3) Devil's Tower, WY

This day had a lot of driving and touring crammed in. Guilty. Day's mileage - 380.

The last stop was a National Monument Campground at Devil's Tower, Wyoming. It was reached on a hilly back-roads highway as the sun faded.

The plan was to camp for the night, then tour in the morning. We used our National Parks Senior Pass for reduced camp fees - $6, dry camping.

May 15
I got up first, took a brief walk to see the sights in early morning light. I came across a prairie dog village/town/city adjacent to the campground. The critters are on the endangered list, so the nearest part of the campground was closed to vehicles. The 'dogs seemed to be doing well, they may end up owning the whole park.

After breakfast, we drove to the base of the tower. It was very quiet, with few people around when we arrived. Later, business was picking up. We enjoyed the solitude.

There is a mile+ paved path around the tower which we took at a leisurely pace. It is spectacular. There were a few parties in the process of climbing the tower. The night before we saw a solitary light half-way up it, apparently from someone who was night-climbing.

Ginnie at the edge of the rubble field. We weren't supposed to go higher than that without a permit; fine with us.

The climbers shown below are in this picture. How good are your eyes?

Use your imagination. This rock chunk has flat sides, ~6 sides in cross section and fell off the tower.This shot is looking end-0n.

2) Mt. Rushmore, SD

We were glad to see this, but it wasn't one of our highest priorities. We didn't give it its due, time was a constraint. There were hordes of other tourists along with us, snapping pictures all along the way.

1) Chamberlain, SD to The Badlands, SD

Up at 7:00am CDT (bodies still on EDT, RV on CDT), we had our usual breakfast of cereal and fruit. We didn't make coffee or cocoa, thinking that we would get same at a nearby fuel stop. We soon crossed the Missouri River (the first of many times, details to follow; take a guess at how many) headed towards our first fueling.

We had our first episode of the gas pump shutting down at $100, waiting for another pass of the credit card to fulfill a fill. Two other classmates pulled into the same station after us. Jean (John?) asked me "you spent $157 on gas?!?". They were still filling. I replied "have a nice day!" to which he broke up, laughing. Get used to it.

It was going to be a great touring day.

First stop, The Badlands of South Dakota. Incredible scenery, incredible terrain to try to cross before roads were built.

First sighting

This picture sums it up, squiggly road, beautiful but rough terrain, picture shot out the window from a moving Winnebago. Ginnie did a great job shooting on the run.

Forest City, IA to Chamberlain, SD

We had a decent night's sleep in spite of the tilt to the RV. The morning was clear and mild. Our orientation session was at 10:35, so we had time to wander the grounds, look over the outside of the rig [figuring out where to stash stuff], and partake of the complimentary continental breakfast at the meeting house prior to our session.

Early birds got orientation as early as 8:00am, but that means they are due at Great Alaskan Holidays at 8:00am on the final day. We'll take 10:35.

That's 5303, our rig, looking at you.

Iowa has your energy future covered - corn, perhaps for ethanol .. or tortillas, and wind. There were many windmills in Minnesota as well, but they disappeared when we hit South Dakota.

We drove for a while, homing in on a WalMart supercenter just off I-90. There we saw 5-6 other classmates (we kept trying to come up with a label for our colleagues in this 'venture) who had the same idea. We took time an eternity for a sandwich (the world's slowest Subway franchise) before shopping, then spent quite a bit of time stocking up. When we got on the road, the planned overnight stop was 240 miles ahead of us ... and it was 4:00pm. Ugh. I really wanted to make it that far to the shores of the Missouri River, so we toughed it out and kept driving which was virtually all on I-90. The day's mileage was 320.

Iowa (what we saw) and Minnesota had miles of freshly plowed fields, not many farm animals. South Dakota (so far) has more farm animals and grazing fields.

We made it to the American Creek campground in Chamberlain, SD. The park was quite nice, somewhat wooded. We fired up the grill and cooked dinner on the picnic table as the light faded.We had full hookups this night.

The next morning:

the plan

We fly to Minneapolis - St. Paul, then catch a charter bus to the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa. We spend the night in the new RV and get a chance to settle in. The next morning we have an orientation session, at which we probably sign our lives away before getting the ignition keys. Off we go to some emporium to provision, then westward ho!

A few days later, we hang a right somewhere around Old Faithful and head north to Banff, Jasper, and Dawson Creek where, after ~2500 miles, we finally get to the Alaska Highway for another ~1500 miles. Then to Denali for a few days including a bus tour as far as they go into the park that early in the season, to Seward for a couple of days with perhaps a Fjord tour by boat, a glacier or two, ... who knows? Our only constraints are that we start May 13 in Iowa and finish May 31 in Anchorage.

The planned itinerary has us spending 5 nights in the lower 48 (including the night at the factory), 8 nights in Canada, 6 nights in Alaska, and 1 night on an airplane on the return.

Early [and changeable] plans sketched out on Google maps ...

We hope to blog along the way, uploading when wi-fi is available, limited by how much typing and photo editing we can realistically do on a tablet computer.

June, back home, laundry done, lawn mowed, let the rewriting begin...

Our flights to MSP were fine, even early, which gave us ~5 hours to kill before the charter buses would arrive. Airports are designed for arriving passengers to collect their luggage, then get out of there. So a group of 100+ waiting for buses, looking for dinner, etc., taxes the system. There is indoor waiting space with limited seating at the bus depot, one restaurant accessible outside security, and a couple of sandwich vendors. The weather was good while we were there, and many fellow trekkers waited outside.

The buses arrived ~on time, then we all had to sort out which bus we were assigned to. In spite of dire warnings about the buses not waiting, the drivers seemed quite intent on making sure all were aboard.

The trip to Forest City was relaxing since we weren't driving. That all changes tomorrow. The RVs were waiting, the staff unloaded our luggage, then we got to move in for the night. In order to test systems, we were set up for dry camping the first night with staff from Winnebago available the next morning to tend to any problems.

We tested all the hardware and systems and had no problems. A good start.

[ * 'venture - what our delightful granddaughters call an adventure ]

history

Way back in 2001, I read an article about renting RVs in Alaska in an airline magazine that I saved. I sent for more information, but it wasn't in our near-term plans. The next year the company sent information on their spring migration that involved driving an RV from the factory to Alaska. That's how they get their new fleet to home base. That was an interesting concept, but it was pushed back in the queue, though not forgotten.

Fast-forward a decade and a bit, and here we are, heading to Alaska. We are doing the Spring Adventure Package with Great Alaskan Holiday driving one of their new RVs from Iowa to Anchorage.

We will have a 25' Winnebago Chalet. The plan is for pretty tame camping, bears not withstanding. The rig is self-contained with generator, water tanks, furnace, etc. Hope it all works.

We will spend nights at a variety of facilities ranging from commercial full hook-up RV parks to dry-camping (you're on your own) at National, State or Provincial Parks.

It's time!