Our goal for the day was to get into Montana and find a rest stop. This part of Montana is great = like the Clackamas River on steroids.
The bathrooms are fabulous. They put Oregon's bathrooms to shame. There are only individual rooms on each side - 4 for women and 4 for men.
We were a bit anxious about this sign as we approached the entrance, I guess this is Montana,
Hmm = what is this
Good grief Its a bear proof waste can right by the door, Yea!! Montana!!!
Day 2 - Tuesday
We left relatively early with the goal of getting to the other side of Montana in one day.
The road we traveled on through the westernmost part of the mountains is described by this sign.
But, once out of the mountains we encountered flatness and more flatness
Our rest area was bit east of the border with South Dakota - no we didn't make it through Montana in a day.
Day 3 - Wednesday
Goal for today - drive all the way through North Dakota, don't eat too many potato chips, don't eat any more Oreos.
We were surprised to come upon the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We'd never heard of it. Because we have our wonderful senior pass to National Parks, we decided to visit it - at least the Visitors Center. The park itself is really big and is designed to br a wildlife refuge. We didn't stay - needs to be a several day adventure.
We crossed the Missouri River and sang, "O Shenandoah, I love your daughter.....cross the wide Missouri."
Reaching our goal for the day, we crossed into Minnesota in the early evening and found a lovely Rest Area near Frazee, MN. There was a geocache, and we found it hidden in the woods (hope there are no ticks in MN)
Day 4 - Thursday - September 16
We left Frszee early in the morning and headed north to Itasca Lake State Park. The park has several entrances and several visitor's centers. We finally go to the right one, the Mary Gibbs Center, looked around for stuffed rabbits and bought a t- shirt instead. Walked down the trail where the river flows out of Lake Itasca. There is quite a story about who and how finally determined which lake was the actual source. Apparently it was a Mr. Schoolcraft who figured it out. There is a lot of "bad" history with the Indians who were removed and replaced and then lied to, and promises made were not kept..
After walking across the river on some well placed rocks, we headed downstream. We found our way by using a Great River Road app on our phone. Without this app, we would not be successful. The roads we go on are so small that they are not on the statewide map. The other way to get directions is by looking for signs along the road and and at junctions. The sign has the logo of the Great River road which is a green steamboat steering wheel. The river winds back and forth everywhere, and our roads constantly crossed over the river. We took pictures at each bridge to document how the river gets wider.
We stopped at Schoolcraft State Park for lunch. Read a sign about ticks and decided to refrain from walking in tall grass. There is a boat ramp here, and we walked down it right up to the river's edge.
We continued downriver (can't give a direction because the river only goes down.....not south.) We stopped at a Wayside which is much much smaller than a Rest Area and spent the night there. In the evening and through the night there was a massive storm - rain, hail, wind, thunder, lightening. Wind was blowing rain through the windows which we had to close up which made the camper pretty hot. The Wayside was on the shores of the Big Sandy Reservoir which is really big. The area is very historical.
Driving gets tricky sometimes when we need to leave the Great River Road (as shown to us on our phone app) and go into a town or another road in order to find a store or a place for the night. In one place, Aiken, MN, our route, which was Highway 210, was closed and there was a detour. What was tricky is that we didn't know where the detour ended and if it would be near the Great River Road. We ended up finding our own country roads that took us to the north of 210. We never came upon whatever was causing the detour and we found the road just fine. Good thing we had our Camino Experience which was a six week problem solving experience.
Day 5 - Friday - September 17
Headed downriver. Drove through St Cloud and parked in a library parking lot where there as a trail access down to the river.
We're finding a lot of dams now along the river. In the late 1800 and early 1900s, dams were built to ease steamboat travel up the river. Now it is kind of a shame. I'd rather have a free river. I think the lakes formed by the dams provide a lot of recreation.
Speaking of recreation. There are thousands of lakes everywhere. You can't see them all because there are trees between the lakes and the highway. (I'm sure early loggers cut all the original trees down, and present day residents have planted a bazillion pine trees along the roads). Along the road there are, too numerous to count, signs indicating this resort or that resort or my resort or the other resort. Additionally there are mailboxes at the road's edge with a small driveway going back into the dark trees where some retired person has probably built his forever vacation home.
We stopped at the Fort Ripley historical site where there was a fort built in the 180'0s to control the Indians and settlers. Now there is a big army national guard fort. It is used mainly for winter warfare training. We ate lunch here.
We headed south toward Minneapolis/St Paul. It was creepy to drive into a huge city after being in the countryside for the past five days. I didn't like it. But.....I wanted to go to the Mall of America (silly me) because I had heard of it. Yes, it is a huge mall with an amusement center in it. Roller coasters and all sorts of stuff. It really reminded us of the malls in Astana which were built to shock and awe patrons. And it does. But I prefer Clackamas Town Center. We went to the food court to see how magnificent is was and found a magnificent Chick-Fil-a, and that was the end of cooking mac and cheese in the camper. The closest rest area was about twenty mile south of Minneapolis.
The other reason we wanted to come to this big city was to go to a couple of museums that have relevance to the Mississippi River.
Day 6 - Saturday - September 18
This was a good day. After breakfast we backtracked and headed north to go back to Minneapolis/St Paul because we wanted to go to two museums in the city, First was the National Park Service Mississippi River Visitor Center. We entered with high hopes which were dashed by what we found There were just a lot of feel good photos but nothing of real worth - we wanted history and photos of the river that taught something. We then tried the next museum, The Minnesota Museum of History and struck out again They had great stuff but nothing on the river.
We headed south and crossed the river into Wisconsin where we found the the Great River Road Visitor Center in Prescott, Wisconsin, It was great!!!!!! We learned so much new stuff. The location was on a high bluff over the river and there were many speed boats going up river. They had to go slowly in one area but as soon as they reached a certain point, the engines revved up and the boats shot forward
We crossed back into MN and went to the National Eagle Center for a visit. It is not a rehabilitation center but an information center so much. There were three eagles who were "ambassadors". They wee all in their 20s. It was a really great place. .....we bout an eagle hand puppet.
They we headed south and found a great rest area right near a bridge that crosses over to LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
Day 7 - Sunday - 19th
In the morning we realized that our rest area was adjacent to Dam and Lock No 7.....of the 24 dams and locks on the Mississippi. We headed over to take a look. How lucky could we be???? A tug boat and twelve barges were situated to enter the lock and go through. It was a very slow process. The barges were pushed into the lock and then the front six were disconnected from the remaining six. Those six on the end were pulled back out of the lock by the tug boat. The forward six went through. Ten the process began again to get the aft six through. Really interesting to watch. There was also a visitors center with great descriptions of how locks work and showing all the locks on the river.
There was a geocache hidden in the area We found it.....a geocaching bird house with a take entrance. It was hung in a tree. We'd never seen one like this before.
Next on the days trip was a visit to Caledonia, Minnesota where Grandma Jessie Gray was born in 1870. The drive took us away from the River Road, but the scenery was worth it - picture perfect or puzzle perfect farm landscape. We wondered by Grandma Jessie's parents wanted to relocate by going to Eugene, Oregon...probably very little snow in Oregon.
Our map showed a National Park Monument along the way - Effigy Mounds National Monument.
Hmmm.. had never heard of effigy mounds. Turns out this area, and many other area in the US, have these mounds which were built eons ago by indigenous people - 10,000 years ago. They are burial grounds or ceremonial mounds or mounds to commemorate something. The are all over! Some are shaped like bears or birds. Some are rows mounds which are aligned with summer and winter solstices.
It was a really interesting place with great displays
"To survive, people must know that they are part of the natural world and live in harmony with it."
On our map was another suggested stop. The Motor Mill Historic Mill. I was quite a ways out of our way, but we decided to go anyway......we shouldn't have. Even though we'd checked online, the place was closed. Not only closed but only open on two weekends of the month for six months of the year. It was in an interesting area with the Turkey River flowing under an interesting bridge, but the whole side trip was not worth the effort.
We headed back east to get back on the River Road. An interest feature about driving on this road is that, in general, it goes through small forgotten cities along the river. Some of the cities are really nice with fancy homes dotted along the way with big picture windows facing the river. Others are not only forgotten but also seem to be lost in disrepair. There will be the river, then some land with mobile home raised up on concrete blocks to avoid the rising river waters, the a train track, then the River Road, and then some other houses whose front doors are practically on the road.
Spent the night at a rest area between Bettendorf and Le Claire, Iowa. Had never heard of them before and will like not remember them either. The rest area is HUGE - not huge parking area but a huge building. The women's bathroom has probably twenty booths and a beautifully decorated lobby with benches and little desks (where I am right now) for writing letters home, I guess.
Tomorrow we will go to the Buffalo Bill Museum and Le Claire and then head south into Illinois. on our wat to Nauvoo.
