Hey Buckaroos, I'm back to do a little blogging. On the road again, this time to the Great Northwest. Really can't imagine I'll ever head out this way again, so we will see how it goes. The Misses and I really have no itinerary, which I like because I can go where I want. We also have no reservations, which may prove to be a problem. We will see......
I'm calling this trip the "Practice Retirement", or "Way Out West". We left home on Monday and headed to Minneapolis to check in with he Darlin' Daughter. We went out to dinner at Surly Brewer with Lee and her friends Adam and MaryAnn. Food was good and the beer was excellent. Spent a couple of hours with the gang, dropped off some birthday presents, dropped of the kids anddayd were on our way. Headed west, looking to get to St. Cloud. Made it to Rogers, MN. It's not far from Minneapolis. We were tired......
We were up and at it early on Tuesday, headed for North Dakota. Now I know everyone says there isn't anything to do or see in North Dakota, but they are wrong!!! We stopped and saw the world's largest buffalo (and one of the white buffalos----one in a million ya know---drove past some interesting welding art as well as the worlds largest Holstein cow, and stopped at the Painted Canyon--beautiful. Finally, we arrived at Madora North Dakota. Madora is where you will find the main entrance to the southern part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Don't imagine too many folks visit this park. There is a nice 36 mile driving loop, as well as place to park to go for various hikes of different lengths and difficulty. We too a few of these short hikes, and the scenery is amazing. We were there in the early evening, and the sun and shadows only enhanced the beauty. As we were driving around the loop, we came to the prairie dog village (blah), stumbled across a lone buffalo just laying by the side of the road, and also had a wild stallion come down the road at us.
We were feeling pretty lucky to see what we did when we came to the turn for the last couple of miles of the loop. Yup a whole herd of buffalo. Big ones, little ones, huge ones. Unbelievable!!! I parked the car right in the middle of the road and just let them walk on by. It was quite the experience--they were less than a foot from the car.....great pictures.....
Wednesday is day three of the trip, and we want to get up to Glacier National Park. Montana is a heck of a big state. We ended up putting on about 700 miles today. Seatereatus has set in. We did take some time out to visit Pompey's Pillar. I've seen pictures of this since at least 8th grade, if not earlier. It is a stone where William Clark carved his name while on the exposition. It is the only record left that Lewis and Clark were ever anywhere. You see, the carved their names all over the place, and we know where because they kept meticulous records. But this is the only place they put their name that wasn't a tree. And we know what happens to trees......
So we are hunkered down in Missoula Montana trying to plan tomorrow....Glacier National Park is having some problems with fire and is half shut down. We are having a bit of a problem finding lodging. We'll see what tomorrow brings.....we may be Oregon bound......
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