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My goodness it seems like a century ago since we have been in Madison Wisconsin and I last wrote down what we have been up to. We are driving on our way to Las Vegas, I am having a cup of tea, directing Steve thru LA, downloading photos and typing this……just relaxing for a change….and its 2.30 in the morning and we have been up since 6.30am. Life is busier than when we were at home and we haven’t washed clothing for two weeks and we have no house to clean and we have been going out at least once a day for a meal.
I am really quite annoyed that America is as pretty as it is. I really imagined it a big loud nothing and I thought I would have so much time to read and study and work and do a million things. I haven’t even painted my toe nails since leaving home. I guess I would have the time but there is so many things to see and do everything I planned seems insignificant.
The kids schooling is sporadic, we have not been doing so much in the last week but they have really come along heaps. Chloe has broken a string in her violin – much to her distress….I do a big worry they are not learning enough and then I hear them talk to people that we have met and I realise I have not too much to worry about.
After Madison we traveled two hours or so to a resort town called Wisconsin Dells. It is set in the mountains amidst rivers and there would be 50 hotels or so offering accommodation and to lure you they have tried to outdo one another with water theme parks. We had to have another day in a hotel and spend two days going down 200 foot slides and mucking around in their 13 swimming pools and indoor lagoon. It was set in a hacienda style and our room was facing the river. It was a lot of fun and we really felt ready to tackle the camp grounds again.
We left Wisconsin, cheese curds in hand (the local specialty) and headed west towards the famous Mississippi River in Minnesota, (what a pretty site that was crossing over )and we headed to Pipestone, a tiny but cool historical Indian town made primarily out of the pipestone and red sandstone. Fantastic old forts and artifacts made out of the pipestone. Steve loved the wind farms they had on the way into the town. One turbine (and they had 128 of them) can generate enough power for 250 families for a whole year. They looked weird in the middle of all the corn fields, like huge bugs.
We drove onto Mitchell a town of about 4000 people amidst miles and miles of corn fields. Mitchell owes its fame to building a palace 100 years ago and decorating the outside each year in a theme made entirely from different kinds of corn. They built this bizarre corn palace to lure pioneers to the west by a rather entrepreneurial real estate company. They were trying to portray the lushness and prosperity of the west. They must have succeeded cause it sure is a popular icon. We arrived on the first day of Mitchell’s annual corn festival and to start of the festivities, Willie Nelson was performing at the Corn Palace. Tickets had been sold out for months and in fact the entire concert sold out in less than two hours. We talked Steve into begging the office to go on search for a ticket so he could see his idol and she got him one 9 rows from the front, right in the middle. He was so excited and ran back and got all fluffed up while we all sat outside the corn palace in the very hot western sun on hay bales and listened to ho-down and ate corn that had been dipped in fat, salt and sugar. Even the kids couldn’t come at it. Declan and Breanna worked out if you spoke to the outside radio broadcaster you got free vouchers for Dairy Bell Ice Creams. The broadcaster was taken with Declans Australian accent and called Steve over, (Breanna sounds true American). He got Steve to talk on the station and then he took him over to meet Willy Nelson. Steve said the concert was brilliant, it was not a big theatre and he played for about 3 hours and you could wander out get beer and drinks and whatever you wanted. Very casual affair. The kids and I just joined in on all the wonderful activities associated with a country corn festival and spent well over an hour in the Rena Ware Saucepan demonstration eating all the food the demonstrator prepared. We were her only participants so we were very spoilt.. Declan did get to ride on a bucking bull and after falling off begged to get straight back on. True cowdy.,
I enjoyed the drive thru the west. Everyone said it was a nothing drive but I was really entertained by the billboards every hundred yards. At least a quarter of them were advertising one drug store called Wall Drug. We had no idea what this meant but we were going no matter what. We hit the famous Wall store and had our free iced water that attracted travelers to the west 100 years ago when they first opened. They spend $300,000 a year on billboards. They get 20,000 visitors to their store every day. It’s a drug store that sells absolutely everything and is full of history and memorabilia. It is still a tiny town in the middle of no where. Our bikie friends missed the Badlands cause they were so keen to get to Wall drug store. The power of advertising fancy 20,000 visitors to a country hick store in the middle of nowhere.
We passed hundreds and hundreds of Harley riders migrating to Milwaukee for the Harley 100 year reunion. Over a million bikes and their owners came from all over the world. We were a bit sad we didn’t stay the few days extra for it. I think it would have been a wild time. 500 Australians took their bikes over costing them $5000 each to be boxed and shipped over. We spoke to a group from Sydney and a guy from Bentleigh who said they had been planning it for 5 years. It looked great watching them go by. So many of them in nothing but shorts and a singlet top. No helmet or protection of any kind. The guys we spoke to said they were amazed at the number of big bugs they ate as they drove along. …They said the festival was brilliant and no trouble at all and they were treated like royalty.
In the middle of all the corn and soy bean fields pops up my favorite of all places on this trip The Badlands. I don’t really know how to describe the Badlands except that it is an expanse of jagged rocks of layers of hundreds of colors softly blended together that went on and on for as far as the eye could see. We watched the sunset and climbed over them (even the mother and father). The quietness got to me most of all. It really blew us all away. They were eerie but unbelievably beautiful. You would not be surprised if you were on Mars.
We drove onto Mount Rushmore where they have carved 4 American presidents heads into the side of the beautiful black hills. It took them over 20 years to do so and 400 people and it put the town of Rapid City and other surrounding towns on the map. It is the biggest tourist attraction, the nose of Lincoln is 18 foot long.. An Indian got into the act and for the past 50 years they have been carving an Indian head and horse out of another mountain. This is just as big and is a license to print money. I found the whole thing a bit hideous but everyone else in the world thinks its super cool. I guess it is incredible.
I really liked the areas around Mt Rushmore. Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park are so beautiful. We saw loads of bison and we all loved the majestic bulls wandering around alone the best. We also loved the prairie dogs, these yapping little vermin like dogs that bury holes but sit up like meercats protecting their family. Their little bottoms wiggle as they bark – so cute. They were everywhere. They actually drive the farmers mad with their tunnels and holes. . We did not see a moose. The kids got chased by some donkeys and got bowled over which was really funny but frightening to Declan and Breanna. We went on walks with rangers and historians who made you really appreciate the prairie and all the wildlife. Chloe finally found out why male native Americans do not have facial hair( they have never had it and use to think the facial hair of the whites was filthy).
We went on a drive thru Needles Mountains, enormous, cathedral like, hairpin mountain formations out of granite and thru tunnels that were that tight we had to push in our side mirrors to get thru. Steve did not get stressed !!!!!!…..Roll on Europe. What an awesome place. After that we went to hot springs which had hot springs ,surprise, surprise – the huge public pool (Evans Plunge) used water from the spring and completely replaces its water every 16 minutes. Hot Springs also had a super good Mammoth Site. A land developer in 1970 discovered mammoth bones and fossils when he was excavating. He donated the site to the town and since then archaeologists have found bones of 53 male mammoths who must of died by drowning in the sinkhole (females too smart) 26000 years ago. They have built a building right across the whole site and you can walk thru over all the uncovered mammoths. Rather tedious work me think uncovering these bones, one lady has worked 20 years on one mammoth. A mammoth is 14ft tall to their backbone and 5 tonne, so they weren’t dainty little chaps trying to escape the slippery shale banks of the sinkhole.
Just near Hot Springs are the Wind caves, tunnels of over 100 miles in a 1 mile square area, and the only caves in the world to have honeycomb formations. They were dry caves so different to anything we have seen before. We went down 165 feet but they go down 460 ft The rangers there were all cave groupies and whenever they could they would explore the caves and chart it. Bit too scary a hobby for me. The founder of the caves died at the ripe old age of 23 after hanging around the caves too long and developing lung problems.
President Coolidges summer White House is in the middle of Custer Park and we almost had buffalo stew there but much to the happiness of the kids it had gone off and they couldn’t serve it.
We have seen heaps of wild animals around these parks (well as wild as they can be in a protected national park). We saw a coyote right near our camp and a flock of wild turkeys wandering right thru .Loads of pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and deer. We did not see a moose. We went to a fish hatchery in Spearfish and found the prettiest canyon to camp in with a river running thru which Ban fell in. I don’t know if she moved faster with the donkey after her or slipping on the pebbles trying to get out. Both instances she was totally unimpressed, but we all enjoyed it immensely. Declan spent every minute trying to catch trout with his net.
We hit the old cowboy town of Deadwood next. It is a town where Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock made their fame, a gambling rough town with tending prostitutes in the windows of the hotels and casinos in every corner. This town was almost a ghost town in the 1980s and they reintroduced gambling and paved the streets and the town is a goldmine. They had reenactments of card games and shoot outs in the street. Ban and Declan loved it here.
South Dakota in all was a real surprise and far more interesting than what everyone told us it would be.
Next we went into Wyoming another wild Western state with cowboys everywhere. We didn’t see a field of corn here, they harvest nothing on these mountains except snow I think. We have been seeing heaps of signs where they have filmed Dances with Wolves here and we went to the volcanic site called Devils Tower where they filmed Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Devils tower is the remains of a volcanic cone after years of erosion. I asked the ranger if I could climb it and she smurkily told me I could, it is 875ft high and has pencil like columns with 665ft smooth sides. (Since 1930 100,000 professional climbers have attempted it and only half of those had succeeded!!!!!!) We camped at the base of the tower and it glowed green at dusk. Looked very neat. We did walk around the base and I then appreciated the enormity of it.
We drove across the prettiest granite mountains and rivers thru one of my favorite little towns, Tensleep, They have these great houses built out of a orange coloured big logs, like oregan and they look so nice. My house is in a wee valley with a rugged 500ft cliff as a backdrop and sweeping lawns to this rapid pebble river running by the house and ponderosa pine forest to the other side.
Thermopolis is a town built around thermal springs sold by the native Americans to the white man for food after the white man had exterminated the bison in the area. The springs have made plateaus of calcium and minerals of all different colours and look real pretty but smelly. We spent the day swimming in them all and you felt so refreshed and good. Huge deer wander thru the town with their fawn. They look so nice.
We met a lady in the springs who offered us to stay at her house in Cody, the town really built around the famous Buffalo Bill Cody. They had a beautiful log home in wasteland surrounded by beautiful mountains and next to a running stream filled with trout that we couldn’t catch. Wanda cooked us Venison for dinner and was really pleased we weren’t axe murderers as she had known us for all of 5 minutes when she invited us to her home.. Jack was a computer expert that worked for years on Reagan’s Star Wars project. The kids did not want to leave their home. It was so friendly and cosy. We really enjoyed meeting them and spending time there. Cody and its surrounding area is absolutely stunning, I would love to see it in winter.
Wanda & Jack mapped out a trek thru Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is a national park on volcanic mountains with thermal geysers and springs and bubbling mud and wildlife wandering thru. Elk was our favorite here. They are as big as horses. The daddy deer gets all his lady deer together in the autumn and keeps herding till he has as many as he can handle. He is so weak at the end of it all he cannot survive the harsh winter they have in Yellowstone. What a way to die. He is so protective of his herd. It is great to watch and listen to them bugling They just hang around and are not slightly worried about humans. Its funny how casual you become seeing these multi colored springs and geysers. They are just so beautiful and fun to watch and you even get used of their terrible smell in no time. There is one geyser that goes off 200-300ft and Old Faithful who shoots about 90ft every hour or so. There is a place called porcelain basin and that’s exactly as it looks with bubbling fumaroles and geysers and mudpots and hot springs. Definitely the prettiest place. We walked down 384 steps to the 300ft cascading rushing, lower falls. Fun to go DOWN and see. It is so civilized in Yellowstone and in nearly all of the national parks we have been to in America, they have beautiful boardwalks to everything you need to see and really well signed. You can just be a lazy num num and get to see everything. Boiling river was heaps of fun. Boiling water pour into the freezing cold Yellowstone river and where it mixes you can get your gear off and swim. Well float around and chat with everyone else dodging the rocks and trying to find that perfect spot. We had our first spell of cold weather in Yellowstone, we are so far north, very close to Canada. The day after we left, snow was forecast
We drove thru the Grand Tetons (spectacular mountains with ice glaciers stuck into 150ft crevices) to a town hidden in a valley called Jackson Hole. Land and homes are extremely exclusive and the clothes shops were the very best. We camped next to a river and at night we watched the beavers working at their nest, and big Canadian Geese and muskrats buzzing around but we did not see a moose. At the end of the town strip is an enormous, looks straight up and down, mountain, that in winter is a prime ski run. SCARY. We think it was one of our prettiest drives to Jackson and then onto Alpine.
We flew thru Idaho and followed Bear Lake, Utah to Garden City. This lake is the very brightest sapphire blue I had ever seen. The day was gray but still it shone blue. It had loads of fish too. Utah is surprisingly beautiful, I expected an ugly, desolate place. 70% of the population of Utah are Mormons so we figured it was pretty significant to go to Salt Lake City and see their monumental temple. We spent the whole day at their visitor center and was just flabbergasted at their set up, 3 floors of exhibits with interactive and life size dioramas. The whole City is a very pretty, neat and modern city surrounded by mountains and behind them snow capped ranges. We watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsing – world famous Steve told me. One of the missionaries, a young girl from Tasmania gave the kids some Tim Tams and Milo. They were so excited. The white salt lakes went for miles and miles and then mountainous dry ranges through to casino crazy Nevada and almost immediately at the border of California, lots of trees, mountains, lakes and green.
Declan had his hair attacked by a crazed Mexican on our way from Utah to California. He is BALD……
We drove straight over the Golden Gate Bridge and had a couple of lovely days in San Francisco even though my calves didn’t think so. The fog is really weird, it seems to lift mid morning and back down early evening. The streets are so steep, it almost reminds you of a colorful Greece, with pretty houses all joined together climbing the hills. The business district looks like Melbourne. It was cool seeing all of the places you see on television. We spent a lot of time at Fisherman’s Wharf cause they were having a bike race and lots of companies were giving samples of their wares to scabs (as Chloe calls us…) They have loads of sea lions hanging around on the wharf making a racket and fighting one an other. But they did not have any moose. They have an enormous Chinese population here and Chinatown takes up a large proportion of central San Francisco. We ate there but wished we went to Little Italy. Alcatraz looks exactly as it does in movies but it seems so close to town.
The drive down to Los Angeles is spectacular like our Great Ocean Road, except you are driving 500ft above the Pacific on really curly cliffs and the cliffs are volcanic and the sand is not white. It appears more rugged and wild yet still very spectacular. And very slow going. The Big Sur broke our journey and we camped by a magnificent river in the Redwood Forest (magnificent enormous trees – apparently the biggest species of tree ever). We loved Santa Barbara, fantastic food & shopping strip and great whitewashed Spanish Villas with terracotta roofs everywhere. We went to a mission that made out the Spanish missionaries were extremely kind to the native Americans who worked there. Sometimes cruel to be kind by what I saw.
We camped for for a couple of days just outside of Los Angeles right on the beach and watched loads of wild dolphins just outside our van perform. We even had a seal come up to the sand with a sore flipper but he ran away before animal rescue got there. It was very special watching the sun set thru the palm trees on this beach. I felt very very lucky. Neil told me this is where they filmed Gilligans Island.
LA was not near as scary as Steve made out it to be. We handled those monster roads and 100square miles without a worry in the world. Malibu looked like about one hundred other beautiful towns we have seen with mountains as their back drop. Steve spent the whole time in Venice Beach looking for a tap to fill up the van. We did all the Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Sunset Strip things and I was surprised again how nice Los Angeles is. I think everyone just talks about the smog and the yuk so I was pleased it was not near as bad as we thought (though we could not see the Hollywood Sign on the mountain when we were in Hollywood cause of the smog - bit of a worry).
We hit Las Vegas, Nevada in the middle of the night so we would really get the effect of tinsel town in the desert and it didn’t let us down. What a crazy place. All these super extravagant hotels outdoing one an another and creating make believe worlds inside them. 14 out of the largest 15 hotels in the world are in Vegas. Some of the hotels have miniature cities with a changing sky and waterways and lakes inside them. They even have cobblestone streets inside them. We stayed in one the shape and same size of a pyramid, and a 10 story Sphinx of Giza. Absolutely no expense has been spared. Talk about luxury after our 30ft van. We felt like kings and queens. Only 5% of Americans take their kids so they are not welcomed or allowed for in hotels. We had to hide ours when we checked in to get a decent rate. We rented a crazy electric Freddy Flinstone car without doors or windows and the 5 of us teared around the strip in that. We had heaps of fun in Vegas and the kids had a ball too. We saw hundreds of weddings and loads of chapels( we even saw a drive thru chapel), and often brides strolling thru the casino tables. Our kids could even walk thru the casinos as long as they didn’t loiter at the tables.
We left all the hype and got back into our old van and followed route 66 to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and spent a few days in the national park there getting back to nature. What a place to do that. This 5 million year old canyon left us awe struck (except Ban – she was frightened of it). It is too big. Such amazing changing colors. We entered on the south rim of the canyon apparently the most beautiful side and it was 13 miles to the other north side. It looked like it was half a mile away. The Colorado river that runs thru looks about 6ft wide and that is 300 foot. The canyon itself is more than 1 mile deep in most places, and goes for 277 miles. The canyon is not fenced except in really busy viewing areas and people would stand on the cliff edges to take photos. There is no cliff edge less than 300-400ft straight drop. Four and half million people a year go to see the canyon and about 10 tumble over. We watched the sunrise and the sunset and went to heaps of different spots and absolutely loved the Grand Canyon – colorful scenery, large proportions. We wanted to camp down the bottom with the families of tarantulas but Steve broke his toe kicking my kitten shoes in Vegas, so we had to catch the courtesy buses around the canyon. Good one Steve.
I cant believe how many things I say are great. I am sick of looking at amazing and interesting things. I want boredom…..
After the Grand Canyon we drove through a park that had 600 volcanoes in it and the latest one Sunset Crater, went off 900 years ago and covered the place for 500 square miles in black larva. The craters itself look so neat and delicate. Lots of ancient brick Pueblo dwellings are found where they would have farmed the rich volcanic soil in the area. They are so cool to stand in cause it is so hot in this desert. Heaps of cactus for Chloe to love.
The kids became junior rangers in the Grand Canyon and now they get tested in each National Park and Monument and they get badges if they pass. It was touch and go for Declan once, he hadn’t quite completed when the park was closing. You don’t reckon that was a drama.
We spent the weekend at Flagstone where they were having a science festival and we got to view mars. I could even see ice patches on it. My favorite was the nebulars – compacted dead stars that radiate a blue like ring around them. The ones we saw were about twice the size of earth.The next day we got to look at the Sun and see these flares coming off it. We saw loads of creepy crawlys, we watched earthquakes getting recorded and lots of lots of things. Jupiter was discovered here in the 1930s. The skies are especially clear. I pick mars every night and lots of other constellations. We are such astrologers now.
We next went to a petrified forest where trees over millions of years have transformed into multi colored quartz like rock. They are rocks as an exact replica of the original tree. They are so nice polished up. It would take all day to cut one tree in half ( 5 times as long as cutting a piece of granite). I would so love a slice as a coffee table., two slices and you would have a kitchen bench. We drove onto to some more boring magnificent badland landscape with multi colored exposed mountains in all shades of reds and blues called the painted desert and saw more pueblo ruins, and cliffside dwellings of hundreds of years ago.
We have been on route 66 for ever and have gone thru lots of old ghost towns they are trying to revive like Winslow,Arizona (the old eagles song Take it easy). We are now in Albuquerque, New Mexico and are heading off to Sante Fe and then into Oklahoma and then Texas. They are having a hot air balloon festival here. I am not sick of the van though we all would love to punch the walls sometimes but we cant cause the walls are very thin. Declan is missing blockbuster.
Today we went to a great authentic Mexican restaurant called El Pinto where Chloe really felt she had Mexican blood and ate the spiciest hottest food and had to pretend to really love it. It was a beautiful place, mountains as a backdrop and the best Mexican décor and gardens. They have had loads of famous people go there. President Bush 4 times, Elton John, Mick Jagger, Bill Cosby and on and on and on.
Our hotel in Madison
A different hotel at Wisconsin Dells- the water park was so fun!!!!!! ( i was a bit scared and wouldnt go on the yellow slide )
ps- it is scarier up close! LOL
Pipestone, Minnesota
My brother the Indian
It may seem weird but they actually made a whole house out of corn!!!! They update it every year
Where Dad saw the Willie Nelson concert ( he will gladly tell you about it!) hahaha
Ok he didnt last that long- he was still cute!!!
Hee hee hee! Prarie dogs are SOOOOOOOOO cute!!!!!
they live in towns and they're really fat and they try to run and some of the really fat ones dont fit in their holes!!!!!
(dont pet them they'll give you Monkey Bop disease!)
-thats really what its called!
At the Badlands....one of my favorite places. Photos just dont show it- so beautiful and sooooooooo quiet and solitary....it felt like you were alone on the moon
Karen- he really loves those Captain Underpants books!
Mount Rushmore in South Dakota (as was the Badlands)
Declans still reading captain Underpants!!!!!!!
yummy yummy elephant ears.....sort of fried dough with cinnamon sugar...!! ok so theyre not good for you.....but sooooooooooooooooooo tasty!
Hmmmm i dont know how this photo got here but it's Bonds Office
Us playing Monopoly with Matt
Dad made friends with Wally and Pam and they took us on their boat on a beautiful lake in Albion ( Michigan )
Breanna with Tony the Tiger at Cereal City ( where Kellogs is made )
The State Building in Lansing the capital of Michigan
Our Condo
( well we wanted to buy it but as declan put it in his diary "We had $81 and it cost $81,000,000,000!"
A very typical American home
Mum made me put this in because "it is the only good coffee ive had in america"
and shes had a lot!!!!
Hey Dec that might not be a good idea...........!
Declan learning to shoot (eeeee!) by Ranger Bob in Custer State Park, South Dakota
A Pronghorn! (they have white bums!)
A Bison- we were SO close to it!
The Summer White House of President Coolidge
Needle Mountains
As you can imagine, Dad was VERY stressed going through here!
Big Horned mountain Sheep
Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota
The original entrance tto Wind cave
Wild Turkeys
We're going on a bear hunt, we're going on a bear hunt...
actually we're just going to jail.....
OK we're on a nature walk!
LOLOL!
Burros! (wild donkeys)
They were VERY friendly...especially when we fed them carrots!
that was when they tried to trample us (when we ran out of carrots)
At the Mammoth Site where at least 60 fossils lie
Dad loves his Cowdy!
(in Deadwood)
Another Pronghorn
HAHAHA this man 'got shot' in a street show but the man who was supposed to shoot him, his gun wouldnt work, so the guy just lay down- but he was laughing!
oh were in Deadwood
Dec fishing
Our friends Jack and Wanda in front of their house
Spear Fish Canyon
and nice glasses
for a change
HUGE fish!
hmmmmm i was a bit scared of falling in the water!
at the state fish hatchery in South Dakota
Devils Towler
At a bar in Buffalo ( yes the guy does have a gun! )
we're in Wyoming
Breanna in our motorhome
At Star Plunge, a hot spring swimming pool
Thermopolous, Wyoming
This is the minerals from a tiny hot spring
hmmmm i think dec took this one....Mum doesnt like her photo being taken!
Buffalo Bills museum in Cody, Wyoming
Later that day at Jack and Wandas (who Mum and Dad met at the thermal springs)
On the back of the ute!
They took us fishing!
hahaha! Jack and Wandas neighbours bred teenytiny horses the size of dogs! HOW CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!!!!!
ooops, ok, THIS is Jack and Wanda in front of their house!
