Trip out west 2022

 Instead of posting individual blog entries for EVERYONE of our stops...of which we've done 40 so far, it might be better to just post one photo per site with a caption. Let's see how this works for you.

Looking west towards Green Bay from northern Wisconsin

Dam and Locks on the Mississippi River. These open and close to let water flow down river.

Great Lewis and Clarke and Seaman (their Newfoundland Dog) outside of  Sioux City, Iowa. Terrific musem.

Typical road in...North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota...take your pick.

Custer's Last Stand gravesite in Montana. I put this off for years every time we passed near it but this year, I decided to visit. A tragic site but interesting historically.

Wonderful sunset in northwest Montana

Harvesting wheat in Washington. These fields cover central/eastern Washington...very dusty when they harvest!

We took a hike here amongst the lava rocks in central Washington. We were the only people within miles!

One of our luxurious resort RV sites in Utah!

Goblins State Park in Utah. Miles of these formations. If you look really closely, you can see Kim down there.

...and here she is !

Some fabulous Mexican food in Colorado.

Mole tamales....yummmm

Stonehenge in Texas? Yes.

And we even drove to Great Britain ! Not.

Beautiful gardens in Fort Worth, Texas

Of course, BBQ is the best in Texas. Look at all that scrumptious food!

...and some Louisiana food. Gumbo, Po-Boys and meat pies

Typical Acadian/Cajun home in Louisiana. No gators this time.

Crawfish Etoufee and fried chicken. Louisiana

Red beans, sausage and rice. Louisiana

One of the local Louisiana restaurants.

We had longhorn steers in the field next to our RV park in Louisiana.

Katie wanted to have her own kayak.

Our backyard in Montana for two weeks.

This map, by geologist O.C. Harper in 1924, is one of the most significant pieces of geological evaluations ever done in the United States showing the vast area of West Texas that shows oil fields. They are still pumping oil out of these today.

Sometimes we would put Katie in a doggy day care place. You can see here way at the top in the corner where she'll stay for hours. She's kind of shy that way.

These wild horses like to block the road in Montana when they see cars coming. "Look, here comes a car...quick...back in the road!"

Momma and baby that showed up almost daily in our campground in Montana

They had a stream that I could not resist sitting in and looking at the colorful rocks.

Hope you liked all these photos. Of course, there are hundreds but these are just a small sampling of our trip these past 4 months. Great trip.

steve/kim/katie

NORTH DAKOTA !

 Here's our journey so far. As you can see, we're way behind in the blog entries as we're up in the NE part of Wisconsin - Door Country. 

Going into North Dakota, we saw Theodore Roosevelt National Park, had a terrific hours-long lightning storm, Dakota Zoo in Bismark, went to the Peggy Lee Museum, took some walks, went kayaking and saw great vistas.

Years ago, we went to Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce and Arches in Utah/Arizona. The colors and majesty were spectacular. So, when we came here for the first time, we were underwhelmed. But, this time, we decided to forget all that past and just enjoy it. Sure glad we did because it is gorgeous!

If you're into geology, this place is fabulous!!

Close up of the layers of soil deposited over millions of years...some thin, some thick.

We call ourselves Dr. Kim and Dr. Steve....eminent doctors of geology

Some scary looking clouds arriving but how bad can it be?

We are right in the center here

A closer look. Each of those yellow things are lightning strikes. Notice the 0.1 miles was the closest strike. This went on for 3 hours! Fortunately, it was mostly cloud-to-cloud lightning and it moved north of us so we could watch it from a distance.

We took in the small Dakota Zoo in Bismarck. Cute place. You could go through it in a little over an hour. Of course, we took more than that...until the heat drove us back to our air-conditioned car.

Fleet-footed pronghorns are among the speediest animals in North America. They can run at more than 53 miles an hour, leaving pursuing coyotes and bobcats in the dust. Pronghorns are also great distance runners that can travel for miles at half that speed. We see these all over the west.

Here's four Pronghorns in the wild with one young one.

A couple of Marsupials...very cute

Some male bonding going on here in the TR NP.

Free range is all over North Dakota

What? I'm not going fast enough for you?

Kayaking outside of Bismarck, ND. Clouds are just so neat to look at. I belong to the Cloud Appreciation Society. Check it out sometime. 
https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/

Love the colors of the pollen on the water

It seems that we never think the kayak day will be memorable...just another getting-out-on-the-water trip. But....then...a couple of Canada Geese families and a bunch of singles too come into view.

We'll do Peggy Lee Museum and more on the next entry.

Hope you like all of North Dakota. Great state.

The obligatory Katie photo. Every morning ...and I mean every morning, Katie comes over to get scritched on my lap. Then she lays down on my legs to take a nap while I check email and read. Think she likes it?

steve/kim/katie