Home Sweet Home - end of the road - it's all over. We've been home a week now. It's weird to be home and not working, but we are adjusting just fine! So, this is it until the next trip (hopefully there will be many more). We had a wonderful time and loved seeing the USA. We live in a pretty awesome country and we are privileged to have seen so much of it. A road trip is definitely the way to go!Conments from Eldon: All in all, America is an awesome place. The people were friendly and the scenery was beautiful. Everybody else can go to Europe, I still have a lot the see in America. Until the next time, happy trails.................

Comments from Larry: I love my yard. I can go in and out, in and out, in and out all day long. The road trip was fun though and I'm glad they took me along, especially since I got to see the prairie dogs. I don't want to go on any car rides for a while though.

Meet JJ, the newest addition to my side of the family. He's a sweetheart and the new mom & dad are already parenting pros. We had one last tourist stop yesterday, so I'll throw that in too. It's the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D. - what can I say? It's corn. We're on the last leg of the trip tomorrow - Michigan here we come.

Comments from Eldon: JJ is a real cutie. The picture explains why Mitchell S.D. is a corny place. I told the museum aide it's a corny place and she thought that was hilarious. Hasn't anyone said that to her before? I could be a comedian in Mitchell.

Comments from Larry: I didn't meet her, but I hear my cousin Zelda (also a cat) is a real hottie.

The Badlands did not disappoint either. Very cool. They are like a mini Grand Canyon. The rain held off, even though it's cold and dark. We took the 26 mile scenic drive through the Badlands National Park. We also stopped at the Wounded Knee Museum . Wounded Knee is not one of the bright spots in our countries' history. The soldiers totally massacred around 300 defenseless Indians in 1890. Many were women, children and babies. Also, we stopped at an original prairie home. The home was a sod house. The settlers built their home into a hill and used sod bricks for the interior walls. Not very pretty, but I guess it did the job. Larry saw the last of his prairie dogs today, too. We are now headed to Steve & Gena's in Minnesota. The trip is definitely winding down. We are both pretty sad about that, but we've had a wonderful time and feel lucky that we've got to see and do all that we have.

Comments from Larry: It was sad leaving the prairie dogs. A woman I met said ranchers hate them, but I still love them (except for the 10 foot one I met today.)

Comments from Eldon: Today was our last day to visit a national park. They truly are a treasure. I guess Teddy Roosevelt knew what he was doing back in 1903 when he started the national parks. I guess there is no way to dawdle anymore, I'm sadly on my way home.

PS - we have driven 11,000 miles now.

A very dark, rainy South Dakota day. We didn't go to the Badlands or the horse refuge because of the rain. We are in Wall, SD at the Badlands Park entrance. It's supposed to be clearer tomorrow, so hopefully the visibility for the Badlands will improve. We killed the afternoon at Wall Drugs - it's a block wide tourist trap store. The pictures will reflect that we had a little too much time on our hands!

Comments from Larry: No prairie dogs, just rain - the day was bust.

Comments from Eldon: Today was a classic example of the tackiness of souvenirs shops. I especially liked the buffalo chip frisbee - very realistic.

We had a tourist filled Mother's Day. We started out this morning with a gold mine tour - what can I say, it was right by our hotel! I thought it would be hokey, but it was just us on the tour and we had a good time with Matt, our personal tour guide. After the tour, we got to pan for gold. You are guaranteed to find gold. They set you up with your first pan and lace it with some gold flakes. Well, I evidently dumped mine, then even Matt couldn't find the gold either! Eldon has 2 flakes worth 75 cents. Then we drove 1/2 hour to the Crazy Horse Memorial. It was started in 1948 and is still a work in progress. It will be a whole lot bigger than Mount Rushmore when finished. It is being built by a non-profit foundation funded by donations (no government funding). They don't have a finish date proposed, but by the looks it will be another 50 or so years. We both thought it was pretty neat. Then we drove another 1/2 hour and arrived at Wind Cave National Park. Wind Cave is the 4th longest cave in the world. We got there in time for the last cave tour of the day. Enjoyed that too! (Brenda, remember when Grandma Hess took us to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky in about 1964? Mammoth was better than Wind Cave because of all the stalactites and stalagmites). We are spending the night in Hot Springs, SD. Eldon wants to go see the Wild Horse Reserve tomorrow. Then on to the Badlands.

Comments from Eldon: I enjoyed the day - I think panning gold was my favorite. I panned for about an hour and made 75 cents. A new retirement job at this rate would pay $6.00 per day...hmmmm

Comments from Larry: Another boring day watching Eldon & Cindy get in the car, get out of the car, get in the car, get out of the car....... then they wonder why I'm in a bad mood. Rested, but in a bad mood. One highlight of the day though - I saw more prairie dogs. I love them little critters. Saw a buffalo peeing too. Wow, they pee a lloooooonnnnngggg time!

Mount Rushmore did not disappoint. It's pretty awesome. The museum was interesting too with facts about the sculptor and the history of how it was made. By the way, it took 14 years, opened in 1941, and cost $1,000,000. We also went out a 2 hour train ride through the Black Hills in a restored 1880 train. Also fun. Oh yea, I also found out why the Black Hills are called the Black Hills. It's because the ponderosa pines do not reflect sunlight and it makes them look black.

Comments from Eldon: The immense amount of work on the rock was unbelievable. Fourteen years seems to be to short a time complete it. It's huge. You could walk right into George Washington's nose if you wanted to. In the kid's hands-on section, I got to push the dynamite plunger and see a video of what I blew up. That was cool!

Comments from Larry: I sat in the car all day and watched dead presidents through the window. I like prairie dogs better.

Pictures of Devils Tower & prairie dogs that wouldn't load last night.

Still some snowing here today and I hear my tulips are out at home! Our first stop of the day was Devils Tower National Monument in southeast Wyoming. It's a huge, giant rock (I don't sound that excited about it do I?) Also, in the same park is a prairie dog town. That was fun. They were smaller than I had expected - about squirrel size. There were a lot of them running in and out of their holes and chasing each other. We sat and watched them quite a while - Larry was totally engrossed with them. I think they reminded him of the chipmunks he likes to chase at home! We crossed into South Dakota and are spending the night in Deadwood. Deadwood is a pretty little town loaded with casinos. The casinos help fund the city restoration projects. It is historic town from the gold boom days. Much of the downtown's old buildings are restored to their original state. Every hotel, including the Super 8 and our little Mom & Pop hotel has a casino. Eldon won about $20 and that's about the amount I lost, so I guess it's a wash. Tomorrow we head for the Badlands and Mount Rushmore.
Comments from Eldon: Yippee, kayay......cowboy up.
Comments from Larry: Prairie dogs are my favorite because they are smaller me. They sure like to run around and play, but they tell me the prairie dogs carry fleas, so I don't want to play with them.

OK, this is crazy - we had to stay in Sheridan WY again today because of a blizzard. That's right - a blizzard. I-90 was closed between Sheridan & Buffalo WY all day. About 6 inches of wet, blowing snow. The road is clear now, so I'm sure we'll be leaving tomorrow. We went to the Cowboy Museum down town for excitement this afternoon. Actually,they had a lot of stuff and it was interesting. At this pace, it will be a while before we get home!
Comments from Eldon and Larry: We got nothin', absolutely nothin'

No wind today - yea......still chilly but the sun was out. We went to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument (what used to be called Custer's Last Stand). They emphasize both sides of the battle now; Indian and U.S. Cavalry. It's a 5 mile driving tour plus museum. Also, there were horses roaming around free on the site. We planned to go to Cody, WY next and headed up the Bighorn Mountains. About 20 miles into the about 100 mile trip, the snow started getting bad with low visibility. It would have been dark when we got there; so Cindy wimped out and said "I don't want to do this." So, we back-tracked and are in Sheridan, WY. Sheridan was the home of Buffalo Bill.

Comments from Larry: The horses were cool today - they were just walking around. I think I like horses the best. I was looking at them and they were looking at me and we felt a bond.

Comments from Eldon: Today made the history I read as a kid, come to life. It was easy to picture the soldiers and Indians in the midst of battle. It was my kind of day. Lucky we are not pioneers or the country would never have settled past Montana! Cindy was probably right though; the visibility was bad enough we wouldn't have known we fell off the mountain until we were in mid-air. OK Larry, horses are cool and you're right, you did have a bond.

Not much new to report the last 2 days - sort of hit a temporary lull. Yesterday we realized
1 1/2 hours into our drive that we had left Eldon's camera at the hotel. So long story short, after going back to get it, it took us five hours to do what would have been a two hour drive. Plus, wind gusts up to 50 mph. We were both crabby and stopped early in Billings, Montana. During the night, the wind increased to 70 mph gusts and the power was out. This morning we decided it would not be a fun day driving in that kind of wind - the Vibe gets knocked around pretty good. So, we wimped out and stayed another day in Billings. We got an oil change, did some laundry, paid some bills, bought JJ a baby gift, read books and Eldon got to take a nap. I tried to take a walk - the wind was brutal. I thought we had wind in Michigan until I experienced this wind. Larry won't even try to sneak out the motel door. Anyway, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument tomorrow, then on to Wyoming (hopefully).
Comments from Eldon: Day sucked - no comment.
Comments from Larry: This wind is howling and I don't like howls.

Our 2 night stay in Butte paid off more than just OTB because we got to go Yellowstone today. No weather problems, but there is still a lot of snow on the ground - not all the park roads are even open yet. Old Faithful erupted faithfully about 15 minutes after we arrived. It was cool, not Grand Canyon cool, but glad we got to see it. Even better than the geysers, was the wildlife. We saw buffalo, elk, fox, grizzly bear, wolf and big horn sheep. We didn't even get out of the car to see them. We saw a lot of buffalo. Two buffalo were walking down the road headed right for us - they split up and went right around our car - we could each have opened our windows and touched them. Larry eye's were about to bug out of his head! Since there wasn't much traffic, all the cars stopped in the middle of the road, everyone would get out of their cars and take pictures, and move on until the next spotting. We have seen so many elk in the last couple weeks, we don't even take pictures anymore. The bear was an unexpected surprise. They are just coming out of hibernation and hungry. The wolf was a surprise too since they are very reclusive. He was tracking something, but we couldn't see what it was. The fox was looking for a shallow place to cross a little stream without getting his feet too wet. After we were out of the park and going 60 mph down the highway, we saw about 6 big horn sheep at the side of the road. There was too much traffic to get pictures though. Another interesting day.........

Comments from Larry: Eldon said the wolf was probably tracking a cat - he's such a joker. I decided to get out of the car when we stopped to look at the bear; luckily, Eldon threw me back in the car and told me that bears eat cats - he's such a joker. I now know what a buffalo butt looks like - ask Cindy, she's got a picture.

Comments from Eldon: What a good day. I was amazed at the wildlife. I could have used Larry for bait a couple times - just joking. All in all, a better day than I expected. I thought Old Faithful would just be a "Griswold moment" but it was cool.

PS - the "butt" shot is when the buffalo was walking by my window, I thought I had the body, but I guess I was in too much shock to take the picture quick enough!

We are in Butte, Montana. We couldn't go to Yellowstone on Friday because of the bad weather. Since today is Kentucky Derby Day and we were missing being there, we looked on-line for the closest OTB (off track betting). So, here we are in Butte! It was a profitable stop since we won about $275 today. Yellowstone is open but advising snow tires........will sleep on it and decide tomorrow and call again). Otherwise we're heading east.
Comments from Eldon: Just hangin' in Butte - maybe we can win money here everyday.
Comments from Larry: Just hangin' at Butte.