A few days after we returned home, they had heavy snowfall in some of the areas we had just left. The Weather Channel reported snowfall in the following areas:
Yellowstone National Park...9 inches
Casper, WY...16.2 inches
Deadwood, SD...48 inches..... yes...48 inches. I just could not imagine.
Rapid City, SD...23.1 inches

They are now forecasting snow again in those same places beginning tonight in Yellowstone. I will be following the weather broadcasts to see how much they get this time.

October 1, 2013.. Tonight we are only 150 miles from home. We had a good driving day today and are at Renfro Valley, KY now.

I thought it would be a good idea to mention some tidbits about our trip. Some are interesting and some are probably not.

We will have driven about 5400 miles on this trip by the time we get home.

We had warmer temperatures than we expected everywhere we were on this trip. Even the cold nights in Yellowstone were warmer than when we were last there and it was later in the season this time. On our way west, we had temperatures of 95 degrees across IL, IA and SD.

The lowest diesel fuel price we paid was 3.68/gal and the highest was 4.05. The 4.05 was only for one purchase. Using Gas Buddy saved us money on most fuel stops.

We saw lots of vehicles with Alaska tags. Many of them were in Yellowstone but we even saw one today in Indiana.

I learned that getting older has advantages too. As I get older, I will be able to hide my own Easter eggs.

It has been a wonderful trip and we are very blessed to be able to take a trip this way. We are very thankful that we were able to take the trip and return safely.

I appreciate the notes and comments from some that gave me encouragement to continue with the blog. Sometimes it was hard to do a posting like when I was running everything on battery power, getting my Internet by using my phone and very tired after a long day of seeing all we could see. Your nice comments made me want to go on.


Tonight we heard on the news that 5 people had been killed on a trail in Colorado. The trail goes to Agnes Vaille Falls and is near Buena Vista, Colorado. We hiked on that trail up to the falls in 2009. The trail is on the road to a ghost town we went to called St Elmo. We were shocked to hear about the people getting killed on that trail by a rock slide on Monday. I looked up the photos I have on this computer that we made on that trip and I am posting some to show you what it looks like where the rock slide occurred.

Agnes Vaille Falls is located up between the two mountains up from the parking lot and on the right of the photo. 

 Along the trail to the falls

September 30, 2013.. Today was another driving day. We proceeded along with no significant things happening along the way. We had strong side winds during the first few hours of driving but that either stopped or we drove out of it and then it was an easier drive. We drove for a couple of hours after it got dark tonight. We were glad to be stopping for the night.

September 29, 2013.. We moved closer to home today. It was a driving day with nothing much to report. Tonight we are in Charles City, Iowa. It was here in 1901 the term "tractor" with a combination of the words traction and power was first coined and in 1903 the first successful production-model tractors in the United States were built.

September 28, 2013.. We spent some time in Mitchell and enjoyed just going slowly for today. We love travel but it can be very tiring going day after day. Mitchell is the location for one of the big Cabela’s stores but we did not go there this time. We went to the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village. This tells about it from their website: “The Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village is the only archaeological site in South Dakota that is open to the public. The Village is an active research center and is a National Historic Landmark. Visitors to the site can see the many artifacts that have been excavated during the annual digs and they can tour the dig site itself in the comfort of the Thomsen Center Archeodome.”

After looking at the photos of the Corn Palace we made yesterday and the photos we made on our first stop there on this trip, we discovered the images on the building had been changed since our first visit. Some are still being created. We were surprised they had been changed or in the process of being changed. We learned that about 275,000 ears of corn are used to create the murals each year.

Tomorrow we plan to drive more miles toward home.

Here are a few photos I made in Mitchell:

The photo below is inside the archeodome showing the archaeological digs. The archeodome is a modern air-conditioned building built around the dig site. 

The following is from the Prehistoric Indian Village website:
The Thomsen Center Archeodome covers the open archaeology dig in the Prehistoric Indian Village and provides visitors year-round access. The 10,000-square-foot building encloses two full lodges on its exposed earthen floor. It includes a full laboratory, darkroom, computer classroom, and video conferencing studio. The site is the only preserved and protected archaeological site open to the public in the state of South Dakota.

One of the Corn Palace murals made from corn

A close-up of the mural above showing detail of the corn used in creating the image

September 27, 2013.. We moved to Mitchell, SD today. We decided to take a couple of days off and just enjoy the area and relax a bit. We are ahead of schedule and it really feels good to rest some. Sometimes, it has been a bit hectic during the trip.
We went back to the Corn Palace and they had actually changed some of the images that were created using corn. Before we leave here, I will post a couple of photos I made of the images. It looked as if they had worked on the corn images recently and maybe even today since there was corn grains all around on the street. There were more people around the Palace today. There were many tour buses there; one from Knoxville.
It was hot early in the day but has cooled off considerably now and is raining.

September 26, 2013.. It's time to catch up...We did not have Internet/phone service when this entry should have been posted. Wednesday, we spent several hours visiting Deadwood, SD. In the old days, Deadwood was a "rip-snortin" wild west town and is mentioned in some of author, Louis L'Amour's, western books. When we were there in 1989, Deadwood was truly a small western town as we had imagined. But...today it has completely changed. They legalized gambling in the early 90's, and that brought casinos, new hotels and lots of people to the area. The legendary Wild Bill Hickok was killed in Deadwood's Saloon No. 10 by Jack McCall with a shot in the back of his head as Hickok was playing poker. He was holding a poker hand made up of black aces and eights which is known today as "dead man's hand". He is buried on a ridge overlooking Deadwood in Mt. Moriah cemetery as is Calamity Jane. We walked around town observing how things had changed since the last time we were there. Once again, we enjoyed our visit to Deadwood.

September 26, 2013.. Thursday...We spent the night last night in a campground in Badlands National Park.  We did not have any hook ups or telephone/Internet service. It was an enjoyable stay except, during the night, a really strong wind woke us up and we were awake several hours. I think these winds are typical in this particular park. Today, we visited the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site,. This site was a key part of the U. S. defense strategy during the Cold War. The following information is quoted from the brochure we received:

It was established by Congress in 1999 to preserve two 1960s missile sites: Delta-09, a missile silo, and Delta-01, a launch control facility. There are no longer active ICBM silos in South Dakota, but 500 nuclear missiles are still deployed in the upper Great Plains.

Our tour guide was a retired Air Force major who had been stationed at the launch facility.

Tonight, we are staying in Plankinton, SD.

Welcome to Deadwood, South Dakota

Downtown Deadwood-It sure has changed a lot in recent years

This was an active brothel until about 1980

Inside saloon No. 10 where Wild Bill Hickok was assassinated

Photos of Hickok in saloon No. 10

Badlands National Park

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site-Looking down through glass at the Minuteman II Missile. It would have contained a nuclear warhead before being deactivated and could reach Moscow in 30 minutes. There were 450 of these sites nationwide. I am sorry for the reflections in the glass but it was the best I could do.

We have been very blessed none of these missiles have been used on either side.

The launch room was in a capsule about 30 feet underground and suspended so if bombed, the equipment and two people inside could still do a successful launch. Notice how thick the steel door is beside the guy in the white shirt. Be sure to read what the sign says on the door.

The two men in the launch room are strapped in seats with a seat belt at the launch control panel. The seats are attached to the floor so if violently shaken by getting hit, the launch person can still function. 

It takes both people to launch a missile. There are lots of safeguards to prevent an unintentional launch. Each launch center could launch quite a few missiles at different locations. The launch room was not at the actual missile site but several miles away. The missiles could also be launched from high flying planes if the launch room was destroyed. 

Each of the Minute-Man II missiles carried a warhead explosive equivalent of 1.2 million tons of dynamite. These sites have been taken out of service but there are still 500 more modern missiles still deployed in the upper Great Plains.