Wednesday 10 August 2011

7th July - South Dakota to Minnesota


At the falls. 

Today we hung out with Mal and Natalie and distracted Nicholas from his work. Mal took us to see downtown Sioux Falls and also the town’s namesake falls. They were pretty cool, with quite a bit of water cascading down lots and lots of layers of rocks. We took some photos, but it was already pretty hot for 10.30am!! Lucky we went down reasonably early! Then we went for our first trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get a cupholder just like the one I’d been eyeing up in the Lease’s BMW. Little Natalie got a little grumpy as it was her naptime and then she wanted to play ‘house’ in her special corner of the shop where the pizza cutting stones are, but we had to go. After kicking her door for a few minutes, she was fast asleep! I don’t know if she noticed the crazy lady who drove right behind us as Mal was carefully and slowly backing out of our parking space. Drivers are crazy in Sioux Falls too! 

Then we went back to the Lease’s house where we collected our things and bid them a sad farewell. It would have been lovely to stay another night as they had offered, but we needed to get going on our way to Canada. It was a fun, if short, stay! Nicholas said Casey Anthony got 4 years, but because she’s already served 3 and been ‘good’ she could be out in a few weeks. Might be back in a couple of months’ time, we shall see – trouble has followed her quite a lot in her short life! 

More epic and slightly boring driving. We went past random towns with strange names like ‘Welcome’ (not to the place, it was its name!) and ‘Le Center’ and ‘Blue Earth’ (boasting a 60 foot tall green man statue). So strange. Both South Dakota AND Minnesota are guilty of the strange names of places phenomena! So we drove from Sioux Falls all the way through the brilliantly green cornfields of I-90 to just past Albert Lea. Then we turned onto the I-35 and joined all the amazing traffic on the way to Minneapolis/St Paul. Nearly wiped out a black sportscar when we gave way to merging traffic by changing into the left lane. He couldn’t wait for us to pull back across and overtook us on the right side, just as Will was changing lanes. Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have told Will not to go and we could have wiped him out, bastard!

We stopped somewhere random to refuel along way – cheapest yet! $3.44.9. Macca’s was naughty, but good too J. And besides, Will needed the caffeine to stay awake while driving hehe.  

The Lease's house - I want that one! Gorgeous!
My epically awesome effort at navigation paid off and we found the Lebanon Hills Park Campground in Eagen, outside of Minneapolis. I was using a map off our RV campground application that didn’t tell me any street names except the highways, one avenue and our destination address. So off the I-35 E at the exit after Cedar Avenue and then a random number of lights off the right-hand turn and eventually we found ourselves on the right one – Johnny Cake Ridge Road. Told you there are some random place names around here! I don’t think I’ve ever even had a Johnny Cake!! Checked into our camping spot (disabled – still appropriate!) after I melted in the car while Will sorted out the payment/paperwork. $45 for two nights, the first one with power, but no water or internet and the second night ‘primitive’ with no power either – but if something came up the next day, we’d get that one!! It was a really nice campground with lots of huge trees separating us from the campers next door. Beautiful, considering it’s not far from a huge city. Well, two actually, because Minneapolis and St Paul are the ‘Twin Cities’ and are super close to each other, though they’re cities in their own right. St Paul is the capital of Minnesota I think.

We had delicious spag bol for dinner (with the a/c on so we didn’t melt), then did some blogging and some Mall of America planning, all set for tomorrow

6th July - Badlands to Sioux Falls, SD


Badlands, SD. 

We woke up in a still hot Betsey and decided to skip breakfast as we were melting and just wanted to hit the road. We drove past crazy tourists outside their car with buffalo behind them, taking photos of buffalo in front of them. Why? Good question. I’m surprised one guy didn’t get skewered on a bison horn. So we passed the prairie dogs again and the buffalo but we didn’t see any more turkey L

We did the loop on our way back the freeway. The Badlands were pretty amazing and the colours in the hills were stunning. Being unable to walk much, we opted out of doing any walks, but the fossil one looked cool. There were lots of people climbing all over a couple of sections. Some looked so awkward that I thought they might join me in the sprained ankle department. The loop was 24 miles long and there were heaps and heaps of people there. It was quite windy, but we braved the switchbacks, stopping here and there for some great photos. Some of the tops of the hill things even had grass plateaus! 
Then we were back on the I-90, continuing on to Sioux Falls. We missed the place where the Minuteman Missile Museum was, which was a bit disappointing, but it’s not my fault it wasn’t well signposted. And maybe we were a bit silly because we thought they were silos above the ground, but they are actually underground. By the time we realised we were already 25 miles down the road. Ooops! They are leftover from the Cold War and were some of those classic movie style missiles that required two people to simultaneously turn a key and then press a red button. Then some city (probably in the USSR) would’ve been obliterated. 

It was a long and epic drive. We passed places with funny names like Winner. A pretty flat and boring drive – lucky we have plenty of good music to listen to! Next stop was a McDonalds in a small town called Chamberlain. We checked our email and confirmed with Nicholas when we would be arriving in Sioux Falls. It was the worst Maccas internet ever and kept breaking up. Epic fail. 

Then we went to the Corn Palace at Mitchell. It was a bit of an effort to actually find it, as again, it wasn’t very well signposted once we got off the freeway. It was pretty corny and a little bit husky. And ear we were. (haha, enough puns already?!) It looked pretty cool! They use 275, 000 ears of corn to present a theme or idea. Every year they create a new design, using 13 different shades or colours of corn – which are grown carefully to maintain their colour. Apparently they even have green ears of corn! It was designed to show how agriculturally strong South Dakota is. Totally random and weird, but kind of cool! We bought some cute postcards and Will got me a lollipop that is in the shape of a piece of corn and apparently tastes like buttery corn or popcorn, which intrigued me!

Corn Palace! 
We followed Nicholas’ awesome, detailed instructions on how to reach their house and then we were there in their beautiful leafy suburb in Sioux Falls, only five minutes after our ETA. Their daughter Natalie made me a million cups of ‘tea’ to go with my cupcake (served in the teacup) and generous shakes of frosting. She is such a cutie! Meanwhile Mal and I caught up while the boys wreaked havoc on several beers (yes, Will is back on the wagon, after one night off – I couldn’t do it!!!). 
The little steak is antelope. 
After Natalie went to bed, we had dinner, which was awesome. We had delicious barbecued shrimp for appetizer (we told Nicholas to ‘put another shrimp on the barbie’ in our best Aussie accents – his imitation is pretty good!). And then a wicked surprised. ANTELOPE STEAKS!!! Which Nicholas caught himself and butchered. I got to see a picture of the antelope not long after it was shot – which was fine and didn’t make me queasy at all. Though it was a pretty pronghorn. We also had onions, mushrooms and a green pepper stuffed with crab and cheese and normal beef steaks. The antelope was delicious, very tender and only a tiny little bit gamey. Yum-o! The pepper was a bit hot, but I must be getting tough because I didn’t notice til the very end. Could’ve been the bacon wrapped around it disguised the heat hehe.

After dinner I introduced Mal to Angry Birds on her iPad and we showed them some photos of Australia, while eating Vianne’s orange brownies and some chocolate buds. The boys went down to admire Nicholas’ guns and hunting trophies (the skull and antlers of the antelope we ate) while the ladies were more civilised and chatted upstairs. Though I was shown a picture of a turkey that Nicholas had shot and put in the freezer – after getting it ready for roasting!!. We also saw a couple of flashing fireflies outside – too cool!

A good night sleep in an awesome comfy bed with the best pillows we’ve had on this trip (our Walmart ones are pretty good though!). 

Tuesday 9 August 2011

5th July - Deadwood to the Badlands, SD


Main street, Deadwood. 

We woke up before noon today (woo hoo!), feeling a little under the weather after our epic long weekend. Cory’s housemate came and picked us up and we collected the ‘fish’ car, then drove out to the Cabin. Cold brats for breakfast (Neil was right, they are delicious cold!), then it was time to say goodbye to our Deadwood/4th July family. Vianne gave us a huge bag of brownies, which we were both extremely happy about – yumo! It was sad saying goodbye to everyone as we’d had such a fun and amazing weekend with them! One we’ll never forget J. Thanks Kuceras! 

Then we went back to the apartment, did the laundry, cleaned and packed up our stuff and the garbage. We watched cable TV and saw that Casey Anthony was found not guilty as we waited for the dryer to finish. Still an exciting story though – sentencing on Thursday for her ‘lying to investigators.’ 

Will, Neil and I outside the cabin. 
T-Rex at Wall Drug. 
Will took a couple of photos from the roof and then it was time to leave that dangerous world of Deadwood. We headed along the freeway past Rapid City on our way to the Badlands. It was quite a long, not-so-exciting drive. We stopped somewhere random to quickly dump rubbish at a Macca’s (handy for all kinds of uses!). Apart from that, we didn’t stop til we got to the little town of Wall. I was excited to see the amazing store Wall Drug as apparently it is full of tacky, touristy goodness. It did not disappoint! We had some late lunch (onion rings – best I’ve had in the US - and fries. I haven’t had that many onion rings here, but the ones we’ve had were all battery and yuk. These were awesome!) and also sampled their free iced water and Will had a 5c coffee. Nothing spectacular, just machine coffee, but still 5c!! Good way to get rid of some of those pesky pennies. After that we explored most of the place as it was quite big! A chippy, moosey, postcards and state magnets (up to date now!) – all joined our roadtrip!! Yay! We saw a few huge stuffed bison and even a roaring T-Rex, which scared this eight-year-old kid so much he ran down the corridor where it was and away from his parents. Hilarious. I don’t think I’ve seen a kid so scared! There were lots and lots of jackelopes and so many tacky, tacky delights!! Then after scamming some free internet from outside a motel (Days Inn and Best Western hehe), we continued on to find a campground in the Badlands. 
Jackelope! 

We ended up at the Sage Creek Campground. On our way we passed prairie dogs, pronghorn antelope, bison and Will even spotted a wild turkey lurkey-ing in a long grass. Unfortunately our photo only really shows its head and neck. Gobble gobble though as it was our first sighting! Awesome!

The dark speck in the middle of the back of the grass is a turkey head! 
The actual campground was a strange circular-ish area in the open with picnic tables and covers dotted around the centre and parking around it. Best part = free!! No fires or water though. It was so hot, so we had a restless night’s sleep, but as we were both tired from our epic weekend, we did manage to get a few hours of z’s. After tasty chicken burgers, delicious brownies and listening to the sounds of mosquitoes buzzing and hitting the screens on the windows… 

July 4th - Deadwood III


Happy Independence Day USA!!!

We had another epic sleep-in (I was conscious again at about 3pm!). Then we spent some quality American time watching cable TV and eating burgers from Mustang Sally’s. A good celebration of the day methinks! Will did also catch a glimpse of the parade that went down the street.

Then it was time to start the real celebrating. Neil took us to Taco John’s for dinner (our first time at this place – apparently it is only really in the South Dakotan area) and he even gave us a cultural experience - a crazy looking Apple Grande. Basically it’s a sweet pizza type thing with chunks of apple on it, then ground up pink candy sugary stuff which makes it sweet and then…it is covered with cheese!! Will and I were a little perplexed by the idea, but bravely agreed to try it. It was definitely an interesting flavour, but certainly not unpleasant!

Aerial view of Deadwood from Jack's plane.
Picture stolen from Neil's Facebook hehe. 
We went to Lead and hung out at Neil’s cousin, Cory’s, place with him and his friends. We watched fireworks, got rained on and even saw a car with fireworks underneath it. Well, just spitting and letting off sparks, but still. At home you need a permit for fireworks, so it was kind of fun to know people were just randomly letting off fireworks wherever and whenever they pleased. I just wished I could see them all! The actual fireworks were ok, but didn’t last for long. Apparently the Mt Rushmore celebrations didn’t happen because they didn’t want to set off fireworks so close to lots of dry, dead trees. So you’d think they’d make Lead’s better to make up for it, but no! Some of the fireworks were pretty low, so I think there might have been some slightly singed people who were sitting to close to where they were setting them off! A few years ago apparently a whole heap went off accidentally and flew into the group – some scorched peeps, I reckon. Glad we weren’t too close! Then afterwards we went back inside, played with the two huge (but funny) dogs. Will had his All-American 40 ounce Bud Light. The boys told a story about an Edward bottle hands challenge. You tape one 40-ounce (1.18 litres) to each of your hands (2 bottles total) and then you can’t take them off until they are empty. Better drink fast, or else you could have some problems going to the bathroom! 

Then we headed for town. Back to… surprise, surprise… Saloon number 10! We caught up with Jack and Vianne. Vianne insisted on buying us t-shirts from the Saloon – we are now the proud owners of t-shirts from Deadwood, South Dakota! So awesome! Thanks guys! And then we proceeded to drink away the third 4 am night in a row! These Kucera people are killing us haha. So so fun!

We ended up back at the apartment, after picking up pizzas from up the road. We talked to the lady behind the bar at the pub where we got pizzas, who recognised us as Aussies. We’d just been commenting on a news story from home – can’t remember what it was exactly, but it was random! Back at the apartment, beers were drunk on the roof and pizza was demolished. Will and I went to bed a tad earlier than the previous nights (3am!) as we knew we’d be back on the road tomorrow. What a great real American 4th of July! 

Sunday 7 August 2011

July 3rd - Deadwood II


An incredibly lazy daylight day today. We didn’t get up til about 2pm as last night was a big night. Oops!

New friend! With the deer head she caught!
Vianne took us out for breakfast (well a late brunch) at the Cheyenne Crossing store. A delicious huge plate of bison sausage (yum!), eggs (I got confused by the options for cooking these so I went for scrambled ‘cos they don’t do poached), fried potatoes and half a loaf of toasted bread. Will’s coffee came from a machine and had enough sweetness to start a sugar factory. I enjoyed an OJ to get my taste buds going again after the drinking last night!

It was a slow day of lounging around on the couch and chatting to everyone. And then there was another gorgeous family dinner with the Kuceras – extended family as well this time. We met another cousin, aunts, uncles and even grandparents! It was great!! Everyone was so nice. Similar food to last night, but bigger quantities. Delicious. And Neil’s aunt made a beautiful yellow cake (not sure what sort), which was so so good! I don’t think I moved much after that – I just ‘rested’ my ankle haha.

A detour to Lead on the way to Deadwood(Lead is between Cheyenne crossing and Deadwood) – we stopped at the festival in town and Will and I tried our first Coors beer. Then we experienced a real wild bar(Blue Cactus)! There was a guy wearing a white shirt that was completely unbuttoned. He apparently had blood dripping from his face, but I didn’t see that! And I saw a cowboy (well, the boots, jeans and hat may have given that away) being punched by a guy and then he fell flat on the ground. Then the other guy picked him up and they hugged like the best of mates. Looked so full-on! And the floors were covered in peanut shells as they had whole peanuts in bowls everywhere for us to munch on. A random dog wandered in and around the drunk people, looking for attention. The $2 half-litre PBR beers added to final experience! 

Jager shot glass - upside down. 
Jager glass, right side up...
After that we went back to what is fast becoming our regular – Saloon number 10 in Deadwood. The floors are covered in sawdust – authentic cowboy saloon style! Plenty of animal heads and other history paraphernalia. Fake heads of Wild Bill, Jack McCall, Calamity Jane and Potato Creek Johnny. Anyway, the bouncer even recognised us haha. Still asked for ID though. I had some of the amazing sweet tea vodka I’d tried in Colorado – dangerous stuff! We met some more Deadwood and Lead folks, which was so fun! After the pub closed we headed to a house party in Lead. With a bottle of Jager. Pluses of the night apart from so much fun: being given an awesome Jager shot glass. It’s a stag head that stands on its antlers to become a shot glass. Works very well! And also a funky bead ring. Ahh, Leadians are so welcoming and nice! 

We said goodbye to the ‘3rd’ at 4am, though this was already the 4th and the only morning daylight we’d see was already creeping across the sky. Arghh! I even asked the cab driver if it was daylight up there in the sky. Oops. Cheap cab ride too. $10. Awesome. They have a funny system here. If there are 5 people in the maxi cab heading from Lead to Deadwood, the driver will stop and pick up other people to fill up the seats as he goes! Makes for a cheaper (but fuller) ride! Yet again, we got to bed about 4 am…

2nd July - Deadwood


We woke up early in order to get to the medical centre for a first come, first served appointment. I decided not to brave a shower, as I really couldn’t stand on my right foot. Eric had told me when he’d sprained his ankle his had swelled up heaps and turned purple with bruising.  Mine did no such thing. It was slightly swollen, but nothing purple or even remotely dark on it. So we went to the medical centre and waited just over half an hour (we were super early thanks to Will!), then it was time to go in and find out what had happened to my poor ankle. Will, my shining knight, managed to borrow a wheelchair for me, so it was my first time in a wheelchair! A little awkward for Will to push and for me to position my legs, but I could totally get used to be ferried around like that haha. And thank goodness for disabled toilets haha.

First came a nurse with lots of questions like whether I was up to date with tetanus shots, my occupation, how I hurt my ankle and what exactly were we doing in South Dakota??! Fortunately I had Dr Scott’s amazing international travel booklet, that has all the vaccinations I’ve had recently. I think I got it just before I went to China in ’05 – I had at least half a dozen shots. I remember one session where I had a shot in each arm and then the polio medicine, which tasted gross! Anyway, the nurse was impressed with it, as was Will. Then it was time to get an x-ray – the nurse did mention that my ankle could be broken. Argghh. I hope not. The nurse asked if I’d had an x-ray in South Dakota before and Will and I laughed. Apparently they have a new filing system which means that they can bring up any patient’s record on computer at any of the hospitals in the state. Pretty cool! Beats the paper trail that usually happens when someone is treated medically.

It was a huge x-ray machine hanging from the ceiling and I had to lie on my back and bend my foot left, right and straight up. Didn’t hurt, which was good! A few minutes wait and it was time to see the doctor. He said that I had a grade 1 or 2 sprain which wasn’t too serious, but that I wouldn’t be able to use it for a few weeks. He showed me some stretches I could do in a week or so, which would stop the cord at the back of my leg from shortening, as I would be wearing a boot for at least a week. Then the nurse brought in my sexy boot. It was huge! Black Velcro all the way! She showed me how to put it on, but I was too scared to walk on it, so Will wheeled me out. We paid our bill ($10 more than our insurance excess, so not really worth bothering with the paperwork) and left… I wanted to take the wheelchair too, but Will had to return it L. The doctor didn’t prescribe any painkillers, which was a relief as it meant I shouldn’t expect too much pain. He didn’t prescribe antibiotics either (unlike doctors in Oz!!), but he did say to get some Advil or other ibuprofen if it was hurting.

Then it was time to head to Deadwood! We stopped at Walmart and Will got me some Advil. First American painkillers! Deadwood is pretty close to Spearfish, but by the time we got there it was already pretty hot. There was no free parking anywhere, so Will parked me on a street up from the main street after we’d done a lap and he went down to check out the main street and maybe spot Neil, who we’d be hanging out with for the long weekend. No luck. We did a couple more laps of the main street, but didn’t have to follow the parade like we did the first time. We found a parking spot down at one end of the main street and parked there. It was time for me to try walking in the new boot. It was really hard! I felt so uncoordinated! I bet I looked really funny with one straight leg and my left leg doing all the work! My poor hip. We walked up the main street and then on the way back down decided to stop and have a leisurely lunch. We stopped at Mustang Sally’s, after waiting for a table, and had delicious big burgers with fries. Will had a beer and I had a coke. Ahh. It was nice to be sitting down, in the shade and eating!

We saw a guy with a little cart advertising the trial of Jack McCall, the guy who shot Wild Bill Hickock, but I honestly did not feel like limping down the street with hordes of tourists, so we stayed put. I had had enough trying to dodge them all standing outside tour booths, in the way, when I obviously had an injury. The crowds all rushed down to the trial, while we sat and watched the Deadwood bogans drive up and down the street in sports cars and monster-trucks with loud doof doof music blaring. I do like people watching and there were quite a few interesting people to watch! We finished lunch and headed back down to the car – slowly, for me! The hordes were heading back into town and didn’t really want to share the sidewalk, so Will walked ahead trying to clear a path for me. Didn’t stop one Indian lady from shouldering me. She said sorry, then made the mistake of looking down, seeing my boot and looking really guilty. Sucked in lady, that’s what you get for taking over the ENTIRE footpath with your six thousand children. Grrr. We saw Wild Bill, looking alive and well, joking with Jack McCall as we headed for the car. Obviously a good trial. Obviously it was over. We finally made it to the car and decided to try and find some internet to get in touch with Neil. Our phone hadn’t been working for a while.

We drove up the street, me with the laptop on and open on my lap. Finally we pulled up outside some houses and used the unlocked network we found hehe. As we were just getting sorted, some people stopped and said hello, and it was the British couple we’d been next to at the RV park! Random! They said they didn’t want to pay for parking, so they’d parked way up the street – not really an option of us in my current condition. Finally we made contact with Neil and we decided to head out to his family’s cabin at Cheyenne Crossing.

Fortunately we’d been given awesome detailed instructions on how to find the cabin, so we got there without getting lost! Will went and knocked on the door and Neil’s cousin’s wife answered the door – later she told that she thought Will was trying to sell her something! Until he mentioned Neil’s name! Too funny. We sat outside on the deck and talked to her for a while. Mal called Neil and said that we’d arrived. He and Mal’s husband had gone fly fishing just up the road.

Us with the fish car! 
They came back in the ‘fish car’ – an old white thing that spends its winters buried in snow. It was awesome! We met Mal’s husband, Nicholas, who is Neil’s cousin. We also met Neil’s parents, Jack and Vianne. Everyone was so welcoming, it was lovely! We told and retold the crazy story of how we met Neil and his friend, John, in Munich last year. I will quickly retell it. 

So last year Will and I were in Munich, staying with my friend, Martina. It was raining and horrible and Will and I were walking around not knowing where to go. We’d been to the Hofbrauhaus, a huge beer hall the day before, so we decided we’d head there and escape the rain. We were sitting at one end of a massive long table and Neil and John were at the other. In between us was a group of Asian people (I don’t remember, but Neil does) and then they left. Will and I played the ‘do they speak English’ game, but couldn’t hear as it was too noisy. I went to the bathroom and Will found the courage to ask them and they said yes! They’d been wondering if we were also speaking English! So we drank several more litres of beer with them! Facebook kept us in touch and we had dinner with both of them in San Francisco. Alcohol brought us together J.

Will and I accompanied Nicholas and Neil back to their fly fishing competition. There were lots of fish in a large pond just up the road. Not very big, but perfect for catch and release. They were popping up everywhere! It ended up a pretty close result, with Nicholas taking the lead late in the game and just as it started to rain. Crazy lighting up in the hills!

That evening we had my first American family dinner! Vianne cooked the most amazing dinner consisting of Bratwursts (brats), chicken, home baked ‘biscuits,’ coleslaw, salad and chocolate/orange brownies for dessert!! Jack did the grilling and Vianne encouraged everyone to eat their fill J.  I accidentally showed Nicholas up by identifying the secret ingredient of orange in the brownies – oops! It was delicious and we were so full afterwards!

Main street, Deadwood.
After dinner the boys went fishing, but I stayed at the cabin with the girls, which was nice – finally some girl time! Mal and Nicholas have the most beautiful daughter, so we watched her play while we chatted. At just under two years old, she is going to be a heartbreaker when she grows up! 

After the boys came back from fishing we went back into Deadwood to the apartment where we would be staying and started on our three night bender. We started at the Social Club, which is the bar above Saloon 10. Up until this point, I’d been drinking non-alcoholic beverages in the interest of looking after my ankle’s healing process. However, my lemonade was deliberately spiked by Neil (with grenadine. After I’d drunk it. ‘Oh yeah and a big shot of vodka’ haha, should have known that would happen!). After that I was back on the horse – Jager shots! We also had a ‘delicious’ shot that the bargirl recommended. It was gross. Whisky and butterscotch schnapps is not a good idea. It was basically straight crap whisky! Then it was on to Saloon 10. That place just kept dishing up the drinks…and somehow we ended up with tequila shots and various other drinks. Oops.

After the pub closed (2am) we played poker and drank Jager until 4am at the apartment, which is on the main street. Our poker ‘chips’ were Hershey’s kisses and mini Reese’s peanut butter cups (Reese’s pieces). The chips kept being eaten though! Then it was well and truly bed time.