May 28th

We made it back to Spanaway with know problems.  SO today I thought I would post some pictures of our 2nd bus trip day.  Our first stop was the Borglum Historical Center, the only problem is they said know pictures inside so I took this picture of Cyndy out side.

The Museum was great if your are ever in Keystone stop and take the tour. After the tour we headed up to Mt. Rushmore National Monument for a relaxing visit and lunch.

Every time I see this it just amazing how well this National Monument is.  We had a relaxing lunch and visited with our guest.  Our next trip was through the National Forest, Custer State Park via Iron Mountain Road, Pig-Tail Bridges, and Wildlife Loop Road.  It was a cold day so seeing animals where far and few.

 This chipmunk was asking me to take its picture.

  The only elk I seen was in the Custer wildlife Museum.

We did see a few animals but most were to far away to get good pictures.  Our next stop was Crazy Horse Memorial.  This is a monument being created to remember Crazy Horse for the man he was.  Korczak started this in 1947.  When he started work on the mountain in 1948, he was almost 40 and had only $174 left to his name.  A strong believer in the free enterprise system, he felt Crazy Horse should be built by the interested public and not the taxpayers. Since his death in 1982, his wife Ruth, with seven of their children, working in concert with the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation Board of Directors.  This will take years to complete.  While we were back there in SD, we heard that Ruth had passed away.

Korczak created this statue of Crazy Horse and some day the it may be done.  Our tour guide said this is a great inter-prize and brings a lot of money to this area.  

Today I am going to hopefully get Cyndy's washer working again or I will have to buy a new one.  Then it is out side to wash the coach, bugs all over it!!!!

May 26th

I thought I would start this post with our first day out in the Black Hills area of South Dakota with Adventure Caravan.  Our first stop was the Journey Museum in Rapid City, SD. Take a journey through time at this unique museum with many interactive displays, including geology, dinosaurs, Lakota culture and pioneer history of the Black Hills. All of our guest liked this museum a lot and here are few picture from there.

 After just over an hour we loaded the bus for our next stop at the StavKirke Norwegian Chapel.  I highly recommend that you see the  Chapel in the Hills, it is one of a kind. please go to this web site to get some of the history of it.  http://www.chapel-in-the-hills.org/history.php  I really enjoyed it and so did everyone else.  All the wood was hand cut and it was all made out of Redwood Ceder.  Here are a few pictures of it.

After walking around and everyone hearing about how they construct this chapel we loaded the bus for a short trip downtown Rapid City, also known as the City of Presidents.  I was unable to get any pictures of the presidents but they are on every corner made of bronze.  After a hour in a half we loaded the bus for a trip to Black Hills Gold Factory.  I don't know why but they didn't want any pictures taken while we were on tour of the factory.  If you ever get a chance stop by there and take the tour, those people do a great job of making all there jewelry.  It is located on the way out of Rapid City heading towards Mount Rushmore.
We had one more stop after we left here and it was a drive through Bear Country.  This is the only place in South Dakota that have bears.  It was a good trip around the park but the best was the baby cubs.

 We stopped and watched this guy for a few minutes, he was really getting a good back scratch.

 He was enjoying the bath all by himself.

 We watched these cubs for half of an hour just watching them role and play.

  I asked this guy to look up and I took this picture.  We had a great day and everyone enjoyed everything.

Now with what Cyndy and I did today.  We stayed in bed and just relaxed after a long drive yesterday. We are currently at Crescent Bar TTN here on the Columbia River.  We got woke-up with something knocking on our window.  When I opened up the curtain I got a surprise.

 They have been spending most of the day trying to get in, but every time I open the window they leave.  After a good breakfast and some more just sitting around we decided to go for a ride up to  Grand Coulee Dam and see if we could see the crack in the dam.  On our way their we got a great picture of Steamboat Rock.

We looked and looked but could not see the crack in the Dam, see if you can find it.

They must of fixed it by now, because the dam is almost full again.

It was a nice day for a relaxing drive, we are planing on leaving here tomorrow morning and arriving in Spanaway sometime tomorrow.  We were watching the news tonight and glad we didn't drive home today.

May 24th

We have internet!!!!!
We left Mount Rushmore KOA at about 6:30 this morning.  We wanted to get an early start for our trip back home.  The weather was great and it was a hole lot warmer than when we head this way.  We seen a lot of antelope on our trip through South Dakota and Wyoming, and the eastern half of Montana.  We made good time just over 9 hours and 411 miles, not bad but I really don't like driving live this.  We have things we need to get done back in Washington before we head to Canada for the Calgary Stampede.  We are really look forward to this Rally also.
Anyway I am setting back and doing nothing but getting caught up on e-mail ( 4 days worth) and checking out the next trip we are going on.  We are thinking about heading by way of Yellowstone!!!
Watch next week and I will post pictures from the great places we got to see while back in the Black Hills.

May 19th

Cyndy and I are doing great, we were hoping to be able to post more often on this trip.  But the campground we are staying at have no internet of phone service.  If we are able to get up to the office I might be able to get on.
This Adventure Caravan Rally has been great.  We both have been really busy and going twenty different ways.  A lot of old friends are here and we are always making new ones. We are just over half way through the rally and we still have a lot to do.  Today we opted out of the tour so that we could get some wash done.  Our washer quite on us the first day in the park.  Any way I wanted to post a couple of pictures, from our first day tour.

This was a Norwegian Chapel build by hand and to scale of the true Norwegian Chapel's.

 We also drove through Bear country and seen a lot of bears, this is the only place in South Dakota that has bears, at least that is what our guide said.  The little ones were really neat to watch.  When we get home I will post each of the areas that we traveled to and tell a little bit more about them.  We are having a great time but to much going on to get a post out some times.  It helps to have internet and today while Cyndy is doing the cloths I am getting a little bit done on the internet.  Later and look forward to posting more.