We had a great time in South Dakota revisiting some places and finding some new ones. We started in Rapid City by revisiting one of our favorite places, Custer State Park. The animals and scenery are abundant and beautiful.
The many burros are very tame and come to get petted and fed. This guy was ready for his carrots. There was a darling baby that was just learning to eat carrots, but still preferred its mama!
The prairie dog "city" had moved from the last time we were there. They are industrious little critters!
Bison are everywhere and not shy!
This area is called The Needles - a beautiful winding drive with very narrow tunnels through the rocks!
And finally a visit to see the presidents - always an awesome sight!We also visited the famous Wall Drugs which is an ever expanding mass of buildings selling souvenirs, mostly made in China. We enjoyed buffalo burgers while there.
We decided we needed to see Sturgis, famous for its motorcycle rally in August. On our visit it was filled with around 500 mustangs of all ages and kinds. The town itself is mostly bars, taverns and tattoo parlors!
Then it was on to Mitchell, home of the famous Corn Palace. The exterior is filled with murals made of 9 different colors of corn, sourdock and rye. These murals are redone every year. The inside is used for community activities with a basketball court and stage.
As I mentioned in the last blog we are official South Dakotians. specifically Madison so we went to visit the town. It is a very clean and neat town where everyone knows everyone. A very typical small town. So here is our front door and our "home".
Then it was 4 states in four nights, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois and finally Goshen Indiana for the Escapees Escapade. It is a rally with get togethers, classes and vendors. This was our first Escapade, but will not be our last. We had so much fun and these people are so friendly and welcoming. We volunteered to help out for two shifts. First was refreshments which since it was very hot was mostly selling soft serve ice cream cones - 500 in 3 hours. Ralph made them and Pam collected the money. Boy were we tired that night! Next was 3 hours on gate duty - checking vehicles entering to make sure they were allowed into the fairgrounds. Not to hard and actually fun waving and giving them thumbs up to enter, that is until a torrential downpour started and we were soaked. It rains hard in the midwest - buckets and buckets!
After Escapade, we spent the next week getting improvements and warranty work done on our rig. Up early and out of the rig all day gets tiring. Heartland ( the manufacturer of our rig) was wonderful and rented us a hotel for one night so we would not have to get up so they could start on the rig at 5am! We had a luxurious shower - those with a house will not understand- with all the hot water we wanted and we slept late!
We stayed a few extra days in the Elkhart/Goshen area to play tourist. This area is of course the RV Capital of the USA with so many manufacturers and suppliers. It also has a large population of Amish and Mennonite living in Goshen and Nappanee. Elkhart has one river that runs through the downtown and converges with another river. At the beginning of this walk in the summer is a park with water fountains that the kids can play in. This same park in the winter floods this area with water and it becomes an ice rink. They have built a riverwalk that meanders along the rivers and through 7 parks.
The visitor center for the area has done a free CD that takes you on a 90 mile loop giving lots of history and information. It was a fun day and we even learned a few things like this area is the largest producer of popcorn in the world. There are regular and tiny kernels and red, blue, yellow and white.
Of course, we drove through lots of Amish country. Their farms are easy to spot - no electric going to them, painted white, usually many buildings, buggies parked and the creative clothes lines going from the house to the barn on a pulley system. This one is moving equipment to harvest the corn with an Amish farm in the background.
The RV Museum and Hall of Fame was interesting. It has the first RVs starting in 1913 right on up to the present. They have come a long way!
Since the University of Notre Dame was just 10 minutes away in South Bend we went there to see the campus and historic buildings. This is the main building which in the beginning housed all of the university and then was destroyed by fire. They spent all summer of 1879 building this so that they could start classes that fall. The dome is covered in gold leaf. It is a very large campus with open spaces, gardens and parks throughout. We were surprised to learn from a student that there are about 8,000 undergrads and 5,000 grads - with such a large campus and so many buildings we thought it would be much larger. And it has a huge stadium right on campus.We have moved on to Port Clinton OH right on Lake Erie. If it ever stops raining we have some exploring to do and hope to take the ferry to the islands and explore by bike.
