Thursday June 1st: After a full year in the planning for our Alaska expedition, we were on the road by 6:00 a.m. As we were heading West on US Route 30, Caleb honked and waved as he was heading East into work; what a great send-off! We followed Route 30 through Fort Wayne to Interstate 65 and headed North, and then turned LEFT up near Chicago and followed Interstate 94 West – which we will be on for several days. We were in five states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and ended up just West of Minneapolis after 600 miles -- 13 hours including a time-change. I don’t even want to total up the $ spent on toll roads – or the time spent in morning traffic in Chicago and afternoon traffic in Minneapolis. But, the weather was beautiful and we had plenty of entertainment in the truck: Sirius XM radio (50’s, 60’s, Country Classic, Beatles, Garth, Fox news, comedy club . . . ) and an audible book (Great Courses; the Other Side of History.) Professor Robert Garland has a series of 50 hours of lecture about ancient history from prehistoric man to the Middle Ages with focus on daily life of regular people in all of the major time-periods. We made it through ancient Greek civilization!
Friday, June 2nd: Today’s drive was a straight shot across the rest of Minnesota and clear through North Dakota on Interstate 94. Today there was no big-city traffic to slow us down – and we had our first visit to a tourist ambush! Jamestown, North Dakota is the home of the National Buffalo Museum, featuring the legendary white buffalo, the world’s largest buffalo monument, a live buffalo heard, a small frontier town, and stage-coach rides!! The good news was that it was all free; it was a nice chance to get out of the car for an hour and stretch our legs and begin to feel that we were really on vacation. I'm not sure if the laundry was a part of the original log cabin display -- or somebody's "real" laundry! The story of the White Buffalo is a prophecy that a sacred white buffalo will one day come to unite all races to live together in harmony. Would we all agree that the time is ripe for that?
3 Comments
Mike Miller
6/2/2017 01:29:21 pm
Looking forward to following the adventure. Enjoy
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Jane
6/2/2017 06:47:58 pm
Hi Tom and Ella! Looking forward to following your trip and reading your blog! Enjoy Glacier!
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Suzie
6/7/2017 07:04:03 pm
Did you ride the stagecoach?! Always wondered what that would be like...hard and bumpy I imagine! North Dakota is my mom's stomping grounds. She grew in in a little town called Stanley, near Minot (the "big" city!). I have a great aunti still living in Bismarck...I send cookies to her regularly! It is on my bucket list to get there. Love reading about your trip as you go along!
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October 2021
We don’t go camping any more . . . we go ‘streamin’ ! The “SIlvermine and His” is our 2018 25' Airstream Serenity with Salsa interior and front twin beds., and ‘streamin’ is the name we use to describe our adventures. Stream along as we document everything from weekend trips to longer summer excursions and full-blown vacations. You know what they say: if you’re not in an Airstream – you’re just camping!
Tom & Ella Brown |