Grand Canyon - Impressive and disappointing

Do you suppose that is called "finger" mountain?
At the Grand Canyon most of the buildings were designed in the early 1900's and blend in with the scenery.

Many areas have no railings - scary!!

The canyon is impressive because of its size. Disappointing because I expected more color.

Another example of the buildings designed to blend in with the mountains.

On to Nevada

We left Utah on Friday (27th) and drove to Laughlin, NV deciding to by-pass Las Vegas and gamble at the casino with the RV park in Laughlin. That night they had a storm which resembled a tropical storm back home. It was obvious and later confirmed by the people at the casino that rain was not a normal occurrence there. There was no cover from the parking garage to the casino. As we dashed across the tiled walkway I heard a squeak, squeak, squeak followed by a "Barrrrb". I looked back to see Jerry flat on his back. The squeaks were his attempt to keep his footing in his crocs on the wet tile. Fortunately he was not hurt, only very wet and I was able to hold my laughter until he was back on his feet. The next morning there were roads closed because of the mud and rocks washed onto them. The RV rocked and rolled in the strong wind.
Jerry did pretty well playing "Let'm Ride" and since they had penny slots it took me a long time to lose my money.

Entering the long state of Utah

As we entered Utah from Idaho it appeared to be as flat and barren as the previous states but greener. There were mountain ranges on each side. The wind was horrific at times. As we got closer to Salt lake city there were miles and miles of actual cities!!

The southern part of Utah is beautiful! We spent the day at Zion Nat'l Park yesterday. Jerry likes it the best so far. It has given us a taste of what we expect the Grand Canyon
to look like.

Tomorrow ends our 4 days of rest. We are off to the Las vegas area to lighten our wallets a bit

:-(

More Yellowstone pictures

Around the geysers are pools of steaming water which the signs say have enough acid in them to eat through your boots.

This acidic water kills any forms of life it comes in contact with and leaves this course, white, ash like substance.

As we drove around geysers would just erupt in open areas. You could feel the heat and steam.

I took a video of Old Faithful and forgot to turn off the camera. Since it shows old Faithful for about 1 minute and my knee for another minute - I won't post it here.

Yellowstone Nat'l Park

He is alive honest! He was actually sleeping beside the road.

Aren't we lovely? LOL We did find out the Continental divide is the line where rivers on one side flow south and the other side they flow north.

We managed to make both loops through Yellowstone in two days. Did lots of walking, climbing and riding in the truck. We saw buffalo, raven, osprey, chipmunks, a swan, pronghorn, a coyote and a small grizzly who ran right in front of our truck. Some of them I got pictures of others I either got caught up in the moment and didn't get my camera fast enough or in some cases I thought I took a picture of but in reviewing my pictures - I missed. Old Faithful and all the geysers were fascinating. Yellowstone is part desert, mountainous, plains and plateaus. We could see the areas that were destroyed by fire in 1988. We asked why the dead trees had not decayed and were told that because of the altitude decay is very slow. The ranger also said milk spoils much slower and bread never gets stale. Hmmm wonder if it will slow aging??? We have to move on to Provo, Utah tomorrow as the only RV park here has no room for us after tonight.

Crazy Horse monument

On Tuesday we visited the Crazy Horse Monument which has been under development since 1948. It will be bigger than Rushmore when completed. The goal is for it to be finished no later than 2040! The project depends solely on donations. At the monument there are numerous displays of other sculptures made by Korczak Ziolkowski who began the project but died in 1982. He had an amazing talent and rendered many sculptures in Ivory and bronze. There are also buildings of native American displays and items for sale. They have some crazy painted buffalo around here too!!

Trip to Mt Rushmore

It is much more impressive when seen in

person!!
I took a picture of a poster which gives an

idea of the massive size of the faces. They

are 485 feet high!!
The picture on its side shows Jerry - the little blue figure at the top of a steep cliff.
There is a sheer drop of about 1/2 mile at the top.

There are 3 one way tunnels as you approach

mt Rushmore. As you exit the tunnels the
faces are framed by the tunnel - awesome!

On the road to Rushmore buffalo have the right of way!!!

Our campsite at mt Rushmore area

From Flat to mountains in 60 miles

We stopped at Wall Drugs about 3/4 of the way across the state, as recommended by Linda Churchman. Lots of bikers here and an amazing store.

We entered Mountain time zone and got another hour back to relive. LOL

There were literaly thousands of mororcycles, RVs and toy haulers headed east away from Sturgis. The road was solid with them.

Finding he campground I was finally able to make a reservation at, was an adventure. It's amazing how such a flat looking map can translate into such high elevations. We are now at about 5300 feet above sea level and the roads to get us here were very steep.

Iowa, So Dakota and Finally Mt Rushmore

August 12th we left Missouri and entered Iowa around noon. Temperatures are running in the high 90s and the humidity is worse than Florida I swear!! Diesel prices have been $2.84 to $2.89 per gallon which has been a pleasant surprise - and fortunate as we are averaging 10 MPG. Parts of Iowa have been flooding and we can see evidence of that along the road. There are acres and acres of soybeans as far as we can see. The land here is flat and you can see for miles in every direction.

Finally reached So Dakota at 3:45 central time. Stopped in Salem SD at one of the prettiest, cleanest RV parks we have ever seen. Temps are in the high 80's. Starting to see a lot of motorcycles as some are leaving Sturgis. After calling a number of campsites near Mt Rushmore it is obvious that there won't be openings until after the Sturgis Rally so we stayed a second night in Salem. We visited a Prairie Village which consists of buildings restored from the late 1800's. It was one of the best I've seen.

One thing we learned there is that early settlers had to build homes from sod because there were no trees. As we drove across the entire middle of the state we saw very few trees even today. So Dakota until you reach the farthest west part, has the flattest landscape we have ever seen. (see picture)

Kentucky, Illinois and into Missouri

We decided to spend a second night in Paducah, KY after all it is a big quilt city. :-)Tuesday Aug. 10th we went to the quilt museum - what a humbling experience!! Then made a disappointing stop at the Hancock fabric store - no deals there but I did buy a couple pieces of fabric ( it's an addiction). It amazes me that we can go places at home and never run into people we know. While in Paducah we meet two different couples one at camp the other while in Hancock's. One we ran into later at the museum and the other we ran into at Red Lobster that night.
On the 11th we drove through Illinois and arrived in Missouri at 1:45 pm. That night we stopped at a campground in Higginsville, MO. We struck up a conversation with the couple in the lot next to us. They introduced themselves as Barbara and Jerry. I'm not sure if they believed us when we said that was our names too. About a half hour after we got setup a staff member came by and told us a bad storm was on the way with 50 to 60 mile an hour winds, rain and hail. About a half hour later it arrived. It was a little nerve wracking as the trees around us started whipping around and the RV rocked back and forth. Fortunately there was no hail and it only lasted about 15 minutes.
Four days into our trip and so far it is a lot of driving on boring highways but I'm still excited to be making the trip and looking forward to what is to come.

Our trip has begun

We got on the road about 10 am Sunday, August 8th. Just into Georgia (Valdosta) we met up with Linda and Ward Churchman who were heading south and back home. That was really cool and a great surprise. First day's journey took us to Cartersville, GA - just north of Atlanta. We had decided to spend two nights in truck stops and the third at a campground. BAD decision when the country is experiencing extremely hot weather. We found a really nice spot to park but without electricity we have no AC. The temperature in the RV was about 93 degrees and the humidity was at least 200% (well it sure felt like it was). The refrigerator stopped working and we had no running lights on the RV. Jerry spent a couple hours working on those problems. He did get the refrigerator working but not the running lights. It was dark and with no running lights we didn't dare attempt to find a campground. One small battery operated fan was all that kept us from being cooked well done Sunday night.
What a relief to get into the truck on Monday morning.
Monday started out fairly well. We stopped periodically to make sure the refrigerator was still operating. About 9 AM we crossed the border into Tennessee and made a pit stop at the welcome center. As we got ready to leave, Jerry noticed a tennis ball size bulge on one of the tires. Looking under the RV we found another tire with a bulge on the inside. Not something we wanted to be cruising down the highway with at 65 mph. Fortunately the next exit had a Wal-Mart. By 10:30am we had two new tires and a much lighter wallet.
We made it through Tennessee and to the Kentucky/Illinois border and made the easy decision to stay in a campground for the night.