Catching up – Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky

I realized I left off a very important stop that I made while in South Dakota.  I went to the famous “Mitchell’s Corn Palace”.

Every year they redo the designs and this year it was “America’s Destinations” and yes, they are all made out of corn.   I was there about 5 minutes – I told you it was important.  Interesting, but a few minutes was enough. 

While visiting my sister, I stayed at Lake Wissota State Park in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  Nice park, but in my camp site there were 2 trees that had these berries that looked like large blue berries.  While there, it was stormy and a lot of these berries ended up on my RV and car. 

After visiting with Amy and her family, I went to the “World’s largest Cranberry festival”.  It was packed.  The festival was basically a huge arts and crafts festival and a flea market.  Plus lots of good fair food.

After leaving Wisconsin, I traveled to Shipshewana, IN – part of Indiana’s Amish Country.  While there it rained a lot.  But I did like driving around and looking at the farms – Amish and English (as the Amish call us).  Also, while there I discovered the world’s best doughnut – In my opinion.  It was a caramel doughnut made at the Rise and Shine bakery.  Yum!!!!   Also while there I went to the Shipshewana flea market and auction.  I’m not really into flea markets, but the auction was interesting.  At 9:00 a bell went off and then 9 auctioneers in different areas of the same room started auctioning off items.  It was so loud I couldn’t figure out what was going on, but very interesting.   I also enjoyed watching people – both Amish and non-Amish.  

  

When I think about the Amish, it always makes me think about what we have and what people can do without. 

Then I went to Hueston Woods State Park in Ohio.   This state park is known for their fossils and unlike in many parks you can collect here.  So in addition to a few small hikes, I went fossil hunting.  I didn’t have to hunt too hard. 

 

While in this park, I noticed something very interesting.  There were quite a few of these green “brain-like” things.  Below is a picture of the “brain”  (with a key beside it to show how large it is) and the tree they grow on.  Anyone know what this is?

After Ohio, I camped at Levi Jackson State Park in Kentucky.  While there I went to Natural Arch in Daniel Boone National Forest. It’s only about a mile hike, but I loved the arch.

I also went to Cumberland Falls State Park (in Kentucky).  One of these days I would like to be there during a full moon.  They claim to be one of the few places in the world where you can see a moonbow. 

Unfortunately it had been raining the previous days, so the river/falls were muddier than normal.

While traveling the last month, I have seen some interesting things on the road.

I don’t think my toes need service, but it’s good to know that if they do I can get it 24 hours a day!

I don’t know what uses tires this big, but I thought it was interesting.  On the truck in the front, they had tied a small  “Michelin Man” to the tires..

 

I’ve since been to Tennesee and am back in Georgia for a few weeks.  While in Ga, I’ll finally make time to do some of the maintenance items on my RV that I have been putting off.  I’ll post on that later!

South Dakota

I’m a bit behind in blogging.  September 16 – 19 I was in Badlands National Park.  Since I love rock formations, I instantly liked this place.  I wasn’t expecting the different colors.  And the stripes – wow. 

I know that typically colors are more vibrant at dusk and sunset, so one morning I was up and out very early to see what things looked like.  Well, luck was with me that day – I saw 2 bobcats.  A ranger I showed the pictures to (to verify they were bobcats) said she had been there 2 years and had not seen any.  Once again the pictures aren’t great, zoomed out to the max and at dusk the light wasn’t the best.

 

The badlands has several “towns” of prairie dogs. I had read that they “kiss” and I finally got a picture of it -

In addition to driving, hiking and visiting Wall Drugs (twice) I went rock hounding.  This area is known for it’s agates, jaspers and petrified wood.  You can’t collect it in Badland’s National Park, but you can in Buffalo Gap National Grassland which is just next to Badlands.  I collected too much and found a great piece of petrified wood. 

After the Badlands, I went to Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area for a few days.  It is definitely a weekend park.  It was full Saturday night.  Sunday there were about 8 of us left (out of about 30).  Monday it rained all day and the other 2 RVs that were supposed to stay that night left, so I had the campground to myself.  This was just a place to unwind, walk around the lake…

Next I will be visiting my sister and her family in Bloomer, Wisconsin and then Amish country in Indiana.