campfire that night - this is only the second one we have been able to have one. It felt like we were out in total wilderness - we didn't see any lights or campfires from other campers and nothing from the few vacation homes on the other side of the lake. And there was almost total silence. All of this for only $8!

The first night in Wisconsin was a layover in Necedah. The campground was huge and apparently mainly for local residents who leave their trailers for the summer and come out when they can, presumably mostly on the weekends. We stayed during the week and there were only two other couples staying there.  The back part of the campground was a huge field with a fish lake. We had it all to ourselves (well, the bugs were enjoying it, and us, as well.) 

Tomorrow, we head just 100 miles further to Dodge County. We will be starting our family history research there and will stay for about five days.  Looking forward to staying in one place for a while.

Minnesota is home to one of the country's largest windmill farms. We saw them everywhere.  A futuristic look to the more than century old farmlands.

There are still a lot of wildflowers alongside the roads.

Getting off the interstate takes us down roads that pass through the center of towns. The downtown areas are frequently rundown but still have a lot of charm in the Victorian details on the buildings.

Entering the Myre-Big Island State Park took us off paved roads and into a forest. The park sits on top of a moraine left behind over 10,000 years ago when the last glacial period ended.

Russ leads the way, clearing the bugs out of the way for me (like that is going to work.)

The glacial lake is very large and we saw several boats enjoying the waters. Lots of birds migrate through this area and some types spend their summer here.

Our campground was very secluded and surrounded by the woods.

Birds like to rest on the branches of the dead trees.  The blackish one in the middle of this picture is a cormorant, I believe.  They like to dry their wings in the sun because they lack the oil that helps other birds repel water.

This part of Minnesota is sparsely settled. The towns are very small - when we enter one that has 10,000 people, we feel like we are in a large city. This area has a small shopping center on the other side of the lake.

Coneflowers - one of my favorite perennials.  I don't think you can kill them and there are so many pretty colors.

The campground in Necadah was part of a motel complex. The back half of the property wasn't developed except for a fishing lake. We had a lovely evening walk through the area.

Our campsite was a poorly graded patch of gravel, but at least it had full hookups. The beautiful surroundings made up for the campsite.

The spider that built this web is a stowaway from Long Beach. We have had a terrible problem with spiders this spring and summer. You leave something laying around and within 3 days it is almost totally encased in a web. This spider's first web was washed away when Russ got the truck cleaned just prior to our departure.  I noticed that the web was coming back as we were going through Utah. It was a pretty good size by the time we got to South Dakota and had the truck washed.  Now it is back again. It will be interesting to see how long the spider is able to hang in there.  I wonder if I have to declare it when we go through the produce and animal check stations.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

 Usually we stop in Sioux Falls to get in a visit with some of Russ' cousins and family.  But some were out of town on holiday, so we decided to wait until we come back through in late September for our visit.  We used our time in Sioux Falls to catch up on some cleaning, shopping and sleep.  We have basically focused on getting mileage in so that we can have as much time as we can in Wisconsin.  So we haven't done much sightseeing - hoping to get some in on our return trip.

South Dakota is very green on the east part of the state. The corn is growing well (at least to these inexperienced eyes) and the soy beans look good too. Those seem to be the two main crops. Occasionally we will see a field of some type of grain or pumpkins, but not very often. I enjoy seeing the well kept yards, apparently the women in the family have the main job of mowing the large yards. I have seen several women out riding a lawnmower, but no men as yet. 

After the thunderstorms in Nebraska, we are enjoying clear but hot days in Sioux Falls. We drove out to Canton for a visit. This is the town that my mother and Florence grew up back in the 1920s and '30s. It is always fun to wander through the town and remembering the places and stories that both parents told us. The town is not much larger than it was back when they were growing up and it seems like a well tended profitable little town. I suspect many of the residents commute the 15 miles or so to Sioux Falls because there is not much industry in town. It seems like Sioux Falls is expanding to the south more than any other directions, so it isn't implausible that Canton will be subsumed into the city sometime in the distant future.

The corn in South Dakota looks very healthy. We saw an occasional field that was tasseling.

Definitely John Deere country.

As soon as we entered South Dakota, we started seeing Wall Drug signs.  Even though we have been there before, we are planning another stop on the way home.

Many of the farms  visible from the interstate were well kept and large.

Others were in disrepair and still others looked abandoned.

Downtown Canton was sporting beautiful hanging baskets of pink geraniums. We saw several small towns that had dressed up their downtown with these hanging displays. Would love to see Long Beach do something like this (just please, no cactuses!)

Like other Midwest states, South Dakota takes very seriously the establishment of beautiful and impressive county courthouses. Canton is the county seat and has a very nice town square that is well maintained.

This building, now a quilting retreat, once was a bank where Russ' grandfather worked in the evenings and weekends doing custodian tasks. 

There are several beautiful large homes built around the turn of the 1900s. This one happens to be for sale and the realtor is one of Russ' cousins.

This is the last home that Russ' grandparents lived in. Russ remembers going there on visits and occasionally being given a sack of nails to enjoy his time hammering the nails into a board. Apparently, this was a great way of keeping Russ out of trouble while the adults visited. We recently found out from Florence that this was around the 8th home that her parents lived in during their years in Canton.  They always rented and each move represented a step up in the amenities of the home - the first move got them a home with electricity, the second brought indoor water, the third had an indoor bathroom and so on.

There is a very nice automatic car wash in Canton that we like to go to.  We put in the money, drive into the place until a stop sign lights, then sit for a few minutes while the machine moves around and up over the truck washing and rinsing. This time we opted for some type of treatment which squirted stuff out on the truck before scrubbing and then rinsing it off. The stuff squirted out blue and pink with the blue on the driver's side - were the colors really necessary or was there a gender stereotype going on? Guess I will give them the benefit of the doubt since the truck does come out nice and clean.

On Our Way!

It has been over two years since we took a long excursion to the Midwest to research our family history. This year it is Wisconsin. Relatives from the 1840s to 1870s from both sides of the family settled in Wisconsin and then moved west as more land became available through the Homestead Act.

We left on July 3rd and took the northern route using I-15 and I-80.  We have taken this route a few times already so I decided not to blog about each place we stayed at. Instead I am doing this one post which will capture our adventures from Long Beach to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  Then, since we will be taking some new paths after Sioux Falls, I will return to my original posting model.

The weather was extremely hot, but clear for the most part.  Fortunately, the truck has a great air conditioning system and the trailer keeps us comfortable. This is the first long trip with this new trailer and we are finding it to be comfortable and a lot more sturdy than our previous Rockwood. Our new hitch system is proving to live up to its hype.  We have experienced no sway on the road when trucks roar by us and that makes the traveling days a lot more pleasant.

While in Nebraska, we had two nights of thunderstorms.  Loud thunder and almost continuous lightning strikes made for restless nights. There wasn't a lot of rain but the following days were a bit more comfortable with temps dropping 10 to 15 degrees.  As we travel further east, the weather is getting more comfortable, although the forecast is calling for another heat wave while we are at Oshkosh for the EAA airshow.

Since we wanted to get to Wisconsin as quickly as possible, most of the places we stayed at were one-night stands. We did spend a extra rest day in Heber Valley and another in Grand Island, NE. Went to a highly rated Mexican restaurant in Grand Island. I had a chili relleno which after the 3rd bite, caused me to embark on a coughing spasm that kind of panicked me out. I felt like my throat was being burned out. Eating chips helped a little but it took several minutes for me to recover. Figured out that the cook had not cleaned out the seeds from the poblano chili. Also discovered that eating sugar eliminates the pain in the throat. So I am off of chili rellenos for a while.

Other than the adventure at the Mexican restaurant, I would say we have had a great start to what we hope will be a wonderful summer in the Midwest!

Our new travel trailer is designed to go off-road, so it has heavier axles and chassis and the interior is made with stronger materials.

Passing through the Cajon pass, I spotted this serpentine train making its way to the summit. It must be at least 100 cars long!

Heading down the summit into Primm Valley. We always look forward to a break at Stateline.

After a night spent at the Oasis RV Resort in Vegas, we headed north through the Virgin River Gorge.  I always have trouble spotting the narrow entrance into the mountains.

The Gorge has lots of interesting geological features which always causes me to ponder the length of time the gorge took to form and the changes that the Earth went through during that time.

My chauffer is doing a good job!

Russ calls these FedEx trains. We saw several 3 container truck trailers on I-15 and I-80. They are banned in California.

We spent the night of the 4th of July in a KOA in Beaver, Utah, watched the Capitol fireworks celebration and went to bed early. The next day took us through a beautiful canyon near Provo into Heber Valley, bypassing all the traffic of Salt Lake City. Saw this construction shovel sitting at a very steep angle on the side of the canyon. They don't pay those guys near enough money!

So interesting to see the way the earth surface moved through the eons.

The canyon was full of wildflowers, the river was full and there were lots of waterfalls. We saw several groups tubing down the river. That would be a very cool thing to do on such a hot day.  We are still seeing temps in the 100s.

Heber Valley contains a large reservoir which provides lot of water fun activities.

We spent two nights in Heber Valley at a beautiful, brand new RV resort. In the afternoon, we took a drive to nearby Park City.  Thought this fences of old skis was pretty creative.

The road through Heber Valley connects up with I-80 and took us into Wyoming. We will be on I-80 until Omaha, Nebraska where we will turn north up to Sioux Falls. This road will climb up to the Continental Divide which will be somewhere around 8,000 feet. The land is sparsely populated with people, but we saw lots of grazing cattle and antelopes, along with coal mining operations and windmills

The interesting geology continues. I think the white band indicates that the area was once a part of a large lake. 

I-80 is a major west-east thoroughfare for travelers. We saw a huge number of RVs and travel trailers on the road in addition to tractor trailers. Next to the interstate were several sets of railroad tracks and we must have seen 30 different trains in one day, each one with way over 100 cars. The train companies got ride of cabooses many years ago, so I was surprised to see one hooked onto the backend of this train.

Our trip along the I-80 consisted of one-night stays at Rock Springs and Laramie, WY as well as Ogalla, NE. It was fun to see how the scenes changed as we climbed up and over the Continental Divide.

This robin kept us company for a short while in Ogallala, NE. 

We visited this museum in the past and enjoyed its exhibits depicting the westward migration.

Entering Nebraska, we found corn country!

We definitely in John Deer country.  Not a lot of work out in the fields though. Mostly irrigation in those areas that do that kind of thing.

As soon as we left Omaha and headed north to Sioux Falls, we started seeing the Wall Drug signs.

The farms we saw from the interstates were a mixture of well-kept, prosperous farms and poor struggling farms. Enjoyed seeing the old, old barns and homes that were left to deteriorate next to their modern replacements. Gave a sense of how long some of the farms have existed.

We are well prepared for this trip with GPS, a dashcam and a rear camera on the trailer which helps with putting the trailer into a backup camping site.