The West is Best!

On Sunday, we started the day with the 7 a.m. Mass in Seneca, KS. We saw our friends from last week. They asked us if we were having a nice trip. On the way out of church, some other people, recognizing that we were tourists, began a conversation with us. They invited us to their county fair which was happening this weekend. I think the friendly people of St. Peter and Paul Church in Seneca, KS have adopted us. After Mass, we drove to St. Joseph, Missouri and went to the Pony Express Museum. The museum was excellent and detailed the history of the Pony Express and contained many interesting exhibits. In the 1860s, the extent of the westward expansion of the country was right around St. Joseph, Missouri. There were people settled further west, but they were few and far between, until California, which was more populous. Hence a sort of a gap between a north-south line going through St. Joseph, Mo. and California. The Pony Express began because the people in California needed a quicker...

On Saturday, we left Green Acres campground and continued traveling south, first through Sioux Falls and the rest of South Dakota, and then into Nebraska. We didn’t really have any sightseeing plans along our route today, but we did have one stop that we wanted to make. Our neighbor is from Pierce, Nebraska, and since we were going very near there, we decided to take a short detour (about 5 miles) into town. We drove into downtown Pierce, parked our truck and camper, and walked around to take a few pictures. We also took a picture of the “Welcome to Pierce” sign. Many times when you enter a town that a well-known person is from, there will be a sign saying “Welcome to [name of town], home of [name of person].” Because our neighbor is well-loved by everyone that knows her, we felt like there should have been a sign that said “Welcome to Pierce, home of Susan Burnet.” After our detour through Pierce, we continued driving south in Nebraska. We stopped at a farmer’s market along the road...

On Friday we left our beautiful campground on the lake to begin heading home. Because we wanted to get an early start, we were up around sunrise. The setting of the lake at this time of day was beautiful. The surface of the lake was smooth as glass, and the reflection of the early morning sun bouncing off the surface of the water was gorgeous. There were a few loons out and about splashing playfully in the early morning hours. Now you would think with Cranberry Twp. being due east of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, we would start driving east to head home. But that is not how we roll. We began our trek home by first going north and then west. That’s right…north and west. We first drove north from Grand Rapids to International Falls, Mn. International Falls is on the border with Canada, and is known for often being the coldest spot in the country. We passed about a block from the border crossing where we could see all the flags flying. The thing that struck us the most about International Fa...

On Thursday, we just hung out at the campground, getting rested up before starting the 2000-mile journey back home, with a few stops along the way. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll see a third sighting of Babe the Blue Ox! The campground where we are staying is called Sugar Bay Campground Resort and is located in Cohasset, Minnesota (near Grand Rapids) on, well you can probably guess, Sugar Bay. The bay is actually connected with other bays/waterways and together they all form a lake, of course - Lake Pokegama. As I mentioned earlier, it is a senior RV park. There are only 10 sites; only 4 of the sites are right on the lake, and ours is one of them. We took our lawn chairs out and sat next to the lake the first night we were here. While we are in the camper, we enjoy looking out the windows at the scenic lake. One morning, I happened to wake up early (5ish), and watched the sunrise over the lake. Absolutely gorgeous! Today we just hung out, kind of like we did in Loveland. We sat out by t...

On Wednesday, we took a drive known as “The Edge of the Wilderness”. This scenic drive consisted mostly of trees and lakes, and sometimes you can spot bald eagles here (which we unfortunately did not.) It is quintessential northern Minnesota, with historic sites along the way, along with some lumberjack-influenced small towns, and did I say lakes? Yes, more lakes. There are numerous resorts along the way, all seemingly very primitive, and not a lot of evidence of civilization. From our Edge of the Wilderness drive, we then returned to the Grand Rapids area and visited the Forest History Center, which contains displays exhibiting stories of forestry and lumbering in the northern part of Minnesota. We took a guided tour of a 1900s logging camp, and learned about the whole process of cutting down trees. It’s not as simple as you think. Most of the trees in this area used for logging was white pine. Logging was always done in the winter, which seems odd at first. But the reason is that t...

On Tuesday, we drove west of our campsite to the town of Bemidji, Minnesota. Bemidji is known for the legend of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. So this is our second sighting of the Blue Ox. According to legend, the great (and huge) Paul Bunyan, the town’s “lumberjack son”, is an icon of the logging industry of Minnesota. He is depicted as being a gigantic logger who displayed superhuman labors in the felling of trees, and with the help of the (also legendary) Babe the Blue Ox, transported the logs to wherever logs go after they are felled. In Bemidji, there is a Paul Bunyan park where the larger than life statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox are displayed. Believe it or not, these statues are recognized as the second most photographed roadside attraction in the nation. Paul Bunyan and Babe are said to have created the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota by their footprints. (Sure they did!) Because of the legendary superhuman exploits, everything associated with Paul Bunyan is of gigan...

On Monday, we left our lovely (sarcasm detected) campground near Willmar, Minnesota and continued traveling north. We stopped in St. Cloud, Minnesota to see the Munsinger Gardens. These beautiful gardens sit right in the heart of St. Cloud and are free to the public. We walked around the gardens and enjoyed the well-manicured, beautiful flowers. They were very meticulous, very colorful, with such a great variety, and there were some red brick walkways and wrought iron arches, trellises, and benches throughout. The gardens were very formal yet very relaxing. There were two levels: an upper and a lower level. The upper level was more neatly arranged and tame, while the lower level had a bit of a wilder look to it. The lower level, however, was right along the Mississippi River and so had that as a nice backdrop.   After leaving the Gardens, we continued driving north in Minnesota, toward Grand Rapids, which was our destination for the day. As we drove along, we were checking on campg...

We were fortunate to locate a Catholic Church Sunday morning with a 7:00 a.m. Mass, and it was only a mile from our campground. As we were walking in the parking lot to go into the church, an elderly couple started talking to us, asking us about our camper and our travels. So we made friends on our way into church. We’ve found that people are very friendly here in the midwest. After Mass, we continued our journey, heading a little more east in Kansas, and then turning north into Nebraska. It was here that we experienced our first (and so far only) rain of the trip. It was a soft, gentle rain that lasted about 15 minutes. Then it was back to clear blue skies the rest of the day. We were only in Nebraska for a short time, then clipped the corner of Missouri before heading north into Iowa. When we were in Missouri, we took advantage of an opportunity to get gas in the truck, because the gas prices in Missouri were the cheapest we found. We paid $3.99 a gallon there. The most expensive w...

Well, I lied. I told you not to expect any updated posts for a few days because of a lack of wifi. Well, that could stop a lesser blogger, but we found a way! Something about tethering the 5G from the mobile phone to create a hotspot network... anyway, I managed to set up a wifi network connected to my phone, so I'll give this a try. On Saturday, we said a teary goodbye to Colorado and the beauty of the mountains and returned to the flatlands of the midwest.  Our last look at the mountains. Goodbye, beautiful Colorado. We'll miss you! On the eastern plains of Colorado, we saw a lot of stockyards, where there were tons of cattle all packed together awaiting slaughter. Colorado is known for its beef, so it is no surprise that we saw as many stockyards as we did. The visual aspects of the stockyards is interesting, but the olfactory aspects leaves a more pungent impression. In other words, when you’re in the right position (downwind), they stink. We drove into western Kansas, wher...