Day 12: June 17, 2011, Champaign, IL to Apex, NC

Whatever charm the Heartland has had worn off.  As we headed south on IL backroads (route 1), the barns just didn't have the same Iowa and Minnesota old charm.  The towns also looked more run down than antique, but the farmland was prosperous and, in most towns, for sale signs were few and far between.

We crossed the Ohio River to reach Kentucky -- land of more rolling hills.  There were some white fences for horses and the trees became more NC-like (although the absence of pines was striking).  But there was still a lot of corn.  The hills started to grow as we neared West Virginia.

The drive through West Virginia down the WV turnpike was uneventful.  Either the coal mines aren't here or the environmental regulations are much better than we Denise drove through 30 some years ago.  We should go back and explore off the interstate a bit more to see if this was just clever engineering.

The only other thing of note is that WV has some tunnels that go through the mountains and DOWNhill in the mountain.  Denise wasn't so impressed.

The Northbound lanes had about a 5 mile back up due to construction in the tunnel (Catherine looked, but couldn't find any info about a wreck).  Catherine would have been mad if she'd paid the big toll and still ended up in an enormous jam.

The rest of the way home through a slice of VA and then through NC was an easy drive (with a small detour around a wreck west of Greensboro).

Take-home lessons.  First, Denise notes the the land we drove through was uniformly prosperous, with the exception of St. Louis' downtown which is simply deserted.  The homes are well cared-for and all the live stock was fat and sassy.

Catherine is simply astonished (and kind of disgusted) by the amount of land (number of states) devoted to the production of hamburgers.  She notes that some of the corn probably goes to ethanol and pig production, but we saw essentially no wheat or vegetable crops and only a handful of pig houses.

Both of us are still confused by the idea the Midwest is flat.  Some parts of it are boring and repetitive, but unless we were driving in a flood plain, there were no flat areas.  And even in the flood plains, we could generally see bluffs only a few miles away.  If you want flat head to eastern NC, SC, GA and parts of FL.

Finally while we both agree that Custer State Park, Badlands National Park, and the Niobrara River are worth a look, if you haven't been to Utah, Arizona and many parts of CA, head there first.  Not only are these places more accessible by plane, their landscape is much more impressive!

As always, it's great to get on the road, but it's even better to be back home!

Day 11: June 16, 2011, Eden Prairie, MN to Champaigne, IL

After a not so early start, we headed south.  As soon we left the Minneapolis suburbs, we ran smack into the Heartland of America.  And we stayed there, forever and ever.  The Heartland does have it's charm.  This picture was taken just outside Blooming Prairie, MN.

The red barns and silos and corn fields for miles.  I don't think these states grow anything but corn and the occasional cow.  Catherine was kind of grumpy from lack of sleep, so her appreciation was probably less than it could have been.

In any case, we stayed on smaller roads through Iowa, stopping at the Little Brown Church in the Vale.  The church has hosted more than 70,000 weddings and has nice bathrooms.  The historical gift shop next door has a decent selection, and a small dog that isn't particularly friendly (not that his owner (who is the cashier) seemed to care....).

After speeding through Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, we crossed the Mississippi River again into Illinois.  People should not stop on busy interstates to try to get the "sign" picture.  If you can get it you get it, but don't become traffic hazards.

We ran into a surprising amount of traffic around the border (construction) and Denise reaffirmed her dislike of Jersey barriers.  Catherine was doing her best to sleep through most of the nonsense.

Everything was still really, really wet, but at least the corn was up to knee high.  And there is a lot of corn in Illinois -- there's more to the state than Chicago.

Catherine had been told that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in the middle of a cornfield.  The rumors are correct.  There is nothing here but corn and corn processing units.  Nothing.  If she'd gone there for grad school, she probably would have been done in 3 years because there is nothing else to do but school.

We can't really recommend the La Quinta in Champaign.  While cheap, it also has paper thin walls and is pet friendly.  The pets were all well behaved when their owners were in the room, but one poor puppy was whining and sad for a while because this people went to get dinner without him.

Day 10: June 15, 2011, Medora, ND to Eden Prairie, MN

We got to experience the joys of I-94, the northernmost of the US's east-west interstates.  The drive was fairly uneventful (which is always a positive thing).  We went through rolling hills, and a couple of flat patches in the river flood plains.

The highlights:  We went a few miles on the Enchanted Highway.  Gary Greff has put enormous metal sculptures every few mile for maybe 30 miles down this road.  We thought about heading south to see all of them, but a quick check of the map revealed a that there are no bridges for about 50-100 miles over the Missouri River and that's a longer detour than we wanted to take.  It is kinda crazy the state is divided in half.  Your neighbors across the river can be 3+ hours away by car.  That's just weird.  In any case, here's a sculpture near I-94.

The fields were soaking wet -- a little bit of corn had been planted(maybe 2-4 inches tall), but most of them were still just dirt.  While we did see some fields, the majority of the land was cow pasture.  However, there was not a prohibition against all non-black cows.  We saw some Red Angus and some Herefords and even a few Holsteins as we got into Minnesota.  It should be noted the world's largest Holstein, Sue resides near Bismark and is a statue advertising a bank.  We missed the photo.

We also missed photos of the Long-Tailed Weasel and the Yellow-Headed Blackbirds, our wildlife spotting. We pretty much decided by this point White Tailed Deer don't count as wildlife.

It was gray and rainy through much of the trip.

Denise got to drive through the rain.  She also got to drive through the dip in the interstate -- Eastbound traffic was narrowed to one lane as water lapped over the other.  Westbound traffic was also down to one lane, but they got their tires wet.

Catherine took over driving as we neared the Twin Cities.  We stopped in Plymouth to pick up Chinese food en route to Eden Prairie, where Catherine's friends from graduate school Jonathon (who went by Jon in grad school and Catherine cannot convert) and Niki Galownia live with their 3 month old PC (Pork Chop, aka Jeremy) and two Bengal Cats (Cody and Kira) and one normal cat (Edgar). 

We had a lovely family-style Chinese meal and Catherine and Niki stayed up until all hours talking.  Somehow, we didn't bring the camera in, so sadly no pictures :-(.  Denise was very impressed by the Bengals athleticism -- she's glad she doesn't have cats that strong and smart in her house.  Edgar is part Maine-Coon like Chester and possess approximately the same number of brain cells.  Denise missed her Chester.  Catherine was further terrified by the thought of having an incredibly cute little being living in her house.  Especially one that doesn't seem to think sleep is a mission-critical function.  

Jon and Niki's house is gorgeous -- and they've obviously done a ton of work.  The orchids are amazing (especially in MN) and the diverse hardwood floors are really cool.  Maybe one day Catherine will grow up and buy a house, but free rent is soooo nice...

Thanks to the Galownias for having us on short notice!

Day 9: June 14, 2011, Medora, ND

After a refreshing night sleep, we headed out to the southern part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  The park was green and the badlands were beautiful, and dramatically less "bad" than a few miles away in Badlands National Park.

Though famous for animals, we only saw a couple of wild horses and a pair of coyotes early in the morning.  Oh, and of course, more cute little Prairie Dogs.  Catherine loves the fact that you can count on seeing them in the same spots every day.  Maybe most critters were in hiding because it was damp and overcast.

We headed up Ridgeline Trail -- less than a mile through meadows teeming with wildflowers.  Denise bought an identification guide, but we haven't keyed everything out yet.  Here's the flower dump.

Neat bug.

Very common:

 Weird, huh?

We looked at the views over the badlands and then headed back down the loop.

Of course, there were more flowers.

The next short trail (Coal Vein Trail) on the loop goes through scoria.  In most places, scoria has volcanic origin, but around here it means was burned when the coal in the region caught fire and burned for years and years (like 20+).  This area has been out for about 30-40 years.  On the way up, we had to stop the car for Denise to take a mushroom picture.

Catherine stayed in the car.  It turns out bison make nice moist microhabitats, great for growing mushrooms.  Here's the picture Catherine had.

After that detour, we started on the brick-like scoria trail.

Of course, there were more wildflowers.

And more recently burned areas.

Denise even spotted a pair of Lazuli Buntings.

Catherine was too busy taking wildflower photos.

At least Denise was pointing at one near the trail and not on some steep slope requiring Catherine to kneel awkwardly.

In fairness, Denise was taking flower photos too and these did have cool flies on them.

More flowers.

Denise got way ahead as Catherine waited for the wind to die down to take more flower photos.

Catherine thinks Denise was worried about bison -- we saw lots of evidence of their activity, though didn't run  into any.

What was that?  No bison.  Well, get back in the car and we can fix that.  This was was taking a dust bath.  They looked grayer and less "molty" than the SD bison.

We stopped at another overlook.

There are bison dots in this one.

And, of course, more flowers.

We continued through the loop, seeing more bison (sometimes bulls alone or in small groups and sometimes whole herds with cows and calves) and some wild horses.  These critters are easy to spot.  Just watch for the cars stopped in the middle of the road.

We stopped at the Wind Canyon Trail to see a bend in the Little Missouri River.  The river was quite lovely.

And the wind/water erosion caused all kinds of neat patterns and holes in the rocks.

All the brochures discuss the clay soil becoming slick when wet.  We can now attest, that stuff gets slick as glass.  Catherine highly recommends staying were it is flat and not taking the short cut down when it starts to rain.  Yeah, 5 minute rain shower in the 10 minute hike.  Oh well, neither of us are sweet enough to melt.  And there were flowers on this trail too.

We drove to the picnic area near the campgrounds, but it was mostly closed due to flooding and the birds seem to have gone to higher ground to beg from humans.  Since it wasn't late and we'd completed the driving loop in the southern part of the park, we decided to try the northern bit.  Oh, Catherine actually reserved a room back near the southern part of the park so we wouldn't have to drive to Bismark while Denise checked out the visitor's center for magnets and baby books.  When Catherine wandered in, the ranger asked if she was expecting twins (the other ranger on duty spent a while trying to explain that that wasn't the most tactful question to ask).

Remember that energy exploration bit we talked about?  It caused hotel rooms to be scarce?  Yeah, we ran into it again.  Traffic on this road -- 85 -- a one lane in each direction North-South cut through was at least 50% 18 wheelers carrying all kinds of equipment.  Mostly big cylindrical tanks.  Instead of being virtually empty, it was full of this equipment.  Road construction probably didn't help.  In any case we saw more cow country, some oil wells and more traffic than expected.

When we saw badlands, we figured no one else wanted it, so it had to be National Park.  We were correct.  The northern part of the park maintains a herd of about 15 longhorn steers to give the historical feel of the place.  They were a rainbow herd.

Across from the cows, we found a Northern Flicker.  The drive through the park had plenty of scenic overlooks.

The little cabin was a CCC project, providing a shady overlook of the flooded river and bison dots below.

We thought about doing the trail at the end of the road.  It had more wildflowers.

And was a nice walk through tick-infested prairie (yes we found a couple of ticks; they don't just live in Catherine's driveway).

But between the ticks, heat and buffalo tracks, Denise decided we could head back towards the river.  We saw Bobolinks in the prairie.

A mushroom rock attracted Catherine's attention on the way back down.

Our river walk / birding event was interrupted by the presence of large quantities of very, very sticky mud.

They were still mucking out campgrounds and the ranger's cabins had sandbags around them.  We saw an American Kestral with a snake that must have weighed as much as it did.  How that bird got that snake off the ground, we'll never figure out.

We passed the cannonball formations on our way out.

If anyone is interested, the southern half the park is on Mountain Time and the northern half is on Central.  This closes bathrooms early.  We made our way back through the construction traffic and checked into the hotel.

After a quick dinner, we headed back to the park to see if anything came out at dusk.  We saw more horses and three elk.  Apparently porcupines are sometimes seen on the roads.  Catherine believes that without a dog with a curious and sensitive nose, no one every finds one of those critters.