Author: Kari

We started our Saturday having breakfast on “Main Street” in the old part of Collingwood, with our great friends, Jim & Karen:

After breakfast we wandered around the corner to Collingwood’s Saturday Farmer’s Market! What a great Farmer’s Market: lots of vegetables, crafts, local wine, maple syrup, and … local Cider samples before noon!!

It was cloudy, threatening rain, got a little foggy all morning; then poof the sun was out for the afternoon!

We went to Blue Mountain Resort for the afternoon.

Brian, with “A Wise One”:

From the top of the escarpment:

In the big adirondack chair:

Down to the pool before supper:

We finished the day walking through Blue Shores, along Georgian Bay, to watch the sunset over the Marina!

Sunday was another glorious day! We spent the morning over near Blue Mountain Resort at Scenic Caves Nature Adventures — we went on a beautiful hike in the woods and into caves and caverns.

Here’s a panoramic, looking down to Collingwood and Georgian Bay:

A peak through the rocks:

In the caverns:

We went to Thornbury for lunch – a beautiful town west of Collingwood. We went to The Dam Pub – which featured over 1000 different whiskeys!! Brian and Mark were in heaven!! The Pub was on Bruce Steet – the three of us were as together as we could be! 🙂

Back to the pool before supper:

And, another walk in Mark’s neighbourhood at sunset:

Another beautiful day in paradise! We had a full day, but I didn’t take too many photos.

We started with breakfast and a wee walk in The Village (at Blue Mountain Resort). Then we went to Millenium Park in Collingwood, to where the old Collingwood Grain Terminals are… these were often off in the distance in our “overlook” photos on the escarpment up in The Blue Mountains.

This photo overlooks Collingwood Harbour, looking back to The Blue Mountains:

We were off again, this time going east of Collingwood to Wasaga Beach. Mark showed us several of Parkbridge’s (his company) properties; then we walked up and down Wasaga Beach.

We headed back to the center of Collingwood for Margarita Monday – margaritas with chips & guac! Yum!!!!!

And, our trip to the pool before supper:

We were off early in the morning… it was another gorgeous day! We stopped in Grand Bend, Ontario to get a glimpse of Lake Huron… what a beautiful spot, and a beautiful town!!!!!

We stayed on backroads for almost the entire way through Ontario; popped on to “The 402” in Sarnia just before the Border; then got on to the US Interstates.

We took the Lake Express Ferry, across Lake Michigan, from Muskegon, MI to Milwaukee, WI. Here are some photos from the Muskegon side:

We stayed on the west side of Milwaukee, in Delafield, WI. We had a nice supper, watching the MLB All-Star Game. Then called it a night!

As usual, we were off fairly early in the morning. We had a bit of a slow-go at first… a bit of heavy traffic, and then an accident plugged up I90 for several miles. Turns out someone’s two motorcycles burned up on their trailer… not much was left of their motorcycles!! That musta been an experience!!!!

We left Wisconsin at La Crosse and crossed back in Minnesota…. back at the Mississippi River!! We stopped to stretch our legs and have a wee walk along the Mississippi:

We finally landed in Chamberlain, South Dakota for the night. Here’s Brian in our hotel room…. now that’s a big chair!

Chamberlain, SD is on the Missouri River. After supper, we went down to the Missouri:

It was pretty special to be on the Mississippi and the Missouri in the same day!

What an incredibe day!! And a hot one!! It was about 20C (70F) at 6 am and got up to 34C (93F) in Rapid City!! Feels like Summer!!

On Wednesday, we had been seeing billboards for miles and miles about “Wall Drug”… after a bit of googling, we discovered that Wall Drug started as a drug store in Wall, South Dakota in 1931; and it grew into quite an amazing establishment! We just had to pop by! Several hours later, we had looked all over Wall Drug, ate at the restaurant, and explored the Main Street in Wall! Definitely worth the stop!!!!!

From Wall we went straight south into Badlands National Park. It reminded us of our Badlands out in the Drumheller area. Here are a few photos from some of our stops in the Park:

It turns out that all of the soft green in the photos is Sweet Clover – green leaves/stocks and yellow flowers…. there was ALOT of Sweet Clover!!

Here’s what I thing is South Dakota’s Wild Yarrow:

Brian’s shirt almost matched the clover! 🙂

On our way out of Badlands National Park, we found several of these little (okay, not so little) guys… big ‘ol fat Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs, in a “Prairie Dog Corral”! 🙂

And this is why they were corralled!!!!!! Bahahahahaha!!!! Maybe we have a new attraction for home!!!!! 🙂

We ended up in downtown Rapid City for Supper, at a wonderful Italian restaurant. And, it just so happened that Thursday evenings are “Rapid City Summer Nights” — some local live music, food vendors, local wine and beer…. all right close to the restaurant!

After Supper we went up to Mount Rushmore for their Evening Lighting Ceremony. Here’s a photo before the sun went down; the Memorial faces east, so no sunlight was on it while we were there.

A storm rolled by, just a bit north of the Memorial…

Mount Rushmore, illuminated, with another storm building behind it…

Neither of these storms “hit” us, but…. in the wee hours of the night we had one helluva thunder storm over Rapid City… sheet lightening and bolt lightening! Thankfully it was fast moving and we only had one booming round of thunder overhead with the rest of the thunder further off.

We spent the day driving around the southern part of the Black Hills. It was another beautiful, hot day!

These first couple of photos are overlooking Pactola Reservoir. The reservoirs in the Black Hills were build after WWII, in the 40’s and 50’s to help with flooding, but mostly for irrigation downstream.

This is Sheridan Lake (another reservoir):

In Hill City is the west end of the “1880 Train” / Black Hills Central Railroad (between Hill City and Keystone). Brian is beside one of the permanent displays… Steam Engine #7, 1919, hauling timber out of the Black Hills:

We stopped at Crazy Horse Memorial… still under construction. This first photo is what it looks like today:

This photo shows where they plan to take the mountain:

And this photo is of a to-scale sculpture of how the Memorial is expected to look, once finished:

Here’s a zoomed look at the Memorial:

We went up to the Mt. Coolidge Lookout, and we were able to see Crazy Horse:

We could also see George Washington over at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, but photos just didn’t do it justice. Here’s Brian, spy-glassing from the Mt. Coolidge Lookout:

We stopped in at Wind Cave National Park, hoping to into the caves. Unfortunately we were unable to get into the caves… the 1934 elevator was closed for repairs.

We ended our southern Black Hills day in Hot Springs for supper in one of the local bars, and a visit to the Farmer’s Market, complete with live music!

We headed north out of Rapid City and drove through Sturgis, SD… no Bike Rally while we were there, but that meant we COULD drive through town!

Then we went to Deadwood… Deadwood is where Wild Bill Hickok was killed, in Deadwood Saloon No. 10. They’ve kept the town fairly historic, with re-inactments and the Saloon still exists:

From Deadwood we drove through the Spearfish Canyon. Here’s Brian by Spearfish Creek – the trout were a plentiful!!

Devil’s Tower, Wyoming – what an incredible sight!!

We walked the Tower Trail – a loop around the Tower about 2 miles long.

Our route took us by the Little Bighhorn Battlefield National Monument, so just had to go see it!! It was another well-put-together National Site!! This photo is looking to the southwest, on the hill that was “Custer’s Last Stand”. The headstones were placed where the soldiers fell. They were later re-interred elsewhere, Cutler to Westpoint and the rest of the soldiers at a spot a few feet northeast of these markers.

Thunderstorms rolled through Montana all day – we were lucky and missed them all; just a few sprinkles now and then. We ended our day in Billings, at another great Italian restaurant – pizza was calling!!

We had a quiet drive from Billings back up to Calgary, and an easy Border-crossing. We were able to make it in time for Supper with Mom & Dad, and my nephews Scott & Liam.

And home on the 15^th after helping Mom & Dad move.

We had the privilege of helping Mom & Dad move into their new home on the 15th. Then it was home that evening, picking up the doggies along the way!