Day 8 Wednesday + honorable mentions

As you can see, there are many days piled together here. It has been a while since we have had any wireless coverage.

We made it to Crawford, NE on Tuesday evening and let me just say that the SE corner of Wyoming AND the NW corner of Nebraska AND the SW corner of South Dakota are very VAST and lonesome. A farmer there could see his dog running away from home for two days!

Dan and I decided that we were TOO close to Sturgis to pass it up. It is the 70th anniversary of the Sturgis, S.D. motorcycle rally and we have never been......SO.......we drove north through the Black Hills. And before I describe the debauchery of the Sturgis rally, let me describe the "honorable" mentions:
First, the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills:
Crazy Horse was a chief strategist for the Indians in the battle of the Little Big Horn (Custer's Battle). He was a revered elder in the Lakota tribe and was killed, stabbed in the back by a U.S. soldier, while under a flag of truce. Chief Henry Standing Bear wanted the "white man to know that the red man has great heros, also" so they hired a Polish-American named Korezak Ziolkowski to carve a sculpture of Crazy Horse beginning in 1948. He spent his life and his fortune to fulfill that commitment.

The sculpture is only partially finished and the entire project will be much larger than the faces of the presidents at Mt. Rushmore and much bigger even than the Sphinx sculpture in Egypt. And this is what Dan and I really loved......Korezak refused government money several times to the tune of tens of millions of dollars because he believed in free enterprise and knew that if the government funded any part of the monument he would lose control and it may never be completed.
His widow and his 10 children continue the project today with private funds. If you ever are near Rapid City, go see the Crazy Horse monument (oh, yeah, and also that little one.....Mt. Rushmore) (I know, Glenn, that you LOVE George Washington, so I will include a nice little photo of him that I took....profile...as we zipped past Rushmore)
Second, the "traveling" war memorial:
Dan and I had heard about the Buffalo Chip campground in Sturgis so we headed there in the late evening as we made our way (slowly) through the throngs of motorcycle traffic. From a half mile away we could see the GIANT American flag waving in the breeze and there at the entrance to the campground were hundreds of smaller American flags planted in rows and rows. Historical photos and placards were there representing wars from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, as well as names of the victims from 9/11 to the Ft. Hood massacre. Frankly, it was about the only thing "honorable" that we could find in Sturgis. (more on that later)

Day 7 Tuesday

I asked at the coffee shop, "Is it pronounced DU-BOY? or DU BOYS?" And practically everyone there said, in unison, "DUBOYS!!!" So after all these years, I stand corrected.
We keep trying to focus our trip on RESTORING HONOR. And we came across a story in DuBois about a local young man named Chance Phelps. Perhaps you have heard of him. There was a movie made about him with Kevin Bacon called "Taking Chance." He was a US Marine killed in the line of duty in Iraq in 2004 at the age of 20. He was wounded when his convoy came under attack and he chose to stay in the battle using his machine gun to cover the retreat of his comrades. Another hero, like John from Boise.

Although two people in town told us "you can't miss it" when we asked directions to the cemetery, we drove around and around in an effort to pay our respects to this fallen hero. By the time it was noon and we STILL had not found it, we gave up. But if anyone is interested, the Chance Phelps Foundation is having a fund raiser THIS weekend! ON the 20th of August, the Bacon Brothers (Kevin Bacon and his brother, Michael) are playing a concert there in DuBois. The Foundation is trying to raise enough money to purchase a dude ranch there in town for a retreat for military families. What a great way to honor Chance!

Day 6 Monday

Ok, screw the altitude! I could REALLY live in Driggs, Idaho. Or maybe Victor. (just on the west side of the grand Tetons)
Glenn Beck, you picked the perfect spot for the fourth of July! I'll bet it was glorious!

And by the low morning light the farm land from Rexburg to Driggs was coffee-table-book perfect. I wanted to stop every five miles to take a photo of another silo, or barn.

We took a break in Jackson for lunch and to buy me a squish-able cowboy hat, and since my thermometer said it was 100 degrees, we found a faucet to wet down our Harley "air-conditioning vests." (think big diapers that hold lots of water to cool you as you ride)
HOWEVER, ten minutes outside of Jackson we hit a thunderstorm front and the temperature dropped to under 60 degrees! I was COLD! So I pulled off onto the road to Kelly (just a few miles from Sophie & Derek's house!) and took OFF the vest and put on my coat and THEN the HAIL started! I had been flashing my lights at Dan and honking my horn (our blue tooth communication device has failed!) but he didn't see me pull off so he kept on heading north towards Yellowstone! I texted him and said, "I'M GOING TO SOPHIE'S HOUSE....LETS SPEND THE NIGHT WITH THEM!" I was heading to her house, when my phone rang and I pulled over in the Gros Ventre camp ground and Dan said, "where are you ??? I am up in Moose at the gas station!" I hunkered down in the DOWNPOUR and drove up to Moose, where we got some coffee and waited out the storm. In just 20 minutes the sun was shining again and the Grand was picture perfect (as you can see from the photo)

OK, but NOW we took a turn east to DuBois. There was road construction for miles with gravel and dirt and then......it started to hail and pour again.....while we were on the dirt road! There was a couple in front of us on their two motorcycles (headed for Sturgis) and she began to slip and slide in the mud. We were soaked! I managed to keep the wheels in line just fine, but my motorcycle is FILTHY now!

We found a great place to stay in DuBois. The Longhorn Ranch/Campground. And the video here I put together shows views of our last couple of days on the road mixed in with the local Wyoming artist/musician on the main street, DuBois.

day Five Sunday

Nothing exciting happened on our drive through central Idaho except that it was our first time from Stanley down to Ketchum and it was very beautiful. There are a lot of very big expensive homes for sale in the Ketchum/ Sun Valley area (if anyone is in the market). We took an hour break in Sun Valley at our good friend, Sophie's house. I could live there! (except for the altitude!)

We figured we could make it all the way to Rexburg (very secluded road......through the Craters of the Moon State Park) and Dan's GPS said we only had half an hour to go, but he was looking at the "time to go" instead of the "miles to go" and for some reason the GPS did not switch time zones and we ended up traveling an hour past our comfort zone. We were very tired by the time we got to Rexburg so we opted out of camping. Our guardian angel was keeping track of us steering us around all the thunderstorms in the area. I even stopped to put on my rain gear, but it is a given that if I stop to put it on .......we won't need it.

DAY FOUR ON THE ROAD

Saturday found us at the Valley County Fairgrounds in Cascade, Idaho. And what better American August tradition is there, but the country fair!? I was disappointed that as we arrived we could hear the National Anthem playing and I could see a gal on a horse with the flag circling the rodeo grounds. But by the time we got our tickets and our seats, the rodeo was under way. The following is just a quick sampling of a local rodeo......in case you have never been to a rodeo. ME? I can finally say, "This ain't my first rodeo!" and I won't be lying!

Riding to the Rally, day 3: Dan's birthday dinner

There is a German American gentleman who lives across the lake from our cabin, and we invited him over Friday evening for Dan's birthday dinner. His son, John, his only child, was a friend of our kids and used to "play" with them while we vacationed here. John was a year older than our son, and the year he graduated from high school in Boise he joined the Army. John paid the ultimate price when he was just 19 years old. He was the gunner on a vehicle that was guarding a new post in Iraq. A truck that was laden with explosives crashed through the gate and came barreling up the road. John had little time to react, but he quickly took out the driver. Apparently there was some sort of remote detonator, because the truck blew up anyway, instantly killing John and several others. But John was credited with saving over 50 lives that day by stopping the truck where he did. In this video, John's father speaks about immigrating to this country 52 years ago, about medals of honor, and about the way he tries to honor John by giving back to the military.

The journey begins:

People who know us know not to set our place at the dinner table until they see the whites of our eyes.......we just fly by the seat of our pants. That's just the way we roll.
So we blew off the wedding we were supposed to go to on Saturday (sorry, Angela and Jerry, happy nuptials), we will miss our daughter's FAA exam for her private pilot's license, and I was supposed to take my car in to get the oil changed......but Dan decided we should leave Portland a couple of days early to allow for "slop." You know, those unpredictable problems that arise out of no where.....like flat tires, or forest fires that make you detour your planned route.
Wednesday was a beautiful day to begin our journey. We drove past Mt. Hood, through Shaniko, Antelope (where the Rashneeshi's used to hang out), to Fossil, to John Day. (This is a highlighted scenic route in the Harley atlas!) It was rather hot, up to 100 degrees, which I gather we should get used to as we cross the country in August during "global warming."

After spending a rather unrestful night in the tent (think: graveyard shift truckers on the highway 40 yards away, a gassy skunk, crack of dawn roosters, and well, yes, menopausal night sweats) we awoke to a glorious morning only to discover that neither one of us had packed the camp coffee pot. SCHEESH!

Day two was just as hot but we managed to find some shade at a tree along the highway in Unity, Oregon where Dan could join his conference call at 10:00 a.m. Between Unity and Vale there is a lot of empty space and spots where the road lays out ahead like .....well, like I imagine it will do in Nebraska. It was too tempting and so we let the throttle loose and I actually hit 80mph. But the wind didn't get any cooler no matter how fast it blew through my open visor. There was a farm (ranch?) near Pole Creek Reservoir on the south side of hwy 26 and 400 miles later I am STILL kicking myself for not stopping to take a photo! The owner had splurged on a 30 ft flagpole and the hugest American flag that could be seen (was in fact ALL that could be seen) from miles around. And that is what this trip is all about.....I need to stop and "smell the roses" and photo the things that stand out to us as representing honor in this country.
We "landed" on day two at our cabin in Donnelly, Idaho. So two days down and one and a half states under our belts. Today is Dan's birthday so we will stay here for a rest day (huckleberry picking!)
Here is a little (very boring) video of day one. I warned you....it is boring.