July 8th, 2025
Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine
It’s time to leave Idaho.

Cody Wyoming (450m), GPS says eight hours but with traffic and road construction in Yellowstone NP, we were on the road ten hours.
Idaho is an interesting state. From the mountains and the plains to the plateaus and the gorges with the Snake River carving its way through the state. I would love to kayak the river and photograph the trip to capture all the beauty that has eluded us. I think my wife would disagree with that idea. Following the Snake river into Wyoming to its headwaters near the southern tip of Yellowstone National Park is an unforgettable ride.

Crossing the Rocky Mountains we found ourselves going over the Continental Divide again and switching from the Snake River which flowed west down to the Columbia River and into the Pacific Ocean to the Yellowstone River flowing east to the Missouri River then to the Mississippi River and eventually into the Gulf of (whatever we call it now).

Let’s take a minute and thank my wife for these great pictures.

There is no way to describe the ride through the areas we have been. This is something all should do. Our country has more to offer than anyone can imagine.

We traveled through the town of Jackson Wyoming (very busy) into Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone NP and Shoshone NP then over to Cody Wyoming.

July 8th, 2025
Cody is a great city to visit. There is a lot to do in the area without mentioning three National Parks.

We checked out Cody Stampede Park where they have nightly rodeos, Old Trail Town and downtown Cody ending up at Millstone Pizza Company & Brewery. Another great pizza.

The secret to a great pizza is starting with a great dough. If you don’t end up with a great crust, you have failed. They have a great dough and also have a gluten-free option.

Carol found a house she likes but they are asking over a million for it. We could buy it but I don’t want to end up being a Walmart greeter to pay for it. Carol would be a cashier.
“Hi, welcome to Walmart, have a great day, get your own cart”

July 9th, 2025
Nine month on the road and we’re still talking to each other.
We spent the morning in Cody then went to Old Trail Town to take a look at the old west.

The grave site of Jeremiah Johnson

Jeremiah Johnson’s final residence was in a veterans’ home in Santa Monica, California, where he died on January 21, 1900. His body was buried in a Los Angeles veterans’ cemetery. However, in 1974, after a six-month campaign by 25 seventh-grade students and their teacher, who did not believe he should be laid to rest among urban sprawl, Johnson’s remains were relocated to Cody Wyoming. Where Robert Redford attended the reburial ceremony.

The cabin was moved from Hole in the Wall to Cody and restored.

Ladies could apply for night time positoins. No experience necessary, on-the-job training.

We decided to go back to the trailer for lunch and to stay out of the heat.
Since we are leaving in the morning I packed up as much as I could to make the morning easier.

July 10th, 2025
Wagons Ho.
Once again we have traveled through fabulous country that pictures fall short of telling the story.
Through Wyoming and Montana to American RV Park, South Heart, North Dakota (413m). We are going there long enough to spend a day in Theodore Roosevelt NP.

An easy Seven hours.

July 11th, 2025
We found out that a tornado went through the area about a week ago. The RV park had wind and hail damage but wasn’t directly hit. There was a lot of damage to a few of the trailers.
We had rain for a while last night and then a thunderstorm but no damage. The trailer rocked for a while and the power switched off and on but that was it.
When I went outside this morning I noticed that the left rear tire was low again. After having some coffee I came back out to find the tire was flat. I put the spare tire on and took the truck to Big Horn Tire in Dickinson. They found that the valve in the valve stem was bad and replaced it. They also put the tire back on the truck and the spare back under the truck. No Charge. We talked for a while, I thanked him, gave him a tip for helping me out and we were off to Theodore Roosevelt NP. This shop sells tires for cars and trucks but mainly works on farm equipment and mining equipment.
We went bison hunting today to no avail but we had a great day.

The wind has changed direction. We have a couple forest fires northwest of us in North Dakota and Montana but the majority of the smoke we’re getting is from Canada. There is enough smoke in the area we thought it was a local fire but it’s not. We closed up the trailer and if need be we can leave.

We will have the heaviest concentration of smoke around 4am unless the wind changes.

July 12th, 2025
There is a lot of smoke in the area, I’ll be glad to head South.
We are headed South to Mount Rushmore (253m).
We just crossed the South Heart River. Now we know how the town was named.
On our way we passed an area just North of Sturgis South Dakota.

Full Throttle Saloon

On the road again
As Glenn Campbell would have said, “I drive the main road”

Before the iconic faces of four U.S. presidents were carved into Mount Rushmore, the Lakota Sioux knew it as Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, or the Six Grandfathers, a sacred site representing the six directions. This granite formation was a spiritual landscape for the Lakota, symbolizing wisdom and guidance.
The six entities honored at Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe are the supernatural deities responsible for Lakota creation: North, South, East, West, Above (sky), and Below (Earth).

The carving of the presidents began in nineteen hundred and twenty-seven and was completed in nineteen hundred and fourty-one.
Mount Rushmore was named in nineteen hundred and thirty after Charles E. Rushmore, a New York lawyer (invester) who visited the Black Hills in Eighteen hundred and eighty-five.
(This is information from the internet)

Mount Rushmore was carved to commemorate the first 150 years of the United States, with the faces of four presidents chosen to represent key aspects of the nation’s history: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.
A very impressive area but once again we refaced an area that was very sacred to the Native American People.

They do have a area for RV’s to park. The problem we had is that it’s curb parking and all spots were occupied except for one and we had to parallel park between two others, with the trailer.

We didn’t go see Chief Crazy Horses. When we drove by, it looked like the site was under construction and I didn’t like the cost.

We are camping in the Badlands on public lands at Badlands Boondock Campspot (84m) overlooking the badlands. A great front yard and no mowing needed.

I’m not going to show them but there are around fifty campers here stretched out for about a mile around the plateau.

July 13th, 2025
Sun rise

Something we have seen in South Dakota is farmers baling hay along the road and interstates in certain areas. They get more hay and I imagine the county or state doesn’t pay for mowing.

After leaving the park we noticed smoke on the horizon and couldn’t decide where to go. The smoke is affecting so many states and there are so many fires over the continent that we are limited. We have smoke north and west and heat everywhere. We are always running from something. We were looking forward to Michigan but with smoke covering the state we have canceled part of our Michigan trip and will probably cancel our stay in Benzonia MI scheduled for August. We decided to head back to Indianapolis (1,012m) for a while to see what’s what. We drove about half way and stopped for the night, driving to Cicero, IN the next day. If you use Google maps be careful, you might not like the results.

July 17th, 2025
Nine months later and we’re back where we started. I am not sure where we will go from here.
I got the oil changed today and picked up parts to make a new emergency brake cable for the trailer. After making the new cable I spent the afternoon cleaning bugs off the front of the truck and trailer. They both looked bad.
Tomorrow Carol gets her haircut before we visit her sister and brother-in-law. Later we will have dinner with Dan, Reda and the boys. Should be a good day.