Neil thinks we failed “National Parks 101” today, and with all our experience we had no excuse. We should have been up at dawn and making use of the best part of the day! He thinks we’re getting slack ( I think we’re just getting old!) because we slept in. …
We seem to be waking up ealier and earlier! It was around 6.30 that I woke this morning and I just knew I wasn’t going back to sleep – Neil said he’d heard at least 3 trains pass by during the night but I hadn’t heard any of them –…
I always enjoy it when we spend two ( or less often, three!) nights in one place on these road trips. It’s nice not to have to pack up and move on, to have a bit of a “rest” day. However, we rarely rest on our rest days! Today was…
You can’t come to North Dakota without hearing about or seeing the influence the President Theodore Roosevelt had on the state and the infuence the Dakotas had on him. He arrived in the badlands of North Dakota in 1883. He was only 24 years old then and he fell in…
North dakota is full of wide plains, huge skies and lots..and lots.. of weather! The skies were grey when we left the hotel for the first stretch of our drive that took us West across the state. I was struck again, as I have been on previous occasions in new…
Australians have always loved their “Big Things” – the Big Banana, The Big Pineapple etc etc… but the Americans loves theirs too, and we’re certainly seeing a bunch of them on this trip! Last night we were both woken shortly after 4am by the “fishing crowd” getting ready to leave…
This weekend is Labor Day Weekend here in the USA and the hotel was full up last night. They were turningpeople away at the restaurant advising them they’d have a 2 hour wait! However, everyone was sleeping in this morning because when we went down for breakfast the restaurant was…
It was a lovely view out over the lake this morning while we had breakfast. Our first stop today as the International Wolf Centre, it’s a research and educational organization which advances the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in…
We were a little dismayed when we woke to grey skies and rain this morning, but it wasn’t long before the clouds started to break up and the sunshine peeked through – we’ve really be pretty lucky with the weather so far on this trip. Breakfast was a very low-key…
It was hard to say good bye to the Mall of America but I tore myself away! We set off north through Minneapolis until we reached our first stop, Franconia Sculpture Park. This amazing site is home to a vast expanse of sculptures, the work of local sculptors and interns…
The weather today was predicted to be nice in the morning and not so good later in the day, so we decided to head out and see the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden first thing while it was fine. It was about a 15 minute drive through busy trafiic but well worth…
Neil has mentioned in his Blog that Wisconsin is called America’s Dairyland, and we saw today just how seriously they take their love of dairy products – particularly cheese. The people of the state are even known colloquially as Cheeseheads! As we headed south of Wausau we passed through lovely…
