October 10, Monday, Day 4

Lake Vermillion Recreation Area, Canistota, South Dakota, 288 mile jump

We are pushing the pace to hit the continental divide at the end of the week when the forecast includes no temps below freezing and warm days. It is my hope to spend two days in the Black Hills to do some sight seeing and relax. Today, we drove 288 miles across southern Minnesota; the eastern side was glaciated; rolling hills gave expansive vistas full of the colors of fall and the harvest. The western half flattened out quite a bit shortening the sight lines, but the farmers were busy combining the crops and hauling them off. The skies were mostly clear with some high thin clouds.

The biggest surprise was the wind generator farms across that western side; they were ubiquitous. And, the power companies were busy building gigantic power poles to move the power across the state. I am glad to see renewable resources being exploited; let’s keep the carbon in the ground!

Penny and I are getting back into the traveling groove. The summer was very busy with a visit to the new grand daughter, Mira, in Seattle, and Casey and Nick’s wedding in Chicago. But, those were brief interludes punctuating two massive renovations to Penny’s house. We bit off a bit more than we could chew. We finished each and they turned out great, but we had to bust our butts to pull that off! Now the love of our rolling apartment and the adventure ahead lets us forget, and admire, those difficult days.

We wanted to tour Yellowstone, the Tetons, and Glacier on the way to Spokane and Seattle, but that was impacted by the landlord business. There will be other Septembers to make that trip. Penny was philosophical about it; she knew how much I wanted to get back to Spokane and Seattle family and friends, so she said she was all in on getting that done.

It’s 2000 miles of driving to Spokane; we are trying to do jumps of 300 miles a day which is more than last year. The other difference is we are moving daily; that is literally unsettling. We just don’t want to the bad weather to prevent a safe crossing. We would have to turn left and go a long way south to cross the divide.