Washington to Illinois

         We left Anacortes, WA, on August 20, knowing that a Sunday morning drive through Seattle was in our best interest.  Our original plan was to stop at Moses Lake Campground near Potholes State Park and explore that area, but the park I had chosen and Abe did not agree.  We could not hook up to shore power at any of the three sites we tried!  Was it the park’s problem?  Our problem?  We didn’t know but we did know that we had had no power issues all summer along.  Since we had arrived in the early afternoon, we chose to continue to Post Falls, ID, where we had our next reservation.  The park could take us two days early and, since we had stayed at this park before, we knew this park had not presented power issues for us.

         This proved to be a very good stop although initially we were concerned.  We still had difficulty hooking up to shore power.  Abe’s transfer switch would not switch from bus power (i.e. the generator) to shore power.  A new challenge for the resident engineer and general handyman!  Eventually the transfer switch responded when Jerry ran the generator for a few minutes and then turned it off, while we were hooked to the power pedestal.  I could see lots of phone calls ahead of us as this headache got sorted out!

        Post Falls, just west of Coeur d’Alene, sits on the Spokane River and sprung up around a mill that Frederick Post built on the river in 1871.  It’s a beautiful area and now we had three days to do some exploring!  But first the sun’s eclipse…August 21.  I imagine we’ll all remember where we were when the eclipse occurred!  We had not purchased the special viewing glasses and decided we would watch the eclipse’s progress on TV.  We did learn to look at the filtered shadows coming through the trees' leaves.  If you look closely at the photo you can see a crescent shaped sun as the moon passed in front of it.  Cool!

         In the afternoon we walked through Falls Park, where the original mill stood on one fork of the Spokane River.  Everything looked very dry and dusty and needed rain. 

         It was nice to have a new place to hike and clomping up and down the rocks along the river bank provided some challenges.  We had not done many hikes like this in Washington.  We met a young woman walking a big dog along the trail, but they were far ahead of us.  I would have liked to see her dog negotiate this rocky staircase.

Tuesday, August 22, we were off on our biggest bike ride yet.  We drove to State Line, ID (we carry our bikes in the bed of the pickup) and access to the North Idaho Centennial Trail.  We rode west back to Post Falls…uphill, I might add!...and back to the truck, 15 miles!  We were quite proud of ourselves! 

         The North Idaho Centennial Trail is a 23 mile trail system that utilizes right-of-ways and public property.  This trail system connects to a 39 mile trail at the Idaho/Washington state line.  The entire trail is paved and has numerous scenic overviews and trail heads.  The North Idaho Centennial Trail is the ‘hub’ to several other connector trails along the 23 mile corridor.  We hope to find many more trails like this.

         You might notice in the photos that we both look a little trimmer.  I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes the first of June, but I had lost about 30 pounds before being diagnosed.  I had few symptoms and certainly didn’t put 2 and 2 together!  Not good!  Anyway, since the first of June we’ve eliminated most carbohydrates from our diet (no more wine or beer for me!) and gotten a lot more exercise.  Consequently we’re both in better shape now than we’ve been in a long time.  Maybe there is a silver lining to this cloud.

         Wednesday, August 23, we pulled up the jacks and continued east to Missoula, MT.  The further east we travelled the more smokey the air became.  We had seen on the news that morning that there were many fires in the Idaho mountains.  I learned from the lady at the RV park check in desk that the firefighters did not think all the fires would be out until it snowed.  Yuck!  Our home for the night was Jim and Mary’s RV Park

         This stop was just one night and we had no plans for exploring the area.  Fortunately, the RV park hosted a cowboy concert every Wednesday featuring LeGrand Harvey and Rod Brod.  They were pretty good and we enjoyed their stories and music.  LeGrand told cowboying stories and Rod, being part native American, told Indian stories.  Quite a contrast.

         We belong to a Facebook Group called “Jello Travelers”.  Forty-four members, many of whom have never met face-to-face, keep up with each other online.  We’re all RVers and mostly fulltimers and travel all over the country.  After the concert a gentleman approached us and said, “Aren’t you Jan and Jerry Woodall?”  Yep, a fellow jello traveler who recognized us from our online postings!  We spent a delightful evening with Ken and Debbie Floyd.  Ken was a retired Navy fleet commander and Debbie was a retired RN.  Lots to talk about!

         Thursday, August 24, we were off to Helena, MT, a distance of about 130 miles down I-90.  The sky was overcast and threatening rain which, combined with smokey air, made for a gloomy drive.  Helena, the capital of Montana, was one of the stops we were excited about and planned to explore!  We took the pickup into town and up Grizzly Gulch and found the ruins of several lime kilns! 

         During the 19th century, the Grizzly Gulch outcrops and the kilns below them supplied the entire region with lime of the highest quality.  Workers blasted or quarried the limestone out of the hills behind, conveyed the rocks on handcars to the kilns or tumbled them down the embankment, and dumped them into the tops of the chimneys. Pine fires in the furnace beneath burned constantly. After several days, workers shoveled the powdered lime into the cooling shed adjacent the kiln and teamsters hauled it to the building site. Each kiln could produce some twenty tons of lime every eight hours.

         Helena had a lively, restored Old Town, including a couple of microbreweries.  Jerry particularly enjoyed Blackfoot River Brewing Company and a delicious scotch ale.  We found dinner at Miller’s Crossing…green chili hamburgers…delicious!

         Friday, August 25, we took a tour of the state capitol building.  The rotunda was huge!  Four circular paintings surrounded it, depicted four important peoples of Montana's early history: a Native American, an explorer and fur trapper probably Jim Bridger), a gold miner, and a cowboy.

         Saturday, August 26, we moved to Great Falls, MT, right on the banks of the mighty Missouri River.  We were excited to be here and to learn more about Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the area.  As luck would have it, our RV park was adjacent to a great bike trail!

         Our first exploration took us to this State Park, not far outside of Great Falls.  First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park and National Historic Landmark was an archaeological site with possibly the largest bison cliff jump in North America.  Native peoples used this site for at least a thousand years before Lewis and Clark passed through here. The bison jump site consisted of a mile long sandstone cliff; there are remnants of drive lines on top of the cliff and there are up to 18 ft. of compacted buffalo remains below the cliff.

       The top of the jump gave us panoramic views of the Rocky Mountain Front, the Missouri River valley, and the buttes and grasslands that characterize this High Plains setting.

         Sunday, August 27, we found Our Savior’s Lutheran in downtown Great Falls.  This beautiful old church was 125 years old and full of friendly folks who were the descendants of Scandinavian immigrants who had settled here in the 1800’s.

         While we were downtown, we went to the Charles Russell Museum.  Russell created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in the Western United States and in Alberta, Canada, in addition to bronze sculptures.  Known as 'the cowboy artist', Russell was also a storyteller and author.  The museum chronicled his life as an artist and displayed many of his paintings and bronzes.  Beautiful, earthy stuff.  Russell lived with the Blood Indians, a branch of the Blackfeet nation. It is believed that much of his intimate knowledge of Native American culture came from this period.

          I particularly liked this painting of a young Blackfoot woman and her child.

         Even though Sunday afternoon was hot…in the 90’s…we hopped on our bikes to check out the trail, just outside the RV park.  After some confusion making our way through downtown, we soon found an easy paved trail headed east along the south bank of the headed east along the south bank of the Missouri.  We rode out to Black Eagle Dam and Falls for some spectacular views. 

            Monday, August 28, we were up and on our bikes to beat the afternoon heat.  We took the same route as yesterday and continued further east to the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center on a bluff above the Missouri River. 

         The most interesting information presented concerned the grueling portage that the Lewis and Clark expedition had to complete to get around the falls.  It took them 18 days to haul their boats and supplies over 14 miles of rough terrain to bypass the five sets of falls.  They had no horses to help them, just raw manpower over the rocky, cactus-covered ground.

         We loved Great Falls and the history it delivered.  We’ll stop here again and encourage you to check out this beautiful country, too.

         Tuesday, August 29, it was time to move again to Glasgow, Montana on US 2, about 150 miles east of Great Falls.  We like getting off the busy interstate sand traveling on the "blue roads" but we were grateful this bridge had been updated.  Taking Abe over the old bridge would have been heart-stopping.

         This little town had another interesting microbrewery…”Busted Knuckle Brewing.”  The owner, a former auto mechanic, decided running a microbrewery would be an easier life, but took his theme from his car repair shop.

         He had created tables and chairs from old car parts, and named his brews around cars.  Jerry liked the Lug Nut Brown Ale!

         Wednesday, August 30, we drove out to the Fort Peck Interpretative Center at the Fort Peck dam and reservoir, on the Missouri River.  We learned that the dam was a WPA/Corps of Engineers project in the 30’s and created the biggest hydraulic earthen dam in the country…4 miles long and 1 mile wide.     

         The little museum had interesting displays of the natural and geologic history of the area, including a life-sized model of a T Rex and a stuffed bison.

         We discovered that the end of August in Montana could be hot, buggy, and windy!  The persistent wild fires to the north and west of us made the air less than pristine, although we had some interesting sunsets.  We were grateful we had air conditioning and didn’t even launch our satellite dish for TV.  Needless to say, our over-the-air antenna couldn’t put in any signals.  We were truly in the middle of nowhere and loved it!

         Thursday, August 31 (Jer’s 70^th birthday) we moved again and parked Abe Buffalo Gap Guest Ranch in Medora, ND, on the SW edge of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, south unit.  There were few RV parks to choose from in this remote part of SW North Dakota, and we knew that this ranch didn’t really cater to RVers.  Instead, they had a dirt and gravel lot with hook-ups for the cowboys and cowgirls who trailered their horses to the ranch to ride the backcountry, and to participate in team roping and calf penning competitions.  The access rode took us down a washboard dirt road about 1.5 miles, over a rise, and into the barnyard.  What had we gotten ourselves into??

         In spite of the rough accommodations, this place was delightful!  The bar/restaurant had delicious, simple food, and lots of interesting folks to visit with.  We met a couple from SW Virginia who travelling in the Bluebird motorhome and were here to take in the sights as well.  We drove into Medora for Jerry’s birthday dinner and had delicious walleye at the Boots Bar and Grill.

         Friday, September 1^st (our 49^th anniversary!) we drove to the south unit of the TRNP to explore.  This entire area is full of badlands with beautiful scenery, interesting hikes, and buffalo!  We found an outcrop on top of a ridge overlooking a creek valley to have lunch and watch the buffalo graze in the distance below us.

        This area had a huge coal vein that had burned periodically over the years.  The ground had sunk several feet in the longest-burning section.  We saw “chimneys” created as superhot air from the fires exited through the surface cracks, baking the rocks into columnar chimneys. 

         “Back at the ranch” (how often is it legit to say that?) for dinner, we ate at the ranch’s bar and restaurant.  We shared a huge rib eye to celebrate our anniversary.  After dinner, the evening was cool so we sat outside and watched the RVs and horse trailers come in for a big calf roping competition tomorrow.  Yep, the wild wild west!

         Saturday, September 2, it was time to move again…bound for Bismarck, North Dakota.  Visiting state capitols had become one of our travel drivers, and we were ready to see this one and explore the city

          Sunday, September 3, we went to church at Faith Lutheran in downtown Bismarck.  This was another very friendly church full of descendants of the area’s Scandinavian settlers.  This congregation was fairly young (established in 1946) and had a very contemporary worship center.  The music was beautiful and the service was contemporary.  

          After church we headed for the state capitol.  The building reminded us of the high-rise capitol in Baton Rouge.  The main State Capitol building is 241.67 feet tall, 21 story, Art Deco skyscraper and is the tallest building in North Dakota.  The statue in the foreground is Sacajawea.

         The 18th floor of the Capitol is an observation deck with the highest vantage point in the state.  We also took in the Historical Museum, but we were getting a little tired of all the Lewis and Clark discussions so we didn’t linger.

         September 5 we departed Bismarck and drove to Fargo, North Dakota, for a visit with my cousin Sally and her husband Jerry Haugen.  We stayed at a city park, and once we were settled, it was ok, but driving Abe down narrow torn up streets was a challenge!  Jerry was ready to be done. 

         September 6, Wednesday, after a lazy start to the day we visited the Hjemkost Center.  (Hjemkost is Norwegian for homecoming).  This museum housed a real working replica of a Viking dragon ship and a life-size replica of a Norwegian stave church.  All quite interesting!

         Jerry and Sally belong to a mega Lutheran church in Fargo and like to attend the weekly service on Wednesday evenings, in order to sleep in on Sundays!  I think Sally really enjoys that after being a church organist for so many years.  This was a Lutheran church like no other we had ever visited!  Lights, color, a band, a huge screen…lots of sensory input.  After church we had dinner at their home and learned to play “Chicken Foot”, a game similar to Mexican Train.  Too bad we get to see them only once every few years!

         We had such fun with Jerry and Sally!

          Ever mindful of the need for some exercise in our lives, we took a several mile walk through the city park along the Red River.  The Red River flowed northward through the Red River Valley, forming the border of Minnesota and North Dakota and continuing into Manitoba, Canada. It emptied into Lake Winnipeg, whose waters joined the Nelson River and ultimately flowed into the Hudson Bay.  While the Red River drained the region, it did not create a valley wider than a few hundred feet. The much wider floodplain was the lake bed of an ancient glacial lake.   It was remarkably flat; from its origin near Breckenridge, Minnesota, to the international border near Emerson, Manitoba, its gradient was approximately 1 foot per mile. The river, slow and small in most seasons, meandered across the silty bottomlands in its progress north.  Consequently, high water had nowhere to go, except to spread across the old lakebed in "overland flooding". Heavy snows or rains, especially on saturated or frozen soil, had caused a number of catastrophic floods, which often were made worse by the fact that snowmelt started in the warmer south, and waters flowing northward were often dammed or slowed by ice.  These periodic floods have had the effect of refilling, in part, the ancient lake.

         Thursday, September 7, we left Fargo behind for a long day of driving…all the way to Owatonna, MN, south of Minneapolis-St Paul.  Once settled, we drove to Charles City, IA, to meet California friends Mike and Sandy Albaugh.  They were in Cedar Rapids, IA attending Mike’s class reunion and wanted to meet halfway between us for a visit.  Fun!  We had a great dinner and a great visit at the “Pub on the Cedar”, and sat on restaurant’s deck overlooking the Cedar River.  A beautiful summer evening.

          Friday morning we drove to Dave and Linda Hellstern’s, just outside Kenyon, to spend the day with them.  They took us on a tour of Northfield, MN, which happened to be noting the anniversary of the Jesse James-Cole Younger gang robbing the Northfield bank in 1876.  We sat in bleachers positioned across the street from the bank (now a museum) and watched a reenactment of the whole thing.  It seemed an odd thing to celebrate, but, anything for a weekend festival!

          We also visited the campus of St. Olaf University, an ELCA Lutheran school on a hill above the city.  Many Norwegian Lutheran immigrants had settled in the surrounding area in the late 19th century. They desired a non-secular post-secondary institution in the Lutheran tradition that offered classes in all subjects in both Norwegian and English.  The college was born!  What a beautiful chapel!  Dave and Linda's daughter, Siri, attended college here.

         Saturday, September 9, we met two of Jerry’s cousins (daughters of Jerry’s Mom’s brother, Don) in Owatonna for dinner.  We had not seen Jane and Eileen in many years…perhaps the last time was at our wedding!!!  What a great evening catching up and reminiscing about the Guinnane side of the family.

         Sunday, September 10, we went to Hope Lutheran, just outside Kenyon, with Dave and Linda Hellstern.  Linda's family has deep roots in this congregation and were among the early Norwegian settlers of the area.  This church was where Linda was baptized, confirmed, and married twice!  Dave was the congregational president elect and had some plans for updating this very traditional congregation.

         After church we had brunch at an engaging little restaurant in downtown Kenyon with Dave and Linda and managed to pose for a pretty picture.

          Monday, September 11, we headed for Cedar Falls, IA, and Big Woods lake Campground…a quick trip and an easy route.  Our plan was to spend a few days here exploring and riding our bikes.  We found a fabulous bike trail that followed the Cedar River into Waterloo and Northern Iowa University (home of the Panthers) and rode 18.5 miles that afternoon.

         We found Single Speed Microbrewery but Jerry said the beer wasn’t anything special.  Cute bicycle-themed beer names, though.

         Waterloo, IA, was home to several John Deere manufacturing and assembly plants.  Of course, we couldn’t resist a couple of tours.  We started at the engine and power train assembly plant.  We toured on a trolley driven by a retired John Deere employee who was very knowledgeable about the operation.  Unfinished engine blocks, heads and crankshafts were precision-machined and assembled into John Deere diesel engines, as well as power centers for other manufacturers.  It was quite entertaining to watch all the robotics at work.  After lunch we toured the tractor assembly plant on a trolley led by another retired John Deere plant employee.  We couldn’t take photos anywhere in the plants, so I’ve included a photo outside the John Deere Museum.  Another great place to visit! 

         Wednesday, September 13, we drove the last leg of our long journey…all the way to Fairview, IL.

         We stopped in Galesburg at lunchtime so we could go to a Butler retiree luncheon.  Jerry got to see lots of guys he had worked with in Galesburg a long time ago.  Lots of fun and reminiscing!  Jerry is posing with Jim Asplund, the brother of good friends, Berk and Carolyn Johnson from Visalia.  Jim worked at the Galesburg plant for many years.


That's the end of our cross-country journey from Washington to Illinois.  The next installment will tell you about the delightful visit we had in Illinois with family and friends.