Rushmore...better than I remembered

We woke up in Rapid City to go down to an extremely rapid waterslide.

 

Note the whitewater streaming out of the slide! Strangely, no panicky children when confronted by this.

A this point we had a decision to make between a 9 1/2 hour drive to Yellowstone to make our reservation or a 10 1/2 hour drive with an hour stop in Mt. Rushmore. With a 10am start out of the hotel, naturally we too the latter.

The approach to Rushmore was classic American commercialism

 

I had remembered Rushmore as being disappointing from a previous trip, but it was actually impressive. You could get much closer to the heads and there were some lovely trails with interpretive sites along. Some pics:

After that, the long desolate trip to Yellowstone. Note the continued Chamber of Commerce weather.

 

 

A Welcome Addition in Sioux Falls

The morning began with a repacking of the van, in preparation for picking up Lynn in Sioux Falls. Feeling like Gypsies today.

Lynn's flight got delayed into Sioux Falls, so we had time to do some shopping at the Sioux Falls Walmart. Got the food and supplies necessary for Yellowstone. Made it to Rapid City in one piece to a hotel with a waterslide. Score for the morning.

The Phone Died

This morning, we woke up well rested and went down to jump in the pool. I was watching from the side, my youngest got panicky, and I neglected to remove the phone from my pocket before that. Scratch one Blackberry. The world is a better place. 

So now it's gmail until I figure out a way to replace it.

 

We went down to the farmers market in Madison, supposedly the biggest in the country. Not so much

 

 

But good for a nice breakfast anyway

 

 

The girls were the lone occupiers in the Capitol of Madison

 

They sure do love to make lavish government buildings here

 

The rest of the day was a slog to our campsite, punctuated by a ceremonial baptism into the west via the Mississippi at the Prairie du Chien crossing into Iowa.

Looking forward very much to Lynn joining us tomorrow.

 

Chicago...the day we gave up camping

After discovering the noise in the woods was an animal waiting to (successfully) raid our garbage, we packed up the campsite as quickly as we could, without eating, so we could get on the road to Chicago.  We ended up at the Navy Pier, and you could see the result of giving up the camp cooking:

Today we got back to whatever the opposite of nature is, and thoroughly enjoyed the Chamber of Commerce day from the water taxi:

We hit the Shedd Aquarium to commune with the fish, penguins, dolphins, whales, and summer camp kids.

We were herded through the Willis (nee Sears) Tower, with my wallet sucked dry at every opportunity, for the chance to test our acrophobia:

Yep, I'm acrophobic.  I did step out on the four foot wide glass, but with trembling legs.  I certainly didn't think it was unsafe, so I can now say that it's not a fear of falling, as I had been telling myself.

We made it to Madison, WI tonight, for a restful night in a hotel.  Looking forward to a more restful day tomorrow.

Air Force Museum...sobering

We were off to the Air Force museum after another camp breakfast to check out the swoopy planes, of which there were many. 

Everyone's favorite sr-71

The "Bird of Prey", a Lockheed test plane:

Some less swoopy planes, including my favorite the a-10:

The ungainly Convair b-36, built to carry the first thermonuclear bombs.

which brings me to the most interesting, and sobering, part of the museum. The linkage of weapons to aircraft outdoes any of the Air and Space museum exhibits by a country mile. Their collection of hydrogen bombs shows why the b-36 was built and then quickly retired. The nuke around which the b-36 was built, the mark-17:

 

The rest of the nukes work just fine from a b-52.

 

 

It's hard to escape what all these planes were for. And not just the nukes. They had an AC-130 replete with its six guns:

Check out the name and markings on the aircraft

There is nothing remotely interesting from an aerospace perspective here. It's just a mean looking c-130 with a lot of gun ports. No mistaking what the Air Force does here, even if they do build a lot of golf courses:

But back to fun stuff...the biggest aerial camera ever built:

Checking out the placard, we see why it was never very successful (ARGUS-IS I'm looking at you)

 

The keyhole satellites were HUGE, the size of a bus, with all sorts of sensor goodies inside:

Who can comment on what all these sensors were?

The day ended with a Walmart run and a dash to a remote and scary campsite. "No, sweetie, I didn't just turn because I heard a noise in the bushes."

The Dayton Riviera

The morning was filled with the quotidian tasks of a campsite, done slowly due to our vast inexperience. My hopes of catching the Dayton Dragons were dashed due to our over-ambitious breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs. No pics here, we just wanted to get out of that hellhole.

Most of the day was taken up by driving, but we ended on a surprisingly high note at the Buck Creek State Park, which had a beach where we all had a lovely time splashing around the shockingly warm lake. It was a serious middle America party down there on the sand.

We had an overflight by what I thought at first was one of Wade's powered parafoils out of Wright-Patt.

And the girls right before they ran in and splashed around for an hour.

Again some learning on the campsites. Looking at the website, I picked one that had close access to water, laundry, showers, etc. Of course now we're in the firing line for everyone walking to the camp office. Ah well, we'll learn this sometime. Looking forward to the Air Force Museum tomorrow morning, and then we're headed to Chicago.

We were off a little after noon, all smiles and excitement.

I had a conversation with my neighbor, expressing surprise that I was able to convince my wife to accompany me on a four week camping trip. I...ahem...wasn't able to accomplish that feat, but we're looking forward to picking her up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in a few days.

We took a little time to throw a frisbee around at a posh rest stop in Maryland.

It appears that the finding of a campsite is a bit more of an art than a science. Thus the first night we ended up driving down a broken road, turning into what looked like something out of Deliverance, driving past a den of barking dogs, to a fire pit and a broken picnic table in the middle of the woods. Getting water was a trick, as the tap spat out brown well (hopefully?) water. We ended with s'mores and smiles, however, capping our first day.

 

 

Freaking Out

Why did I plan this trip? I'm not understanding the train of thought I had months ago when I talked it up to the family. I'm hoping that the good outweighs the certain stress of a month trapped in a car with no easy return.

The approximate route is this, a bit over 7000 miles:

Planning this trip is in the Baker blood. Got the iPad Omni Outliner helping us pack.