Welcome to Wyoming

Greetings from Cody --

The Sturgis bike rally has been an education in and of itself. Lest you think we are winning the war on smoking, visit Sturgis where you can see 1,000,000 people chain smoking like mad befoe they hop back on their bikes. Note to bikers -- helmets are out but do rags are in. I'm sure they do a great job sopping up the mess when you wipe out. Best comment heard at Mt Rushmore by a 60 year old biker to his biker bud -- "Man, my ass is draggin today!" Of course this became our mantra today following our beautiful trail ride in the mountains here in WY. But I digress...I appreciated that Mike tasked Eli with following the biker woman in the Crazy Horse museum who was wearing boots, her Catholic uniform plaid skirt, and a haltar top that revealed an entire painting of tatoos so that Eli could signal me to check her out when I came out of the gift shop..as if I could've missed her!

Favorite town name so far: What Cheer

Favorite winery: Red Ass Rhubarb Winery

Favorite Free item: The Free Bikini Bike Wash

Favorite Road name: Crazy Woman Creek Rd (I think that pioneer life really drove these women over the edge)

By the way, our trail guide cowgirl informed us that she is from a small town in none other than Portage, MI. Does anyone know the Whitehurst family that lives in Rudgate?

Julie

Monday at Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Wind Cave

The kids at Crazy Horse. Didn't your parents hate it when you bugged them for a quarter to use these pay binoculars? Guess what? It still bugs the parents.

This is but a small sampling of the Harley festival. Reportedly, there wer over 1,000,000 motorcylclists who attended the Sturgis rally. As you can imagine, the clothing (mainly jeans, black t's, and halter tops) and tattoos (small and large -- people as well as tatts) were inspiring. Is a Harley in our future?

What better way to embarass your kids (and yourselves) than by wearing matching t-shirts (courtesy of Catherine's summer camp) while visiting a public site, surrounded by Harley bikers (who by the way were doing the same thing - jeans and black t-shirts). Hey - stop staring at me!

This is Fred, the bison that was 50 feet away from our door on Monday morning. He just grazed happily as we took pictures. I wonder where his herd went.-Matthew

New Pictures-Sunday South Dakota

What would a trip to South Dakota be without a visit to the Corn Palace? What a great visit to the state of South Dakota! i always admired what the state had to offer -- George McGovern and Tom Brokaw -- but I never realized just how beautiful it was! We hiked the high plains in the Badlands - a fascinating area that is other worldly. That's me, (Michael) with the groovy bandana, next to the sign that says Beware of Rattlesnakes (and guys wearing bandanas)! A trip past prarie dogs and buffalo (I had to pick up the pie to see how it burns - just like in Little House on the Prairie. We spent the night in a "primitive" campground -- albeit in our RV with a refrigerator filled with cold water -- and much to the disdain of the "au naturel" granola lovers. That night, we went out to see the stars . . . and we saw the GALAXY. It was simply amazing!

M

Also, the engine light is still on, and blinks when we go over 70 -- which we shouldn't be doing anyway. (FYI, apostrophes don't work in comments - per my IT tech.)

Catherine On Sunday, we drove to the Badlands. We were so excited and they definitely didn't disappoint. The rock formations were wild, otherworldly. We got some great pictures of the vistas. On our 4 mile hike, we also saw wide open prairie. I never knew such simplicity could be so beautiful. We also saw prairie dogs and the famed jackelope. I loved our campground and I felt like I saw the whole galaxy. The Badlands are a place that I would HIGHLY recommend spending the night in!

Day one

Who knew that the adventure would begin just by getting the RV. As we pulled away onto the street, oops, on came the check engine light. I happily hopped out and ran down our capable assistant. Oh, they checked that and it doesn't mean anything. Everything checked out. OH, I smiled nervously, but how will I know if we really have a problem? It will be fine. Okay, and off I went. Once again, we pull out only to see water streaming out of the bathroom floor. Gross. Back we we go again and I track down our assistant. She happily tells me it is clean water left from the thorough cleaning they did that morning. Okay, if you say so. I was tempted to go back again a few minutes later to see if she was now cowering on the floor under the desk to avoid the nervous novice. Well all went well until we switched drivers. Oh, the kids said nervously. Mom is driving?? Yes, she is. Well, that went okay after that initial zoom onto the highway and even into the Stryker parking lot where unbelievably many employees had paused from their work to wave at us. Home we went and here we are at the KOA on our first night. Iowa is actually beautiful, much hillier than I recalled. I was thinking about the pastoral setting when to my dismay I suddenly thought I was back in Portage...Target, WalMart, and a grocery store appeared out my window. The KOA is everything they said it would be, complete with pool, minigolf, and trees....except for being right beside the highway! The Harleys are everywhere. As we sat happily sampling Iowa ice cream, 100 motorcycles screamed into town and they all piled into a local tavern. We, and our RV, the Kalamakroozr, were not invited as we sped out of town hoping to beat the bikers following their bar stop. Highlight of the day...watching M, C and E waving madly out the back window trying to get people to wave back and trucks to honk. At last count, Catherine recorded 200 waves and only about 25 "sours"! What a great country! Julie

Catherine

Hey everyone, this is Catherine posting from South Dakota. We drove across Iowa, and we saw more corn than I have ever seen before. It was an ocean of corn, and sometimes, there was no tree line, so you could see all the way to the horizon. It looked pretty cool, when the wind rippled through the fields. As we left Portage, I watched out the back window from Mom and Dad's bed. I had slept in the loft and it was really comfy. We stopped to get set things up and then the fun began. Matthew, Eli, and I spent the day waving at motorcyclists and cars out the back windows. We had 200 people who waved back, we kept a tally, and the motorcyclists had some interesting tattoos. We stopped for yummy ice cream in Iowa, where we saw thousands of cyclists heading into a tiny bar in an even tinier town. We also stopped in Grinnell Iowa to look at the college. The drive was long, but we were happy to find our spot in the campground. It has a pool (we swam) and mini golf (we golfed) and WiFi. Its going to be a contrast from tomorrow night, where we are basically staying in a big grassy field. We are looking forward to the Badlands tomorrow, and starting the highlights of our trip out west! Lots of love-hope everyone is great! Please comment!

Day One-At KOA

I am having so much fun on the trip so far. But one of the big highlights was The Ice Cream Shoppe. I was ten times better then dairy queen. Suddenly, at least one-hundred motorcyclist pulled into the parking lot of a bar and in the middle was a stretch limousine. We drove forever. This trip rocks!

-Eli G. Cartier

The Iowa Border and Fashion Disasters

Left K'zoo this morning at 0600. Dad was a fashion disaster. We stopped at the Iowa border for lunch, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Mom and Dad seem to like the local produce.

Matthew

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