After we left the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody on Sunday, June 20, (at about 11 am) we thought we'd try to put some miles on the motorhome, and make some progress on our travel back home. Basically we had three goals in mind:
1. Get to Chicago by Friday, June 25, in order to spend the week-end with Gary's son Alan and his family;
2. Finishing hitting our remaining 5 states so we can reach our goal of being in all (lower) 48 states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
3. Include Springfield, IL, in our route .... we want to go to the "new" (since 2005) Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
From Cody, we headed east on US 14/16/20, a beautiful drive,
to Greybull, and then continued on 14 to Ranchester. (135 miles). Then we turned north on Interstate 90 and headed back into Montana.
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is off of I90 about 50 miles north of Ranchester. Little Bighorn, of course, is the site of Custer's Last Stand. Armed hostilities between the Plains Indians and the Euro-Americans had peaked in the decade following the Civil War. Western emigration was escalating. In 1868, the U.S. government signed a treated at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, with the Lakota, Cheyenne and other tribes of the Great Plains by which a large area in eastern Wyoming was designated a permanent Indian reservation. The government promised to protect the Indians there. BUT, gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874, in the heart of the new Indian reservation, and thousands of eager gold seeks violated the Fort Laramie treaty in their quest. In growing defiance, the Lakota and Cheyenne left the reservation and resumed raids on settlements and travelers. The Army was called in.
As a confrontation evolved in southeastern Montana, General George Custer, commanding about 600 men, likely underestimated the strength of the Lakota and Cheyenne led by Sitting Bull. Custer divided his force into three contingents, and kept five companies under his command. Reno and Benteen's forces were able to retreat, but Custer was completely surrounded and destroyed in fierce fighting. Cheyenne Chief Two Moon recalled "We circled all around him ---- swirling like water around a stone. We shoot, we ride fast, we shoot again. Soldiers drop, and horses fall on them."
The hills are gentle and rolling and there is a loop drive we took through the battleground.
The scene is calm now, and it is simply a beautiful grazing ground for some lovely ponies.
And the final resting place for many of those lost is peaceful and beautiful.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening traveling about 120 more miles to Miles City, Montana. After going through Hardin we turned north along the Big Horn River and then east on I94, following the Yellowstone River .... the longest un-dammed river in the United States. When we pulled into the Miles City KOA there was a tornado and flash flood watch. We saw and heard quite a bit of lightening and thunder that night, but things didn't look too bad when Monday, June 21st dawned. Gary had wanted to stay at a place where there was a regional Montana Fish and Game office as he wanted to confirm the regulations and requirements for bow hunting elk. He's going to try to do this at Derry Shoemaker's ranch in 2011. He had to be all signed up by June for this year.
This was a huge driving day for us: 524 miles, possibly the most number of miles in a day on the entire trip (we had another big day in January, driving from Padre Island, through San Antonio over the west Texas). It was clear and dry and a good day for driving.
Our last notable city in Montana was Glendive .... the Paddlefish Capitol of the world. This made Gary shudder! About two years ago, we hosted a dinner party with a group that celebrates Twelfth Night. We served a lovely appetizer .... blintzes wrapped around creme fraiche and garnished with caviar. I had mail ordered the caviar ... $35 for a 2 oz jar. It was paddlefish. We went through the dinner party, and about 15 minutes after dessert someone commented that Gary didn't look so good. He promptly excused himself, and was very, very ill with fluids being expelled from both ends of his digestive tract. He never returned that evening. No one else was ill. But we didn't know what it was. About a week later, I asked him to check to see if the caviar still seemed good, and he scraped four eggs off the inside of the jar lid and ate them. An hour later he was sick again .... fortunately, not quite at intensely, but we knew the causative agent of his previous illness. It almost made him sick to hear that Glendive was the Paddlefish Capitol as we drove through the town!
As we moved into North Dakota, and toward Theodore Roosevelt National Park, near Dickinson, we started to see landscape reminiscent of the nearby Badlands.
We saw this beautiful sculpture near Bismarck.
Near Dickinson, ND, we saw a sign for something that really caught my eye: "Equine Massage Therapy." I wasn't fast enough to get a phone number. But since then, I've Googled it, and they are equine massage therapy schools (!) and there is a certification for it! Who knew!
Because we had such a long day, I drove about 200 miles between Dickinson and Jamestown. After Gary took back over, Liz and I laid out on the bed and watched Valentine's Day on the DVD player .... one of the luxuries of riding in Buster!
We ended up staying that night in Hankinson, ND, at Dakota Magic Casino RV park. It cost $10.50. We were going to go ahead and eat dinner in the casino, but it was so smoky in there it was unappetizing so we resorted to one of our staples: spaghetti.
We planned another big driving day for Tuesday, June 22. We thought we would probably be able to add our final 48th state today. We crossed the border into South Dakota, and continued driving south on Interstate 29. After we passed through Sioux Falls, we were then traveling along the Missouri River along the western border of Iowa. We had planned to pick up our mail in South Sioux City, NEBRASKA, so we crossed the Missouri River at Sioux City and went into Nebraska, picking up our 47th State.
Here is Liz putting our self-adhesive 47th state on the map we kept on our front living room window in Buster.
We returned to I29, and crossed the state line into Missouri. Soon we saw a turn off to Tarkio, and were so excited as that is where our dear friend Patty Simmons and her family is from! Again, I didn't get my camera out fast enough, but we definitely saw the turn off! Then north of Kansas City, we did the same thing: crossed the Missouri River at St. Joseph, MO, and purchased some gas in Elwood, Kansas.
The Missouri River
We ended up driving 580 miles this day, another top 5 day as far as mileage goes, and camped at Pershing State Park near Chillicothe, MO. We decided to turn east at St. Joe so we could go through Hannibal (the boyhood home of Mark Twain) on our way to Springfield.
Wednesday, June 23 was a shorter day. It was about a hundred miles from Pershing State Park to Hannibal. First Lizzie and I added the 48th state, Kansas, and surveyed our completed work!
The Mark Twain house was really well done. Here's a picture of the house,
and inside there was a history of Hannibal and then various quotes of Twain's around the house with 3D replicas of him in different rooms. This was my favorite:
I also liked this and believe it, too.
As we left, we saw this great sculpture of Tom and Huck.
We made our way on to Springfield and camped at Double J Campground. Then the inveterate swimmers frolicked in the pool once more,
and Gary finally modeled his Coke boxers we'd gotten at Coca-Cola World in Atlanta.
We were really happy we had reserved a day to spend with Mr. Lincoln. Gary and I are huge Lincoln fans .... if Liz had been a boy, we seriously considered naming "him", Lincoln League.
So on Thursday, June 24, we went to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. We parked in downtown Springfield and walked past the State House on the way to the Presidential Museum.
And just before we got to the museum we saw this lovely sculpture near the museum and the train station.
The new museum was opened in 2005. It is stunning as you can see.
There is a beautiful rotunda where you see the entrance to the main exhibits. Right there in the rotunda are sculptures of the Lincoln family, and if you want, you can take your picture with them. I just took them. Then to the left is the entrance to the exhibit which explores Lincoln's early years: being born in Kentucky, his mother dying when he was young, and his father re-marrying Nancy Hanks who was very good to him and helped him learn to read.
There were many documents and exhibits about these early years, and then the exhibits went on to his life in Springfield, and his marriage to Mary Todd, and the birth of their 4 boys. The presidential election of 1860 was detailed, and then of course many exhibits and displays related to Lincoln and the Civil War, and of course replicas of Fords Theatre, and when he lay in state back in Illinois. Many of the exhibits were lifesize displays, like the cabin scene, and it was all so interesting and tangible. In the center was movie/video production entitled "Lincoln's Eyes" .... taking off on an artist trying to capture the expression in his eyes ... and there were many of them: sorrow, hope, intelligence, and others. It was wonderfully done.
As we were walking back to the car, we saw Mr. Lincoln's law office, where he had written his first inaugural address.
Then we went to his home, where he had lived in Springfield during the time he practiced law. As I mentioned, they had four boys, and for 6 months of the year, Mary Lincoln was a single mom. Abe would travel around the region trying legal cases, and she would manage the boys with a "mother's helper." Apparently they weren't strict disciplinarians as there were many stories of the boys running rampant down at the law offices.
The story of their boys is a tragic one: their oldest Robert Todd Lincoln is the only one to have survived into adulthood. Their second, Edward, died of TB in Springfield at the age of 4. They had two more boys, Willie and Tad, who moved with them to the White House. But Willie died of a high fever in February, 1882 at the age of 11, and though Tad outlived his father, he died at the age of 18. One can hardly imagine the melancholy this man experienced with the loss of his own mother when he was very young, 9; the death of his first (and maybe only true) love, Ann Rutledge, to whom he was engaged; and then the loss of two of his four sons in childhood. It truly seems unbearable.
We drove a little ways to the Lincoln's house in Springfield. Mary Todd came from a wealthy family in Kentucky and it was a beautiful and well-appointed home. It is beautifully preserved today.
We wanted just a little more time with Mr. Lincoln, so on Friday, June 25th we drove up to New Salem from Springfield. We stopped at Lincoln's tomb on the way.
Apparently all Illinois school children take a trip to Springfield and touch Lincoln's nose!
Abraham Lincoln and his family are buried within the crypt of the tomb. Only the eldest son, Robert Lincoln, survived into adulthood and outlived his parents. The other three younger boys ... Edward, Willie and Tad are all buried within the tomb. Robert had expressed his wish to be entombed with his revered parents and brothers when he died, but his wife failed to carry out his wishes (?!), and so Robert's remains are missing from the tomb. That seems a tragedy.
From Lincoln's tomb we drove the short distance north to New Salem. This is the reconstructed village where Lincoln lived in his early life. It was a beautiful spring day, and it was easy to think of Lincoln walking barefoot along the dirt roads, his pants up around his knees because of his long legs, possibly a fishing pole (though maybe not too likely ... lots of chores and reading to do!), on those same dirt roads.
It was a beautiful day for the drive to Chicago. We took Interstate 55 up to Interstate 39 and then to 88 east to Chicago. We decided to avoid 294 around Chicago, and took Illinoise 59 north to Golf and then east to Harlem, where we turn to get to Alan and Sue Kim League's house where they live with the adorable Charlie, age 2 1/2. They had a busy week at work, so we put together some dinner when we arrived on Friday evening. We shared one of our best appetizer's ... Cowboy Caviar. It's a recipe that my sister-in-law Lori Payne Abbott discovered in one of my cookbooks when she came to stay with us when Liz was born in July, 2000. It is black beans marinated with oil and garlic and onion and cumin (and some other stuff), spread over cream cheese and topped with a chopped hard boiled egg and scallions. You dip tortilla chips in it. It is DELICIOUS!
Alan was on call that week-end so Saturday, June 26, was a slow day. I got a little time to work on the blog and we played with Charlie and Sue. They grilled a delicious pork tenderloin and lamb for dinner, corn and berries, and we had a nice quiet evening.
On Sunday, June 26, they took a drive with us in Buster the next day. Charlie fell asleep .... it IS very restful!
We decided to close the loop and make our last stop at Posy and John Krehbiel's where we had stayed our first night out .... July 24, 2009! They, as always, warmly welcomed us again and we had the extreme pleasure of staying once again in their guest house after sharing a delicious dinner with them, their daughter Meg Ellsworth, and the adorable Grace and her little sister Luisa.
The next morning brought our last day on the road, Monday, June 28, 2010. Our plan was to drive to Rochester, about 6 hours away.
We had a lovely morning at the Krehbiel's, walking around and enjoying the gardens .... where we had been married 11 years before. We also so enjoyed seeing Grace and enjoying her recent birthday toys. I enjoyed wearing my 48 state T-shirt as we said good-bye, and Liz got her folding bike out and rode it around the Krehbiel's lovely drive-paths.
We started off on our familiar I94 toward Milwaukee and as we turned west toward Madison, I asked Gary if he had remembered to load Liz's bike back in the motorhome .... it was a "no." So we decided to deal with it right then and there. We stopped, unhooked the car, and I drove back the 100 miles to Lake Forest and got Liz's bike. Gary and Liz took their time driving through our familiar Wisconsin
and Minnesota countryside, and we rendezvoused at the Mississippi River at La Crosse. Liz had been talking about crossing the river and entering Minnesota for a week. This is our most usual entry into Minnesota, coming back from Chicago, and she has watched for this sign for years, since she was a toddler. Buster was parked by the dam and locks and we drove the car over to the northwest side of I90, took the off ramp to La Crescent, and pulled over so she could climb through the brush and climb up on the side. She's up there at the top of the blog!
We were thrilled to be back in Minnesota! And then we saw the sign for the off ramp to Rochester! Yea!
And once we went west about 7 miles on US52, we turned north onto US 63, Broadway in Rochester, and saw the Rochester icon: THE CORN COB!
The wonderful young couple who rented our home, Tanya Florin and Heath Chung, needed to have a couple of extra nights to get all things packed and ready to move back to Hawaii. So we camped in Rochester! We parked Buster in Autumn Woods RV Park near the Rochester Airport. That would be our home for Tuesday, June 29 and .... Wednesday, June 30, Elizabeth's 10th birthday! Liz' good friend, Shea Hansen, came down to the motorhome and had some cake with us on Tuesday night.
On the 3oth, Liz' actual birthday, we celebrated with Edward and Bella. That was the day of release of the third movie in the Twilight Series, Eclipse! The movie was premiered in Minnesota in 3D, shown at the Minnesota Zoo south of the Twin Cities. Liz, her friend Roxie McKinley, Roxie's mom Nancy and I had a girls' afternoon with lunch and the movie. It was great! Liz had become a devotee of Twilight when we visited Forks, Washington, in March.
The next day, July 1, 2010, we moved back into our house.
