10 facts about South Dakota

10 facts you didn't know about South Dakota
1. People eat a lot of beef jerky and brats
2. Hay bails are placed along the roadside. I don't know if they are dropped off or waiting to be picked up
3. Native Americans are from various Sioux tribes
4. The Black Hills were called "black" by
The Native Americans who thought that the tree covered hills looked black from a distance
5. The badlands are weathered sandstone hills and canyons
6. Custer State Park has the largest buffalo herd
7. The cowboy city, Deadwood, is located in SD
8. There aren't very many blacks or Jews in the state. There are only @ 10,000 blacks (which make up less than 2% of the population and 345 Jews. This is down from 1,900 in 1899.
9. It is the home of Mt. Rushmore
10. Stephen and Lynne will get their SD drivers license on Tuesday! and become residents of this state. I'll be number 346!!!

Taken at a museum in Webster, SD, depicting life in SD at the turn of the 20th century

Old school house

Jail

Gas Pump

Stephen about to go to jail 

Views from North Dakota

Finally, beautiful weather after 2 weeks. We are @15 miles outside of Grand Forks, North Dakota, I was thrilled to go into town and get my first manicure and pedicure since we've been on the road!  We are camping in a lovely and spacious site for 3 days. The countryside has gotten flatter and there are fewer trees. When driving we see fields of corn, barley, and sunflowers; the American heartland. I spoke to a woman today while I was getting my nails done. She told me that last year wasn't a bad winter; they only had several days at 30 degrees below zero. Needless to say, I've ruled this city out as my future home!

Baudette/Lake of Woods, MN

It is eerily quiet here. There must be at least 75 to 100 RVs at this resort, but not a sound. I think that many of them are seasonal and leave after the weekend to return home. NO sounds from crickets since Michigan. This is a shame since I found it particularly soothing. I'm going to try to see the northern lights once it gets dark.

The grass is full of spotted frogs and lizards. It is disconcerting to see the ground move underneath you.

People  here eat a lot of fruit pies of various varieties. I had blueberry peach tonight and blackberry apple a couple days ago. Eating my way through MN is not helping me lose or even maintain my weight!

photos from MN

wolves from wolf center

zuni looking out of car

Grounds at Glensheen. Lake Superior in background

Cook, MN

We arrived in Cook after a week near Duluth, MN. Cook is way out in the "boonies" on the border of boundary waters, an area in northern MN which has thousands of lakes and nothing else. No one lives in the boundary waters and there are no roads. It is a wilderness where individuals can go on canoe expeditions.

We plan to stay here for 2 days and then drive up past International Falls to a locations in NW MN which is the farthest north you can go in the US.

The weather for the past week has been cloudy, rainy, and cool. It is hard to believe that it is August 22.  Average temps have been in the 60's, but feels cooler.

While camping near Duluth we spent 3 days with Barb and Mike Lhotka. Barb and I met 3 1/2 years ago when Salus created a cohort of students from MN. Barb and Mike have a camper and joined us on our adventures up north. They took us to a historic home, Glensheen, built in Duluth in 1908 by an iron magnate. One day we drove to Ely, MN to a wolf conservation center and shopped in several outfitter stores for people who go into the boundary waters. Yesterday we drove to Grand Marais. In each city we ate pies (apparently that is very popular up here). While I hoped to lose weight on this trip I have, so far, done the opposite. Eating all those pies doesn't help!

Two Harbor/Duluth, MN

It has been a very cold and windy few days. After it rained in Michigan the over night temp dropped to 42 degrees with a daytime high of 56. That was the day we bundled ourselves up and took a boat ride on Lake Superior to see Pictured Rock National Lakeshore. Pictured Rocks is several miles of lakeshore where the limestone cliffs have been carved by erosion and colored by minerals leaching from above. It was all very pretty and it even warmed up as the sun came out while we were on the boat.

Following Michigan we spent one night in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin and finally arrived outside Duluth. We will be here for one week. On Tuesday, our friend, the Lhotkas, will join us in there camper. Yesterday we drove into Duluth to run some errands. I felt like I was back in civilization! We had a good grocery store, a drug store, and even a best buy.  We had to replace the 32 inch flat screen TV that came with the trailer because I  forgot to tie it down when we left WI and it was damaged on the trip to MN. Now we need to figure out how to make the new one work. It is windy and cold and I'm wearing jeans and sweatshirts.