Since we weren’t in a hurry, we decided to continue driving more of the scenic route along Lake Huron through the lower peninsula of Michigan.  We stopped along a couple scenic or beach sites along the lake to get out, take pictures, put feet in the water, etc.

It was a fairly warm day in Michigan, and the humidity was higher than I was expecting it to be.  I know this isn’t correct, but I tend to think of the Deep South and the Southeast as being the humid areas of the country.  However, the further east we drive, the more humidity we have encountered.  In Michigan, I’m just grateful for low 80s with high humidity.  I told AnaClaire that at least we are becoming slowly more adjusted to the heat and humidity and aren’t just showing up off a plane in South Carolina to high 90s with high humidity from 70s and low humidity. 

We needed to do something other than just ride in the RV and see edges of the lake while driving through small towns, so we pulled into East Tawas, MI, to see their lighthouse.  It was a great stop for an hour or so.  We were able to tour the lightkeeper’s home and then climb the lighthouse, which had only been decommissioned in 2016.  I found a Raggedy Ann doll sitting on a bed that was just like one I had as a child.  That brought back good memories.  Dominic said that the doll gave him the creeps.

The kids really wanted to go swimming at the beach by the lighthouse since evidently this was a much sandier beach along Lake Huron than most, but we had several hours still to drive before we reached the state park where we were spending the night.  After this point, we abandoned continuing to drive by the lake in the interest of time and took the interstate.  It was still around 8:00pm when we pulled into the campground, but 8:00pm is a lot better than 10:00pm.  Tomorrow, we’ll be leaving Michigan.

Rebecca

We stayed overnight in Marquette, Michigan, a great city on the shores of Lake Superior.  The Marquette Tourist Park was a great campground.  When we pulled out this morning, we noticed several large families who were camping in close proximity to each other.  This made us smile with memories of many Catholic homeschooling campout days.  One of my disappointments of this trip is that we are on such a full schedule that we aren’t taking much time to really enjoy the fun of being in a campground (enjoying nature, campfires, outdoor cooking, meeting other families, relaxing outside with a book in a camp chair). 

Charlie finished his third book last night (I’m so proud of him for doing so much reading and enjoying it!), so we went to find a bookstore in Marquette this morning.  I picked out two books for him (one of which has a sequel and the other is the beginning of a series), and we got on the road.  We saw a bakery on the way out, so we stopped and purchased some muffins, a scone, some bread, and a gluten free dessert for Charlie.

We then drove from Marquette east along the Lake Superior edge of the Upper Peninsula for a ways before turning south to drive along Lake Michigan again.  We ventured out of the RV here and there along whichever lake we were traveling beside and aimed for St. Ignace and Mackinaw City for the night.  We crossed the Mackinac Bridge going around 30mph due to the crosswinds over the bridge and the height of the RV. 

On the south side of the Mackinac Bridge we stayed at a campground with frontage on Lake Huron called Tee Pee Campground.  After we leveled the RV and got everything hooked up, Charlie thought he would take us out to dinner.  We walked a little over a mile into Mackinaw City and found a pizza joint for dinner.  The walk back was good for all of us who overate!

When we got back to the campground, we walked down to the beach to enjoy some relaxing time by the water.  They had some nice wooden multi-person swings right along the beach that we sat in and chatted for a while.  Then it was back to the RV to help Dominic with his math and settle in to finish my book.  It was nice to have an evening that was more relaxing.

Rebecca

The girls got up and left around 6:00am to start driving home.  The rest of us went back to sleep for a little while.  After spending some time debating where we wanted to go on our way home, since we still have a week left, we decided that we would go ahead and drive to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan anyway.  There wasn’t as much time to do what we really wanted to do in Michigan, but we decided that driving through and making a few stops would be worth it. 

We drove northeast through Wisconsin towards Green Bay seeing lots of large scale corn farming.  We even saw an ethanol manufacturing facility.  Once we made it to Green Bay, we followed the western coast of the bay towards Michigan. 

I kept looking at the map trying to determine where to go next.  When I realized that we really weren’t that far from the northern coast of the upper peninsula of Michigan and Lake Superior, we decided that would be our goal for today.  We finished our drive up to Marquette, Michigan, and found a campground to crash in. 

These drives through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan have all been so beautiful and full of trees.  Each of them has called out to my heart as a serene place to homestead and raise a family.  I’ve loved all of the small towns, each with their own unique character.  I see so many signs about certain places only being open May through October and wonder what the winters must be like there for so many businesses to shut down for so many months.

I’ve realized for a long time that my personality often leans to the explorer side.  I love to go explore places that I haven’t seen before.  Taking a quick drive through the peninsulas of Michigan or the Northwoods of Minnesota only whets my curiosity.  I’m constantly drawn to want to drive down this or that little road.  I want to find the places that only locals know about or where this road goes.  In my own little dream world, I want to come live in some of these places, if only for a few months.  I want to learn about the herbs, flowers, and trees that grow in the area.  Even more, I want to collect some of those herbs that don’t grow near me and learn how to preserve and use them.

Maybe one day I’ll get an opportunity to take a deeper dive into some of these places that are so different from South Carolina, if it is God’s will for me.  God has put me in South Carolina for the past 40 years and has filled my soul with exploring and adventures of many different kinds.  I’ve been very blessed throughout my life.  Even the trials have been blessings in many different ways.  I am so grateful for these past two months exploring with and spending time with my family.

Rebecca

When we pulled into our campground at Scenic State Park, I noticed that most all campers had a screened tent over top of their picnic table.  We didn’t bring one of those.  I immediately thought… mosquitoes, and knew that we’d be spending our evening inside the camper. 

Charlie made hamburgers in the cast iron frying pan for dinner along with gluten free mac and cheese and peas.  It was delicious.  While he was cooking, I read some more of our literature book with the kids.  We’re nowhere near finishing, but we’re making progress.

While hanging out in the camper for the evening, we discussed our plans for the next week.  Annette really wanted to be back in SC for an awards banquet for her boyfriend.  Amelia has a cheer camp that starts the day we are supposed to be returning.  We decided that we would let Alex, Annette, and Amelia leave early with the Honda to drive back to South Carolina. 

They will be leaving Sunday morning.  We have a friend’s house that they can stop and spend the night at, and Alex and Annette can share the driving.  They wanted to stay one more night (tonight) with us, so we decided to drive in the direction of home instead of following our original plan to go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

We decided to prioritize going to Pepin, WI, the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the location of her book Little House in the Big Woods.  Pepin is on the western border of Wisconsin on the Mississippi River, so we drove through Minnesota toward Duluth and then down toward St Paul.  There were so many things that I had intended to do.  I wanted to stop in Duluth to go to the Duluth Trading Company store (they have some good quality clothing that I really enjoy) and to see Lake Superior, but we drove right through instead, not feeling that we really had the time to stop. 

After driving through the cities, we crossed the Mississippi into Wisconsin and got on the Great River Road which follows the Mississippi River through several states, all the way to the Gulf.  This road was so scenic.  I love driving through small town America.  I would highly recommend that drive if you get along the Mississippi River area anywhere.  Again, we didn’t have much time to stop, so we drove straight to Pepin.

In Pepin, we went to the museum first.  They had some Laura Ingalls Wilder history there as well as some of the history of local people that would have been a part of her life (the local doctor and Laura’s first teacher).  They also had just general memorabilia from the time period (1870s) such as spinning wheels, looms, original clothing, cooking items, tools, etc., as well as history specific to Pepin and Wisconsin. What I found the most interesting was a family tree that actually showed multiple marriages between the Quiner (Laura’s mother’s family) and the Ingalls families, so that Laura and her sisters actually had double cousins. 

After we finished at the museum, we drove to a replica house where Laura was born that was built on her parents’ original property.  Since we showed up on a Saturday, we were fortunate to have some living history historians present.  They were able to tell us more about living in that time period.  The weather was beautiful, and the setting was so peaceful.  Their house was seven miles from the town of Pepin, and we were told that the road to Pepin was the same road (only paved) that was present in the 1870s.  This allowed me to imagine Laura’s few trips of riding into town since it would have taken considerable time.

We didn’t spend much time there as we needed to make it to a 4:30 Mass that afternoon, so we headed out to the town of Wabasha.  I love it when you are driving into a town or city and you see the spire(s) of a beautiful church in the distance.  As you get closer to this beautiful church, you’re really hoping that it is the Catholic Church of the town that you are seeing.  This is what was happening as we drove into Wabasha (which is back in the state of Minnesota.)  I was so excited to see that we were making turns to reach this beautiful church that I had seen in the distance.  This beautiful church turned out to be St. Felix.  We easily found a parking spot for the RV on the road and went inside for Mass.

After Mass we continued driving (it was a long day of driving on Saturday).  We found a Thousand Trails campground outside of Wisconsin Dells and settled in for the night.

Rebecca

Our next destination from the area of Theodore Roosevelt NP was to drive to Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota.  It was a long drive, so we planned to break it up into two days. 

Along our drive, we saw a sign for the “Geographical Center of North America,” in Rugby, ND.  We stopped and took pictures at the marker point.  I thought that was a really neat place to be and amazing to think that this point is all the way in North Dakota!

At the same turnoff for the geographical center point was a Pioneer Museum.  It was lunch time too, and we needed a break from driving, so we pulled in there.  Charlie made lunch while the kids and I went in to start looking around. 

It wasn’t at all what I thought it would be.  I thought the museum would be focused on settling these prairie lands of ND and the difficulties that these pioneers faced.  Instead, it was collections of some of the historic family stories and their donated historic items, some from settlement days and others that were more recent.  It was a large museum with many different buildings representing various businesses, schools, homes, churches, etc.

We saw an old train station, a blacksmith’s shop, a dress shop, a creamery, a telephone office, a couple of homes, a couple of schools, a church, etc.  One of my favorite displays was actually of an old telephone switchboard.  I explained to the kids what that was as they definitely weren’t familiar with the concept.

While it may not have been what I thought it would be, the museum was full of old, intriguing items, and we had a great time. Charlie did finish making lunch and made it into the museum. I thought I would switch with him and do the cleanup, but I went in to finish my tour, and he went in at the same time. Before I knew it, he was done with the tour, and I wasn’t anywhere near finishing!

We continued on our journey and stayed just over the Minnesota line in the Red River State Recreation area along the Red River of the North in E Grand Forks, MN, and managed to get laundry done that night too.

On Friday, we finished our journey to Voyageurs; only we encountered a few problems.  When we arrived at the first visitor center (Rainy Lake), we could find absolutely no parking for the RV.  There was a great deal of parking places for longer vehicles, but showing up at a national park that is based on the lakes of the area on a Friday afternoon, just wasn’t a good idea.  The parking was full of trucks with boat trailers and none of them were leaving.  We tried to find a campsite in the area, but everything was booked.  We looked online near the other visitor centers for the park, but still there were no campgrounds with any availability.  I finally found one state park with one available site that was an hour and a half away.  We decided to just forego doing much of anything at Voyageurs and head to the state park. 

On our way to Scenic State Park, I really did enjoy the scenery.  This area is considered the Northwoods of Minnesota.  It’s very rural and full of trees and lakes as well as some large scale farming.  I was just enjoying the scenery instead of taking pictures, so I don’t have much to share, unfortunately. 

Rebecca

We managed to find a campground in North Dakota that only left us with an hourish drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The park is divided up into three different units: North, South, and Elkhorn Ranch.  Elkhorn Ranch is the ranch that Roosevelt once owned and enjoyed spending time at.  It is a more remote section of the park on the western side.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get over there even though the remoteness is usually more of our thing.

We started out in the South Unit.  At the visitor center, we learned more about Roosevelt in the area.  In total, he didn’t really spend that much time there.  It was more of a vacation home for him.  He originally traveled to North Dakota to hunt bison.  Before returning home from his hunting trip, he purchased a majority interest in some ranch land, cattle, and a brand.   He divided his time between New York and North Dakota.  He returned to North Dakota to grieve after his first wife died in childbirth.  To make matters even worse for him, his mother died of typhoid on the same day as his wife and in the same house. 

At the visitor center, we were able to se the Maltese Cross cabin that Roosevelt had built as a place to live while he was at the first ranch that he purchased in North Dakota.  Later he sold that ranch and purchased a different ranch: Elkhorn Ranch.  During his time in North Dakota, he witnessed the misuse of many natural resources and realized that these resources would be gone permanently if something wasn’t done.  He began to make conservation a major focus of his political career. 

We took the scenic drive through the South Unit and then drove on to the North Unit, which was a little more remote and less-visited.  These badlands of North Dakota felt very much like Badlands National Park, except there seemed to be more grass up in the North Dakota area.  It was extremely hot, reaching over 100 degrees with hardly any opportunities for shade.  Most of the wildlife were probably hiding out in various cooler spots.  We did see some wild horses as well as a bison or two and plenty of prairie dogs.

We capped off the day in a campground in Watford City, ND where we were treated to what we call a “Damien Sunset” (full of purple and orange) and the rising of an almost full orange moon. 

Rebecca

Our destination for today was the Badlands of South Dakota (I never realized before, but there are Badlands in North Dakota too.)  We filled our propane tank for the first time on this entire trip before we left our campground at Custer Crazy Horse in SD.  The kids really enjoyed a unique soda shop that we had found in Hill City and were able to get discounted refills in their previously purchased cups, so we stopped by the soda shop on the way out. 

The kids were evidently chatting with the employees and told them that there were 10 children in our family, to which the employees responded by giving them two large bags of free popcorn.  Needless to say, we had some happy kids at the start of our journey that day!

Our drive to the Badlands was only around 2 hours.  We stopped at the visitor center first and took in the film before beginning our drive.  We considered doing a short, easy hike or two, but it was on the hot side outside, and we decided not to push Alex.  Alex, though, was suggesting a really cool-sounding hike that was absolutely not a good idea for her to do (typical Alex).  Instead, we just stayed in the comfort of our air-conditioned vehicles and ventured out periodically to take pictures, read signs, and just admire the views.

The Badlands are gorgeous but seem very inhospitable to much human life.  I was never able to ask the question, but I was constantly wondering how well bison survive there too.  In areas there was definitely grass for them to eat, but I just wonder how close they get to the edge of some of the canyons or if their weight could even just make some portions of the sandy-looking cliffs disintegrate beneath them.

Following the Badlands, we began our drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  Talk about some grasslands…

Rebecca

I am notorious for not planning very far ahead.  I try to live more “in the moment” and take one day at a time.  That’s also something I’ve learned about grief:  often you can’t even take life day by day; instead you survive moment by moment.  Anyway, I didn’t really want to plan out every aspect of this trip, but I did plan out more than I wanted to due to so many national parks requiring timed entry passes and trying to make sure we could get campground reservations.

On our way to Custer, SD I looked into tickets to go to Wind Cave National Park.  Once I was on their website, I discovered that Wind Cave tours were closed indefinitely due to an elevator malfunction.  Dominic has been begging to do a cave tour, so I looked into Jewel Cave, only to find out that all tickets were already sold out until at least Tuesday (the day that we would be leaving the area).  Evidently there were opportunities for walk-up tickets, but I needed to be there first thing in the morning to get tickets for that day.

While everyone else was asleep, I got up and drove to Jewel Cave in the hope of getting tickets.  Fortunately, everything worked out, and I got us all tickets for that morning.  I went back to the campground, picked everyone up, got my necessary coffee for the day, and went back to Jewel Cave for our tours.

Amelia, Dominic, and AnaClaire all participated in the Junior Ranger program and earned their badges after we finished the tour.  Our tour guide, Ranger Tonya, was excellent.  She didn’t rush us through the tour at all.  We were able to take our time and look as much as we wanted.  She was full of information.

Evidently, Jewel Cave is one of the longest caves in the world.  They have mapped over 220 miles of the cave and estimate that this is only about 5% of the cave that has been mapped and explored.  I had to ask how in the world they have managed to figure out how much of the cave is undiscovered, and they gave me a very interesting answer about how the cave has air moving through it, barometric pressure being measured going in and out of the cave, the known volume of the cave, etc.  All of this I found to be extremely fascinating, even though I certainly can’t explain it back to you here. 

Jewel Cave was discovered in 1900 by two brothers who were riding by on horses and heard a strange whistling sound.  When they discovered the small hole where the whistling came from, they decided to expand the hole using some dynamite.  Once they were able to climb inside this now-bigger hole, they were amazed to find a cave filled with crystals and gave it the name of Jewel Cave.  The crystals were actually a cave formation called nailhead spar made from calcite that formed crystals when the limestone walls of the cave were being eroded away by acidic water.  90% of the cave is made up of nailhead spar.  Later, I was talking with the ranger who led our tour when she told me about Wind Cave being made up mostly of boxwork formations.  I remembered that Wind Cave had been made up of formations that I wasn’t overly familiar with from other caves (called boxwork).  I find it very interesting how different these two caves are, yet they are only a few miles apart.

After our tour and viewing the film about Jewel Cave, we headed back to the campground for lunch.  It sure was nice to have lunch there instead of sandwiches out of the cooler.

After our break, we drove to Custer State Park and took the scenic Needles Highway.  A good friend had recommended this (Thanks, Kim!) and I’m not sure how we missed it 10 years ago, but it was beautiful and so unique!

Next we stopped by the requisite Visitor Center, watched the film about Custer State Park, and purchased our tourist trinkets.  Then we headed back to the car for the scenic Wildlife Loop in hopes of seeing…what else but wildlife.  We were only graced with seeing a solitary bison walking down the road, cute little prairie dogs, and a group of very friendly burros.  Being able to pet a baby burro was definitely the highlight of the wildlife loop.

I thought we would head back to the RV for some dinner and an early night to bed, but Charlie thought we ought to make a late stop at Mt Rushmore since it didn’t close until 10pm.  Once we got inside and took a picture of the mountain, I was ready to go, until we noticed that they had a whole lighting of the mountain ceremony every evening which only meant that we needed to stay for another hour. 

The ceremony included a patriotic speech by a national park ranger, a well-done film regarding freedom in our country and how the four presidents memorialized at Mt Rushmore contributed to freedom in the United States, a film rendition of “America the Beautiful”, an audience singing of the national anthem, and a recognition of all service members present.  We finished up a long day in a beautiful way, grateful for the country that we live in.

Rebecca

Saturday was a lot of driving to reach the Black Hills.  We pulled out of Gardiner around 10:00 and got on the road.  It was an uneventful day in which I was finally able to catch up somewhat on blogging.  We managed to find Mass in Wyoming on the way to South Dakota and even pulled into our campground before dark. 

Sunday, July 6, was our 29^th wedding anniversary.  We luxuriously slept in while the kids got up and made us a delicious pancake breakfast.  They even cleaned up too!  While they were busy with all of that, I was trying to research what we might want to do that day.  We had been promising AnaClaire that we were going to try to do some horseback riding while on this trip, so I thought this might be the time and place to do it.

I managed to find a great guy named Pat Rowe with Black Hills Horse Adventures who was willing to fit us all in that afternoon.  He could only take 5 out at a time, so we had to break up into groups.  A little before we left to head over there, Alex passed out.  She’d been struggling somewhat with the direct sun that morning, which left her not feeling too well, so we opted to leave Alex at the RV to have a quiet relaxing afternoon by herself and went off for our trail ride.

When we got there, Pat assigned horses to each of the kids and took them out for 1.5 hours while Charlie and I went to explore nearby Hill City.  When they returned, they were all smiles talking about how much fun they’d had! 

Next it was Charlie and my turn to go out.  Pat was willing to take three kids a second time with us for no extra charge, so we had to decide which three would get to go back out.  They all wanted to go again, and it broke my heart that two of them had to stay behind.  Fortunately, those two were good sports about it and went into Hill City to get some sodas while the rest of us were trail riding.  We all had a wonderful time.  It was a great experience for everyone!  The downside, though, is that Charlie and I are now having even more requests to get horses at our place. 

When we got back to the RV, Alex was doing fine but still taking it easy.  A couple of teens ran to the grocery store for some pizza while Charlie and I cleaned up to go out for an anniversary dinner. 

We had Annette drive us to dinner and pick us up so that we could each have an adult drink with dinner.  We ate at a delicious place called “1885”.  The restaurant took its name from the year that the building was built.  The building’s claim to fame is that it is the oldest commercial building that was built with hand-hewn logs in the state of South Dakota. 

Charlie chose a New York strip steak with baked potato and salad for dinner while I had a pork chop glazed in a peach-bourbon sauce with sweet potato fries and salad.  It was all scrumptious. 

We had a nice time at our quiet dinner reminiscing about the last 29 years of marriage as well as the couple of years that we dated prior to marriage.  I am so blessed to have such a devoted and caring husband who works so hard to provide for our family.

Rebecca

Happy 4^th of July everyone!  We are so grateful for the lives that were sacrificed so that we might live in this free country – the land of the free because of the brave.  Thank you to any and all who have served our country to win or keep us free! 

We were initially going to spend the 4^th driving toward the Black Hills, but no one really wanted to drive on the 4^th; they wanted to eat hot dogs and watch fireworks.  We had enough room in our schedule at this point that we decided to stay an extra day where we were.  It also gave us one last chance to find some grizzlies.

We gave the kids the option of going into the park early in the morning or staying at the RV to sleep.  Two opted to stay put.  The rest of us left the RV at 4:30 in the morning trying to be in Lamar Valley around sunup (which is earlier this far north than it is in Chester, SC).  We drove and drove and looked and looked in all the suggested places, but we never saw any grizzlies or wolves – the two animals that we were expecting to see at daybreak.  Oh well.  You always need an excuse to come back, don’t you?

Two kids did nothing but sleep in the car, so they were ready to be up and moving by the time we got back, but the rest of us went right back to bed for two hours or so.  It had been a very exhausting past three days in Yellowstone as we were usually in the park by 9:00am and not back until close to or after dark (which was 10:00pm).  The rest of the day we did fun stuff like go shopping in the town of Gardiner, walk together into town to get an ice cream treat, and just hang out. 

I had to run AnaClaire back into the park to the Visitor Center so that she could get her Junior Ranger badge, but it was only a total of a 30 minute drive, and it gave us some time to spend just the two of us together.   

We cooked hot dogs for dinner and sat outside watching the pyromaniacs of Gardiner set off their personal fireworks.  The campground sits on a hill overlooking the town, so we had great seats at our site just watching fireworks that people set off from various places. 

It was a perfect end to our 4^th of July.

Rebecca