DAY 4: Rapid City SD to Omaha NE - giving us 2 more states, Iowa[38] and Nebraska[39]

9/03

A long day of travelling and we chose the road less traveled. It brought us to Badlands National Park. The Big wall consist of petrified white mud/clay like earth a couple of hundred feet high. The erosion is spectacular leaving deep canyons and gulleys. Dongas and gulches surrounded by white flats that create a moonscape second to none.

From there east on the Interstate for a hundred miles before we turned off again to pursue the smaller roads. We roughly followed the Missouri River. Sometimes we were close, then again we were far and oblivious that it was there. Sometimes on high ground looking down on it and sometimes low on a causeway with water all round.

 Initially the road was quiet but gradually more fellow road users appeared, sometimes other travelers with out-of-state plates and sometimes tractors or other farming equipment crawling along the road and forcing us to drop to 10 miles an hour.

Once we crossed the State line into Nebraska the towns, though small were close together and we rarely traveled more than 15 miles before some small establishment appeared. The population of these places were mostly  a couple of hundred but sometimes it was less than 100 and sometimes more than 1000.

Then we found it. Monowi, NE has a population of 1[ONE]! I kid you not!

Eventually we crossed the river into Iowa and followed the Interstate to Omaha for a very good steak dinner.

That’s it for today

DAY 3 - BISMARCK (NORTH DAKOTA) TO RAPID CITY(SOUTH DAKOTA), our 37th STATE

Wil says:

From Bismarck we drove straight west and we were enchanted by massive steel sculptures seemingly more than a 100 ft tall.

Once we turned south the freeway gave way to a 2-way road. It was quiet but the landscape was engaging as it gradually changed. As it became more undulating the planted farmland gave way to fields with cattle grazing. 

We passed through one horse towns with 4 or 5 buildings. 

The Black Hills came into sight and just before we reached them the town of Sturgis happened. It’s claim to fame is its bikers rally annually in August [pushing 1 million this year] and the whole place spoke of Bikers. I have never seen such a concentration of huge bars and bar patios.

If you tried to pub-crawl [or bar-hop] without a motorbike you will suffer severe exhaustion.

On to the Black Hills and the twisting, very scenic road took us to Deadwood. 

Bigger and more alive than I anticipated [it is a long weekend] but definitely worth the visit. 

More tree lined twisting and turning of the picturesque road eventually brought us to Crazy Horse. A very impressive rock sculpture, even though not finished, 650 feet tall.

Mount Rushmore was the real draw card for me to visit the Black Hills. When I read that it was completed between 1927 and 1941 I was doubly impressed. It really blew me away even though I knew what to expect. 

Rapid City is where we sleep tonight. The holiday weekend vibe is very prevalent and the place is buzzing.

That’s it for today

Anita Says: 

Today, pictures will tell the stories.

With 432 miles to travel to today, we left just after 8 am Central time. Before we strike Dickinson we gained an hour by jumping/falling back on Mountain time. We traveled westwards in a pretty much straight road to Dickinson in North Dakota. Flatlands with rolling prairies was the overruling scenery and made us think of the East Freestate. 

I have seen a “red barn” too.

And some over-sized sculptures - Ducks in flight.

Dropping down south from Dickinson, my dearest hubbie, excelled in choosing a most interesting route off the highways. The two way traffic road 

snaked through the rural areas while the prairies were substituted by hillier country side. 

We encountered some white tailed deer.

If we blinked, we would have missed Reva with its police station and church.

In the Custer National Forest, it became more up and down with interesting rock formations. 

The snow fences alerted me of tough winters.

Getting out of the car to take pictures the fresh whiff of the raw grass fields surprised me. I was thrown back to my childhood years on the farm.

In Sturgis, well Wil will have to tell. I will just share my pictures.

And we run into a Mustang Rally.

From Sturgis we entered into the Black Hill National Forest. Rock formations here much more impressive than in Custer. 

We stopped at Pactola Lake for pictures, 

traveled through the quaint little town of Hill City which was apparently a mining town before.

But we did not see any

And then…it was time for Crazy Horse, after about 68 years still not finished.

And Mt. Rushmore, impressive and completed before my birth (1941) in a time span of 14 years.

Dinner and hotel was in the downtown area of Rapid City – interesting “Curio Collection” Hotel Alex Johnson.

DAY 2 – ON ROUTE TO BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA – OUR 36th STATE.

Wil says:

Minneapolis has a cosmopolitan feel, although not a big city by any standards. It feels sort of condensed, it is arty but business-like and downtown has quite a nightlife: the whole spectrum.

I did notice somebody was cultivating a little veggie garden on what I perceived as a traffic island. I was told that a lot of Mong and African immigrants living in communals were farming these “public” gardens and it was commonplace and widely accepted.

Our 400-mile drive took us out of the city into the Rural area. We crossed the 45-degree latitude line meaning we were twice the distance from the equator than the “Steenbok Keerkring” aka Tropic of Capricorn. The 31 degree Celsius [82F] temperature made this seem insignificant. 

The rolling prairie, green bushes and lots of water gradually gave way to drier open planes. Moving into North Dakota the land became very flat.

Bismarck is the capitol of North Dakota. Situated on the banks of the Missouri river, it is a big town rather than a small city. It feels very rural. The Missouri is impressive, bigger than any South African river I have seen and it is literally thousands of miles from the ocean.

That’s it for today.

Anita Says:

Willem and I are both strong willed and butting heads are common. Well, our Lord with His sense of humor find it appropriate this morning to remind us of 1 Corinthians 13 in our morning Bible Study! A reminder to be kind and loveable to each other especially on a long road trip in North Dakota with open flat fields similar to the Freestate. This trip feels like a preparation for retirement – 24 hours a day in each other’s company.

We are so blessed with the weather taking into consideration Hermine hitting the East Coast tonight. We experience great sunshine, but not too hot.

Eating breakfast looking out on a busy street in downtown Minneapolis this morning, reminded me of a Beautiful South song – “It could have been Rotterdam, Amsterdam, ..” On that street corner all kinds of life collided. I softly whispered a prayer for the pimp accompanied by one of his workers, a business man in a suit with his little boy of 5 years old clutching his soft toy, another man signing with his middle finger to a driver that nearly run him over, a woman being pushed in a wheelchair by her son and another lady neatly dressed in business clothes seemingly on her way to work.

We left town during “mid-morning rush” but not a patch on OC traffic. The drive was long today. I witnessed the neat farm steads and all kinds of agriculture – feed crops, corn, sunflowers.

The small silos built with CMU blocks reminded me of the animation movie “The Good Dinosaur” where the critter had a party enjoying the stored crop of the Dinosaur family.

As we continued on our way to Bismarck we left the luscious green fields behind for a flatter drier area similar to the Vrystaat vlaktes.

In Bismarck we explored some parks close to the Missouri river, before we headed to our dinner place and hotel for the night grateful that we arrived safe and sound.

GETTING TO THE BEGINNING - DAY 1

 Wil says:

Today was fairly uneventful. Early flight into Denver and connected to Minneapolis. Picked up our car and negotiated the end of peak traffic to our hotel in downtown. We will rely on the silver Nissan Ultima for the next 3000 miles….

We crossed the Missisippi river for the first of many times.

Anita says:

Our travels went smooth today, no hiccups, which is a great blessing.

It was a beautiful view flying into Minneapolis. Interesting to me was the squares of farming land as we approached Minneapolis and it was easy to understand why Minnesota is informally known as the “Land of 10,000 lakes” – water everywhere. The Mississippi is, well see for yourself:

Teresa (Uber driver) drove us from Minneapolis airport to St. Paul for our rental car pick-up. Just a note to other Californians – Uber is much more expensive here – the minimum fare is $8 in comparison with OC’s $5.

Outside of the airport was the Fort Snelling National Cemetery. White headstones as far as I could see – 220,000 interments over 436 acres (176 ha) of land. Interments includes Medal of Honor recipients from World War II, passenger on the infamous United Airlines Flight 93 (September 11), baseball announcer to a rape and murder victim.

We crossed the Minnesota river. More water.

An interesting fact from our well-informed Uber driver (whose husband is a History teacher) but I also checked it out: 3M was founded in Minneapolis.

We had dinner at the Capital Grille. Wil enjoyed a steak while I tucked into some lobster.

Now, bedtime to get a good rest for our 400 mile drive to Bismarck.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN 2

California Dreaming en ander ware verhale van Orange County:  August 2016.

Ons ervaar n heerlike warm somer in Southern California. Die “Marine layer” was ons baie genadig vir meeste van die tyd. Die Marine layer is ‘n lae wolk bank wat inkom van die see af gedurende die nag en dan tipies naby 11:00vm wegbrand. Dit keer dat ons dag temperature 40 grade Celsius oorskry en ons kuier in die vroee 30’s. Mei en Junie is veral bekend daar voor [May-grey en June-gloom is die volksmond]. Maar ons was te bly dat dit deur Julie ook gebly het.

Dit is egter brand seisoen en daar is baie bos brande wat huidiglik brand. Die areas noord van Los Angeles en die berge by Big Bear is ernstig aan die brand. Die fynbos en die dennebome van die Los Angeles National Forest brand buite beheer. Die berge en canyons maak die terrain onbegaanbaar. Die rook wolke is duidelik sigbaar van my werkplek en dis ‘n goeie 50 myl van die brande af.

Die jaar loop met rasse skrede. Ons het ‘n paar lang naweke gemaak in April en gaan rondrits in Central California.

Ons eerste wegbreek was in die Paso Robles area saam met al die Safarians [Dis die groep wat in 2014 saam met ons deur Suid Afrika getoer het]. Dis so 3 ure noord van Los Angeles in die golwende heuwels van die central coast streek. Dit is ‘n bekende wyn streek. Ons het ‘n groot 6 slaapkamer huis gehuur op ‘n plaas en te heerlik gekuier. Wynproe, golf, hiking, braaivleis en kampvuur . Ons het baie lekker sosiaal verkeer, talle ou stories opgeroep en nuwes ontdek. Daar het ‘n hegte  vriendskapsband gevorm en dit maak ons samesein gemaklik en baie lekker. 

‘n Paar weke later is ons Yosemite toe. Yosemite is ‘n nasionale park wat gelee is diep in die Sierra Nevada gebergtes. Die hartjie is “the Valley” wat omring word deur vertikale rotse tot 4,500 voet loodreg en tussen in talryke klowe en watervalle. Die rotse is soliede grys granite wat afsteek teen die groen denne woude waarmee die berge oortrek is. Daar was nog baie sneeu sigbaar om die prentjie te voltooi. Die panoramas is verruklik mooi. Dit is ‘n baie spesiale plek, my gunsteling.

Ons het ‘n woonstel gehuur vir 3 nagte en die berge geniet. Ligte sneeu gehad in die nag maar die dae was heerlik. Ons het lekker gestap op van die hiking trails en Anita het goed bygehou. Albert het deur gery en 1 dag saam uit gehang. Dis een van daardie plekke wat jy altyd weer wil terugkeer na toe.

So van Anita gepraat. Sy vorder mooi en het weer aan die draf geraak. Ons het ‘n paar 5km fun-run’s gedoen as deel van haar herstel proses. Sy het gedraf en ek het gestap. Sy het ook weer begin golf speel. Eers net 6 gate op ‘n slag, toe 9 en sy het nou al etlike kere hierdie jaar 18 gemaak. Ons is baie dankbaar. Sy woeker by die kerk en lei ‘n vroue bybelstudie/klein groep.

Somer tyd gaan ons vrydag laat middag by die see vleisbraai. Net suid van Laguna Beach is Salt Creek Beach. Dit is ‘n County park met pragtige grasperke en skoon, bruikbare fasiliteite. Dit word goed onderhou en die mense ruim op na gebruik, sodat almal ‘n aangename ervaring het. Met die grasperke kan ons die see geniet sonder dat ons voete vol sand word wat dan ooral in die karre en huis in kruip.

Met Albert gaan dit voor die wind. Hy is goed gevestig in sy woonstel en by die werk is hy goed ingeburger. Al bly hy naby sien ons hom net een maal per week. Hy speel tennis en volley ball en geniet die lewe. Hy is los hotnot op die oomblik want die afstand na Denver het nie tussen hom en Lauren uitgewerk nie.

My werk by Disneyland verloop vlot. Ek bly oorbluf oor die dinamieka en aanslag van die plek. Tussen die 2 Parke en 3 hotelle is daar 29,000 werknemrs, net hier in California. Dan is daar nog  Florida, Parys, Hong Kong, Japan en Shanghai. Die 2 parke hier, Disneyland Park en California Adventure, maak nou in die somer beide 8vm oop en bly oop tot midernag. Tussen middernag en oggend word al die publieke areas afgewas, en al die eetplekke en winkels moet hulle voorraad aanvul in die donker ure en dan begin alles weer voor. Die laaste keer wat Disneyland vir 1 dag nie oop was nie is 9/11 in 2001

 Meeste onderhouds werk en mooimaak gebeur tussen 12 middernag en 6vm. Dinsdag oggend moes ek 5 vm aanmeld sodat ons kon kyk na ‘n roes problem op een van die rollercoasters voor dat hulle begin met die dag se opstart. Dis heeltemal die moeite werd en ek geniet die verskeidenheid van take.

Oor die Presidensiele verkiesing bly ek maar liefs stil. Baie tragies, baie snaaks, maar tragies.

Groetnis van huis tot huis

AND SO IT STARTS...

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