Week 57 - The Northern Midwest - 09-16-2007

Hello and Goodbye from the Midwest,

Each night we access AccuWeather to find the next day's warm weather. Leaving the Wisconsin Dells, we reviewed our path through the Midwest's northern states. All we saw was cool to cold weather. Not for us!

We have been averaging about 400 miles per week. As you can see we went a little further this week (1596 miles). We did a non-stop Minnesota. We need to come back when we have time to visit all of Pete's relatives that he has not seen for over 50 years. As we drove through Minnesota we noticed that the beautiful green we had grown accustom to, was fading to brown. We didn't see all ten thousand lakes of Minnesota, but we never drove far without seeing one.

We saw everything North Dakota has to offer, from Fargo to Bismark to Dickinson, the state is one giant farm and a lot of lakes! Then we dropped into South Dakota, cruised through Sturgis and on to Mount Rushmore, wow! Friday we drove to Nebraska and intended to stay at Chadron State Park, a beautiful little park with a lake. However, when we arrived, we had no cell or Internet connection, so we rounded the corner of Nebraska and on into Wyoming, ending up at the Grand Teton National Park with 75 degree weather.

Entering St Paul, Minnesota; the lakes and grasslands of Minnesota; and a beautiful sunset as we drove through.

North Dakota with fields of sunflowers, hay, and beautiful sunrises. Rather than wasting highway frontage, they farm the land between the highway and the fences.

Sturgis, South Dakota, where the huge Harley Davidson annual rally takes place. The pronghorn antelope are often seen roaming in the fields near the road.

We were surprised at the beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota. We camped at the Rafter J Bar Ranch in Hill City, SD (recommended).

Mount Rushmore with the 60 foot high faces of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln, set 500 feet above ground. Ninety percent of the mountain carving was done using dynamite. A tram was used to get some workers to and from the top of the mountain. A crew of approximately 400 workers led by sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved the faces. Borglum started work on the mountain when he was 57 years old in 1927. He ended his work fourteen years later when he was 71. Borglum's health was failing and he had intended to do more work as shown at the end of this email. In fact, he passed away just before the final dedication of the Memorial in 1941. The cost was less than million dollars.

Variety of views, and an old photo of one of the workers during construction. Yes, they did all their work for 14 years hanging from cables.

Everywhere we went we saw hay cylinders instead of hay bales as seen below.

The terrain in Wyoming varies greatly from the east to the west.

Grand Teton mountains, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

This is what we think that Borglum may have been planning.

We are looking forward to spending some time in Yellowstone, and then visiting Pete's brother in Montana before we head on to Idaho and Washington.

Love, Pete and Ellen

Photos from Sep 2007