Author: karenbpalmer

Buckeye winery, beautiful area, great food.Dawes Arboretum, you can walk or drive around the grounds.  Weird swampy area.Beautiful views, the picture does not do it justice.Drive through liquor store. The inside had coolers along both sides.

Starved Rock State Park, nice hiking paths. Gorgeous canyons, no waterfalls because of the dry summer.We went on a 5 mile hike, thou the paths were nice there was a lot of steep steps.On top of Starved Rock, great views.At our campsite we had to be careful where we walked, the Osage Orange trees were dropping their fruit. If one hit you that would surly leave a mark.

Our first night was spent in Elba Minnesota, just east of Rochester.Stayed in their new campground, beautiful area, nice hiking trails. A lot of black walnut trees around the campsites.

 

 

First stop, cheese factory. Actually we stopped again on the way home for fresh cheese curds.

All excited and prepared for the eclipse but the sky didn’t clear until after it was over.

Gwen decided she loved to kayak and hunt turtles.

Heading out to fish

Ben cleaning Tim’s catch.

Ben and Gwen cooking breakfast.

Ben and Gwen kayaking

The three of us having a great time padding around.

Abbie even got out there.

John fishing from the dock.

We stopped in Taylors Falls on our way home to do some pothole exploring and rock climbing.

 

August 12, 2017, Crow River winery

Mom and Dad with a few grandchildren….with a couple photo bombers

Cheers to Emily, welcome shot to the Wollum family.

 

August 8th – 10th traveling back to MN for our nephews wedding.

Greybull KOA, August 8th, very nice campsite, only a few blocks from downtown.  Laundry day so we didn’t venture out.  Big Horn Mountain pass tomorrow.

This was the second decline sign, lots of warnings to check your brakes.                       The elevation route, another butt clinching day.

Sundance campground, beautiful views, wasn’t really able to explore the town as Sturgis rally as going on and absolutely no place to park.

Devils tower, great place to stroll around.  Bring your binoculars so you can watch the climbers.

Vietnam veteran’s 1/2 scale wall

Famil-E-Fun Campground near Mitchell, easy to get in and out of, lots of mature trees.

Yep, we had to stop by the famous corn palace.

August 3rd – 7th Valley View Park / Yellowstone National Park

Beautiful views from our campsite John and I got all dressed up for fly fishing.  We caught Rocky Mountain White Fish, Rainbow, and Brown trout.  It was a chilly start to the day, low 50’s and frigid waters.

Upper Mesa Falls, breath taking views.Yes, we were there.Lower Mesa Falls, picture taken through our binoculars.  You can YouTube some idiots kayaking down these.

The drive to Cave Falls brought back the memories of driving in Costa Rica, gravel and very bumpy.  We were wishing we were in a rental.Panoramic view from Cave Falls overlook.  The caves collapsed a couple years ago, so no cave exploring for us.  From here they have a 30 mile hiking trail to Old Faithful, maybe next time.

Mama Elk and 3 babies alongside the road in Yellowstone, caused a major traffic delay.

 Hot tub anyone?

The happy couple.

Old Faithful, we watched from The Old Faithful Inn observation deck, sure beat standing in the crowds.

Buffalo crossing, Yellowstone rush hour.

Some of the devastation from fires we saw as we left Yellowstone via the east gate. Driving out we climbed to an elevation of 8,678 feet and within 5 miles we were down to 4,131 feet, really glad to have the jake brakes. Karen was pumping the passenger brakes a couple of times on the tight turns.

We will plan another trip back to Yellowstone but in the off season when it is not so crowded.

 

Medora, ND – July 30th – August 2nd

Our day didn’t start very well, we were busy packing up to head to Medora and John came to the door and told me that I should “hold up, we got a flat”.  Being a Sunday and wanting to get on the road we changed it ourselves.

 The day didn’t get much better, we were between Bismarck and Dickinson and all the sudden we heard something dragging.  We pulled over on I-94 and saw that our tail pipe rusted out right behind the muffler.  John was able to hog tie it up and off we went again.

The view of Theodore Roosevelt National Park just east of Medora.  The drive was beautiful.

The view from our campsite at Red Trail Campground.

Inside TRNP, we seen a few different herds of buffalo and wild horses.  We observed a park ranger shoo off a coyote in one of the many prairie dog farms.

Painted Canyon part of TRNP, (free) yet another warm day, the clouds helped.  The visitors center at Painted Canyon has a hiking path down in the canyon.  Hiking down in the canyon was easygoing, the paths were nice, views were spectacular, the hike up was a little more challenging.  The elevation at the top of the Canyon was 2780′ we hiked down to 2538′.

We were surprised to see cactus down in the canyon.

We went to the pitchfork steak fondue and the Medora Musical.

July 28th – 29th we stayed at the Jamestown Campgrounds, nice and clean, on a gravel frontage road dusty getting there but large spaces and very easy parking.  We did the tourist thing and went to the Frontier Village.

Bellying up to an old western bar.

John at the shack of one of his favorite authors.

Every once in a while I can get a picture of Karen.

World’s largest buffalo.

Jamestown reservoir, nice swimming beach, boat launch, and what to us looked like a very challenging frisbee golf course.

July 24th – 27th, we had such a great time we had to swing through again.

Oh, what a beautiful morning.

Another nice visit with our campground host & hostess.  Thanks mom & dad.