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:
Looking south-ishLooking north-ish
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!!
Driving in from the south, looking north at Devils’s Tower
We walked the Tower Trail – a loop around the Tower about 2 miles long.
West sideLooking south from the Tower TrailSoutheast sideNortheast sideNorth sideNorthwest side
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 15th 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!
We arrived at the Munich Airport safe ‘n’ sound! We had great flights; we arrived early in Amsterdam, so we didn’t have to sprint to our connection to Munich! Our bags were the last off 🙁 but they made it! 🙂 Here’s Brian in the Airport:
We took the S-Bahn (surface train) into Central Munich.
After a wee rest in the afternoon, we wandered around Central Munich for the evening:
Another in Central Munich… just to prove I was there!
Supper at the Hofbräuhaus! (where Octoberfest is held)
Beer for Brian, wine for me, and German sausage and sauerkraut for both of us…
We had a safe, but long drive from Munich to Ruhpolding… in and out of rain, snow and gigantic snowflakes! We took the back roads, so got to see lots of villages.
Near HohenlindenNear Albaching
The Alps had been hammered by snow… they called it a “100 Year Storm”. The last 15 km of our drive, which should have taken 20 min, took nearly 3 hours! We’re not really sure what happened… but, it was not an avalanche. Partly accidents, for sure; and we heard that in some of the smaller villages snow being removed from roofs dumped onto the roads, so then the roads needed to be cleared.
Near Traunstein
We finally made it safe ‘n’ sound into Ruhpolding. We checked into our nice little apartment, then went out for supper. Here are a couple pics from The Village (the central part of Ruhpolding).
We had supper at a wonderful Hungarian restaurant recommended by our Hostess – she owns (or manages) our apartment house. The “kids” were just finishing supper in The Village, a block from our restaurant, so popped by to say hi. Sorry, no pics of them! 🙁 They told us about Glühwein Huts, and, of course, we found one!
The Men’s Sprint was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday. We heard that the German Government had declared a state of emergency in the region – we were safe ‘n’ sound, and Ruhpolding was just fine. But, sadly, the Opening Ceremonies Tuesday night had to be cancelled.
We had lunch with Scott and Christian (Emma was training at the time) …
Christian & Scott
Here’s our apartment, and Brian standing by our SUV… it’s a Kia… we wanted a BMW, but they wouldn’t rent us one cuz we were going to Italy… guess the BMW is highly sought after by Italian thieves! Our apartment is third floor, left side of the balcony.
The Hotel Post in the afternoon, and supper there in the evening. Brian had traditional Wiener Schnitzel and I had thin-sliced roast beef salad sort of thing… both were excellent! And, my favorite way to eat beef… rare, thin-sliced, cold, and with a great dressing! And fried potatoes too! So far, hadn’t seen too much “green” on the plates! They definitely like meat and potatoes!!!!!
Glühwein:
And, a shot of amaretto with it this evening… be still my heart!
Sun!
The sun came out… it was spectacular! Here are a couple pics from our balcony
in the morning…
Ruhpolding, like every town we were in, has lovely churches.
Off to Berchtesgaden
In the afternoon we drove east to Berchtesgaden (this is where Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest is). Unfortunately, Eagle’s Nest is closed in the Winter… I think the road up there is pretty nasty in the Winter. The town of Berchtesgaden is lovely and the drive there was incredible… especially after the dump of snow. Here are some pics from along the way…
Some pics of the Eagle’s Nest… at least we think this is Eagle’s Nest 😉
