LAST BIT ON THE ROAD

We did our last leg of the road trip yesterday stopping by a sight Norm remembered from waaaay back "in the day" - the place with the 10,000 silver dollars. Well, we don't know if they actually have more dollars now, or if inflation is the reason but it's now the $50,000 silver dollar bar. Just a quick stop for a photo opt and BR break and we were back on the road since we were both anxious to get to the lake.

Proud May took the mountains like a breeze. Luckily, Norm had figured out how to use the cruise control and downshifting to save the brakes so we went up and down LoLo Pass without a problem and arrived at Lake Pend Oreille early afternoon. 

After a bit of reconnoitering we managed to get her mast hoisted and the infamous Bimini in place. We celebrated by going out to dinner at a little place within walking distance, then to bed early as we were two old tired birds.  Falling alseep in our little nest was easy, but around 2AM we both woke up to a horrible screeching sound that was relentless.  It just went on and on. Norm got up to investigate and found the back of the boat had gotten too close and it was rubbing against the dock. since our berth is in the back of the boat it was amplified 10-fold to us down below.  He retied the lines and the rest of the night was uneventful.

A good first part-day in paradise.....and the beat goes on...

~Nancy

WORLD MUSEUM OF MINING - Missoula, Montana

Sailed down the road from Billings to Missoula, Montana today listening to a mystery of tape and watching the prairie turn into mountains.  The only major stop we made was in Butte at the Little Orphan Girl Mine.  Interesting walk around the little town they've recreated, circa late 1800's, but even more interesting were the skeletons of gigantic, old mining equipment that are strewn all about the grounds. As you might imagine, Norm was in seventh heaven! 

The little Orphan Girl Mine (I can't believe they actually named a mine that) began in 1856 and was worked until 1956.  with typical dark, humor miners often called had frames 'gallus'. or gallows, because they looked like places to hang a man and because the threat of death was ever present in the mines.

The mining museum was well worth the stop so if you're ever in Butte check it out!  I had to buy the ice cream again today since the car is sucking gas down like crazy going up the mountain and Norm won the bet. We've agree to skip ice cream for the rest of the week :-)

We're in Missoula tonight and will arrive at Lake Pend Oreille tomorrow before noon. Life is good....and the beat goes on.....

~Nancy

"As the warning bell sounded, the cage dropped into the dark shaft. The only light came from the lanterns affixed to the cage itself. Likened by some of the miners to being buried alive, the fall produced only muted sounds...then from the pit of the stomach came the sinking feeling that accompanied the rapid fall." ~ Ronald C. Brown - Hardrock Mines

SAILING ACROSS THE PRAIRIE

The road trip across the prairie continues. Proud Mary is doing fine. She pulls great....except in the wind when she wants to take off and fly away! Norm is doing all the driving.....well, I did drive for 100 miles, but that was all he could handle. I make him nervous!

Not many stops today other than the visitors center for Wyoming and , of course, the obligatory ice cream stop. I had to buy for the first time yesterday. We wage a bet each day of what sort of gas mileage we'll get and the loser has to buy. I think we better put a screeching halt on that game though....if I keep eating ice cream all the way to Idaho my life jacket isn't going to fit! LOL

And the beat goes on...

~Nancy

THE BADLANDS and BEYOND

I took my bad boy through the Badlands today. What a timeless place! Layers and layers of sedimentary rock laid down over eons—then carved into sand castle shapes by the relentless wind! Life must be very hard in the Badlands – one hot mother in the summer; one long, cold winter. And the wind blows all year long.  Awesomely beautiful. Great place to visit. Wouldn’t want to live there.

Next stop: Wall Drug for ice cream!  A quick stop was pretty much all we did as there were gaggles of tourists flocking to see of the zillions of gift shops and trinkets – so many people it felt very claustrophophic!  We ate our ice cream and got the heck out of there!  Next was a quick look in the Wall Harley Shop for a T-shirt for Norm, but no luck.  All were fairly ‘gaudy’ and he decided against getting one so we drove on down the road to…. 

   Mount Rushmore!  We arrived about 30 minutes before they closed so we didn’t bother to go inside, just stopped at a scenic  overlook and took a few snaps then headed on down the road to Deadwood passing scads of ‘tourists traps’ along the way. This area has really gown up since our last visit. Then we had trouble finding a motel – now the road is lined with them and also tourist’s shops after shops.  Today casinos, motels, Prairie Dog Farms, Christmas Stores, Go-Kart tracks – you name it, line the streets.  It reminded me of the first time we returned to Angenguo, Mexico to see the Monarchs. The single bumpy, dirt road with one ‘shack’ gift shop at the sanctuary entrance had morphed into a wide, paved road lined with tienda after tienda  offering ‘junky trinkets’ to all who visited. My recommendation: If you go to Mount Rushmore go ‘off season.’  Hopefully, you’ll miss the hoards of cars and people scurrying everywhere. No one can say Americans aren’t staying home to vacation this year, but we’ve noticed I-90 seems sparse with traffic so maybe gas prices are keeping everyone on cacation close to home.

Leaving Mount Rushmore we drove to Deadwood in search of dinner, but although it looked like a sweet little town, it too had grown into a tourist trap: LOTS of stores and LITTLE parking! We’ve been very careful all along this trip not to get ourselves into a parking situation we can’t get out of , so we just drove through Deadwood and continued on down the road to Spearfish, S.D. where we spent our first night aboard Proud May in a nice little campgroup at the edge of town.  The campground  was full to the gills with folks, yet surprisingly quiet.  It rained cats-n-dogs in the night, but we were snug as a couple of bugs in our nest on Proud Mary. 

Another great day on the road….And the beat goes on…

~Nancy

Wander a whole summer if you can. Thousands of God's blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. ~ John Muir

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THE GREAT ROAD TRIP WEST - DAY TWO

We started the day by heading off our route a few miles to visit the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Museum.  Since Norm feels like he is the sole reason they've had to double their production over the past 120 years it was a stop we couldn't pass up.  and well worth it , it was!  Huckleberry for me and Mocha-almond-fudge for Norm :-)  Oh, and the "museum" wasn't much, but what was there was interesting.

Then in the afternoon we pulled into Chamberlin, SD just in time to make it to the Lakota Indian Museum.  AWESOME!  Definitely well worth the stop even if it did leave me feeling more than a little bit sad about the way the early Americans treated the Lakota.

Dinner for me; breakfast for Norm at a local family run cafe then a walk about town and across the bride that's under construction.  Ah, another good day. And the beat goes on....

~Nancy

Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” Pat Conway

MAN on the STREET

Norm continues with his "man of the street" interviews. Here he is in Albia, Iowa at the courthouse chasing me around the grounds asking,"What do you have to say today, Nancy?" Albia has a nice little monument to the "Fallen Soldiers of the Civil War, so I snapped just one of the old sailor...who may get left in Spearfish, Montana if he doesn't let up with his "interviews!"  LOL

It was TOO HOT to camp in Proud Mary for the night as we planned. (92 degrees at 8PM!) so we opted for a nice motel, then walked to the nearby Colonel's place for some good, albeit greasy, fried chicken and fixins.

All in all it was a good first day and the beat goes one...

~Nancy

LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN !

And we're off! After much fanfare, planning, provisioning, laoding and unloading, we're finially ready to pull out. Our neighbor, Marion, just came by to take our "farewell" photos. So, we're off - 1624 miles and Norm plans to do "Man on the Street interviews all the way out to idaho. I may leave him in Spearfish, Montana. :-)

~Nancy

Twenty years from now you will be more disppointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover ~ Mark Twain