The next to last blog entry

I am on a grand three day push to get home and Motel 6 is my savior. Today I covered an enormous amount of territory by going from Gillette, SD up to Devils Tower, then down to scenic Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills to Mount Rushmore. After a short lunch stop there I traveled to Rapid City and then on Route 44 through some of the last existing real prairie lands still in the US over to the Badlands. I drove part of the loop road and then headed north to Wall, SD, home of the famous Wall Drug. Too kitschy for me but I did get my 5 cent cup of coffee and then drove another 200 plus miles to Mitchell, SD.  I hope to be able to do 500 miles per day for the next three days to end the trip.

My trip summation is that this is one heck of an immense country that is truly beautiful in so many ways. I would like to have just a penny for every fence post I encountered, especially the wooden ones. All of those post holes amazes me! They make some mean snow fences out here also.

But then the US I saw was very much of a “Don’t fence me in” kind of place. Wide expanses of desert, mountains, valleys, plateaus, farm land, range land. You can see the stars at night and most of the air is not polluted. This land is full of hard working farmers and ranchers.

The National Park Service does a magnificent job with a shrinking budget but an increase in tourism. They are the keeper of the country’s real wealth, its scenic beauty.

I want to thank my can of Bear Spray for allowing me to hike alone in bear country but I am sure it gave me a false sense of security. They say don’t run when you see a bear. Hah!

My Prius has been one slam dunk of a fine car. I averaged 49 mpg, fully loaded and doing flat and mountain roads.

The trip allowed me to hear and see nature and view wildlife, birds and flora and fauna that I had never experienced before.

I appreciate all the phone calls and email contacts from my friends along the way. They kept my spirit up. And especially want to thank all my benefactors who helped out with the trip. Without you it would have been very rough!

Motel 6 is a great low cost motel chain that has been around for 50 years. Bed, bath and internet. No tissues, radio, or blow-dryer but who cares! Clean and adequate and perfectly spaced for mo purposes on the way home!

The western part of the country has great roads and they seen to have gotten all of the Recovery Act money to put into their roads. Really on the ball with projects funded and in the works.

Benjamin F. Richason PHD was my geography professor and I have him to thank for grounding me in geology, geography and physiography so that I could better understand the landscape through which I was travelling. All this some 45 years ago!

AAA maps are spot on with their green dotted scenic routes and their regional as well as state maps.

My trusted Garmin Nuvi 200 guided me the whole way and made it so easy for a single driver to negotiate the US road system. Without “Lorraine” talking to me it would have been so difficult to navigate alone.

With the exception of hay fever in Kentucky I have stayed in good health. Being out of doors 24/7 for weeks at a time is a nice thing but it wears thin after a while and I feel very weary. Not tired of what I am seeing, as that is exciting but bone weary from the stress of dealing with the everyday living in a tent and everything that that implies. I loved seeing the wild lupines blooming in Sequoia. As I moved along with spring I kept seeing wild lupines and when I crossed the Bighorns yesterday, I ran into lupines blooming again and all I could think was “those freaking things again.” So I knew it was indeed time to head home. I will miss the Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings I had planned to see outside of Chicago but I can see them when I go out for my 50^th college reunion.

I will be coming home to one less cat, as my beloved Lynx (a lynx point Siamese) escaped from the sitters about a week after I left and has not been seen since. I dream that he will have made his way to Manchester and is sleeping on the chair cushion of my porch furniture. He used to take week long walk abouts and find his way back looking very healthy and never hungry, so I am hopeful that something of the kind has happened.

 There are a few good shots still in my camera that I will download as my last blog entry.