Wall - South Dakota

Hot tamales!  97 degrees, really? In South Dakota???...  The drive, almost a perfect straight highway the entire time, was  fascinating  First, you gotta wonder - where do the people that live and work on such remote ranches get food or the kids go to school? I would imagine that they have to produce most of their food on the farm and kids are homeschooled.   

Miles and miles of sunflowers. South Dakota farmers plant about 700,000 acres for bird seed, sunflower seeds to eat and oil. About 50% of the US sunflower oil comes from this state. 

But oh hey... I mean hay - my goodness - fields and a gazillion  miles of round hay bales. Current price depending on quality up to $200 a bale. Mark kept saying money on the ground. 

We stopped at the National Grassland overlook. Didn’t even take a picture - dry grass as far as the eye can see. 

I don’t think Wall Drug store needs to advertise every quarter mile because the place is packed with every vehicle between Mount Rushmore and Mitchell.  We got the free water and took the obligatory stupid sit on the jackalope picture and tried to find a place for a cold draft beer. Not to be found!

Speaking of advertising- Firehouse Brewery has a sign about every couple of miles with an old fire truck parked next to the sign. They must have purchased 100’s of old fire trucks. The advertising worked on me- if we make it into Rapid City we will stop for a beer! 

The owner of the RV dealership is working hard to find a solution to the refrigerator. May or may not work but we appreciate the effort. 

Sioux Falls and Mitchell South Dakota

I should’ve titled this early lessons learned. Not particularly bad outcomes but just new information.

1) Get behind a semi and a truck pulling a trailer gets about 4 or 5 miles per gallon of gas efficiency. 

2) 1-29 between Omaha and Sioux Falls called the Lewis and ClarkTrail is about the longest  bumpy road in the state. It was probably smoother for the expedition team!

3) Mark learned he can navigate small streets and even back up to see things on the itinerary!

4) The only negative that will cause us problems- I was over zealous prepping meals. The freezer and refrigerator isn’t efficient overly full. Air needs to circulate around items. The food isn’t staying cold enough and some food is thawing. Drats! Guess we will have to eat our favorite foods first and toss what doesn’t make it. 

First stop today was Falls Park In Sioux Falls. A steamy hot selfie with a pretty view. Trivia of the day - Sioux Falls was known as the best city to get a legal divorce in the late 1800’s. With only a 90 day residency requirement and lax judges a divorce was easy to obtain. Thousands traveled to Sioux Falls and while the locals didn’t like the trend they profited from the demand for hotels and restaurants.

Every tourist worth their salt must visit the Corn Palace in Mitchell. It is an event center and sports arena. Built in 1921 the outside and much of the inside is decorated by murals made from corn. The palace actually smells like corn!  The local high school and college play basketball in the arena. With covid and not much going on,  the court is being used as a gift shop. 

Nebraska City

As we were driving away, we were both asking each other...What did we forget?  So, far we haven’t identified anything!  Mark reset the trip odometer and the journey begins. 

It was a long day of driving and pulling a camper - 396 miles. We departed at 8:30 and stopped twice for gas.  Mark was a pro at pulling in and leaving the pump. He has been concerned about taking one out!  We had lunch at a rest stop. Truckers must be bored because they came up to meet Kate. 

We arrived at our first Harvest Host location at 4 pm-  Kimmel Orchard and Vineyards established in 1825 . This is a pretty cool program. You pay $67 for the year and you get a list of wineries, farms etc that you stay overnight for free. They only ask you to support the small business with a purchase. Easy enough to do. Apple donuts for breakfast and some salted caramel honey because it sounded delicious! 

Spaghetti dinner was alfresco on a lovely evening in the home city of Arbor Day. 

Arbor Day had its beginnings in an area not always associated with trees or forests—the Great Plains. In 1872 on April 10, Morton Arboretum founder Joy Morton's father, living in Nebraska at the time, decided to set aside a day for planting and calling attention to trees, as the newly formed territory was a land almost entirely devoid of trees. That date became the first Arbor Day, when it is said that Nebraskans planted one million trees. The birthplace of Arbor Day was Nebraska City, where the Mortons lived in their home called Arbor Lodge. In 1885, Nebraska officially declared April 22, as Arbor Day. 

5,000 Miles - Go Big or Go Home

Mark and I seem to take on a big adventure every time I retire.  After leaving DSHS, we hiked the Camino de Santiago also known as the Way of St. James in Northern Spain.  This time we purchased a 30 foot travel trailer to explore the US.  We are addicted to National Parks, nature photography, and experiencing the beauty of this county. We have tested out the travel trailer 4 times on short trips.  Our 5th trip was cancelled because the AC was not cooling, refrigerator stopped working and the microwave needed to be replaced.  Thankfully, the dealership was able to fix all the problems with a new AC and microwave installed and a component replaced in the refrigerator.  We were lucky that these issues were identified and repaired before we left.  Fingers crossed that we don't have any more mechanical problems.  

 We talked about adding Glacier National Park to our already full trip, but decided 4 weeks was long enough and adding Glacier would add another week... and once you are in Glacier you are so close to Canada that it would be a shame to not continue further north - so we will have to do Glacier next summer.  There are so many places and states to visit. We are excited about the future.  

Mark has watched 100's of You Tube videos on "how to", "what to" and "just in case do" for pulling and preparing a travel trailer.  He also downloaded apps for telling us if we are traveling on a road with a bridge our trailer won't clear and finding available campsites.  One app tells us on average when we need to stop for gas, were we can stop and maps the route plus gas stops.  We have 50 something required stops for gas and overnight. We "feel" prepared. 

Speaking of prepared, trip planning is half the fun for me.  I may just be a little obsessed with planning and organization.  This binder has our daily itinerary, stops, sights to see, photography locations, coins for laundry, contacts for AAA and all of our memberships like KOA, Harvest Hosts and Good Sam.  The good part is we have a few dates that we must be at specific places. We only have one reservation that has been made in advance at Mt. Rushmore giving us some flexibility - if we want to leave a place sooner or stay longer.  

I have prepared and frozen 25 meals that are ready to be thawed and heated or cooked sous vide.  With some meals out, we should only have to stop for some minor groceries like milk, bread, eggs, and fresh fruits and veggies along the way.  I am hoping we find a few roadside fresh produce places.  

We leave in one week - Thanks for following along with our journey along the Cowling Way. 

Nashville!

Wow- Incredible talent in Nashville.  I can see why people want to live here and break into music but with so much competition- I bet it feels hopeless. One star sighting- Scarlet- Clare Bowen from the TV show Nashville was singing live on the radio. 

The Grand Ole Opry was so fun. Would definitely go again. Hands down the best  sound system of any concert/music venue that we have ever attended. 

Spent the entire afternoon bar hopping on lower Broadway to listen to different bands. Tootsie’s by far won the battle of the bands. This kid was 16 and amazing. 

New band with a fiddle player that should be playing bigger venues. A group tipped her $170 (not a typo) to play The Devil Went Down to Georgia. 

Roberts Western World was old school. They played both kinds of music  - country AND western. 

Kidd Rocks Roof Top 

And Layla’s.   

A visit to the Parthenon without going to Greece. 

And the most unimpressive State Capitol on the inside and different on the outside was not worth the hike up these stairs!!!

Goodbye Kentucky- Hello Music City

Kentucky is a great state to visit with diverse things to see and do. We decided to visit one of the 130 caves in Kentucky. The natural limestone geology promotes very fresh water for the distilleries and caves for exploring. We skipped the huge caverns to visit a small family owned cave - Crystal Onyx. It was such a cool cave. Small group. Tour supposed to be about 30 minutes but the tour guide didn’t rush and we spent an hour roaming around. I might know more technical terms than she did but it was super fun and a good choice!!!

Next stop the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green to drool just a little bit. You might remember when they had a huge sinkhole that gobbled up several cars in the middle of the museum when a cave collapsed. They saved the wreckage. 

Couldn’t resist stopping at a very t-tiny distillery before crossing the Tennessee border. Dueling Grounds in Franklin, KY. They bottle about a barrel per week with 3 full time employees.