Road Trip 2015 South Dakota

We checked into our hotel in Rapid City, then drove to Mt. Rushmore. The lateness of the day and the lingering smoke from the Idaho and western forest fires, gives the monument a slightly different look.

Because it was late in the evening when we arrived, we decided to stay for the lighting of the monument. The National Park Service has a great presentation before lighting. The presentation includes the presenting of the colors by all veterans in the audience. When the flags are retired at the end of the lighting ceremony, each veteran is asked to introduce themselves (name, state, and branch of service). There were well over 100 veterans. It was very impressive and humbling. The Audience gave these veterans a rousing ovation.

Today we leave Rapid City, travel across South Dakota, and into Albert Lea, Minnesota. This will be a long day of travel.

The landscape of South Dakota eastward from Rapid City is much like the grasslands of north central Wyoming near KayCee and Buffalo.

After leaving Rapid City, we kept seeing signs for Wall Drug. These signs would show up every few miles for fifty miles (we even saw a few in eastern Wy. So we pulled off I70 to check it out. As you can see it is more than a drug store (it covers over 1/2 a city block).

This what it looks like inside Wall Drug (not in the Drug Store but in the mini-mall adjacent to it). There are quite a few shops that are part of the store.

Shirley met a new friend but he wasn't much for conversation.

Looking across the Missouri River in south central South Dakota. Lewis and Clark had a major camp in this location on their trek to the Pacific. On the west side of the river (far side) the country is mostly grassy ranch land. The east side (foreground) the landscape changes to flat farmland.

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Lake Creek Trail

Several years ago (probably more like 8 or 9) Shirley and I went camping with friends in the Lake Creek Campground, Salmon Challis National Forest, (about 60 miles from our home in Mackay, Idaho). Our friends went some where with their kids fishing, so we decided to check out the trail to the chain of Lake Creek lakes: Round Lake, Long Lake, Big Lake, Rough Lake, Golden Lake, etc.. Well we got up the trail about 6 miles or so and the trail being so rocky and rough and because we were both on one 4-Wheeler, we decided to turn back to camp. Also, no one knew where we were because we left after our friends had gone and we had been out several hours. We never got to any of the lakes, and always wondered what the rest of the trail was like and what the various lakes looked like. Well, a few weeks ago, we got to find out! Our son Dirk called and said that he and his family would like to go camping for the weekend. They wanted to camp at the Lake Cr...

Yellowstone Park is in Idaho?

I am an Idaho resident by birth and have lived in Idaho most of my life (spent about a year in Utah but am trying to forget about that - I was only 3 years old at the time and had no choice). I have always said and continue to say there is no National Park in Idaho. Oh sure! The map of Yellowstone Park shows a small portion along the Wyoming border as being in Idaho, but how many people know how to even get to this portion of the Park? If you look at the above map, there are no attractions at all listed in the Idaho part of the Park! There are no major roads from Idaho into the Park. Main Park entrances are from either Montana (3 entrances) or Wyoming (2 entrances) Any way, my wife Shirley and I have been taking our children and grand children to Yellowstone Park for forty years using one of the main Park entrances. This year three of our sons who live in Idaho talked us into going with them and their families into the Idaho part of Yellowstone. This is ho...

Jesse McCaleb

Jesse McCaleb Jesse was born on Christmas Day, (December 25) 1837 in Roane County, Tennessee (west of present day Knoxville) to James Newton McCaleb and Susannah Hope. Jesse was one of 7 children. There is not much information about his childhood except for census records showing that the children may have been deserted by their parents and their being raised by close family members. Jesse left Tennessee (at the age of 20) in 1857/8 going to Camden County, Missouri (southeast of present day Kansas City). The 1860 census records list Jesse as living with the James Vernon family (James' wife Harriet was Jesse's first cousin). It was here that Jesse met his second cousin and future bride, Anna Boyd Vernon (Harriet's daughter, who in 1860 was 13 years old). Jesse was working as a clerk in the mercantile owned by James W. Vernon, but when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Confederate Army at Camden County, Missouri and ...

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