From Buffalo,Wyoming to Billings, Montana

 Since Billings is only about 2.5 hours away, we got up, had breakfast and went for a hike up Grouse Mountain.  We hiked for almost 11km and had nice views.  Nothing spectacular but lovely nonetheless.  During our hike, Remi hit a rock with his toe that already hurts because of his latest gout attack.  He was a trouper and kept going.  Near the top of our hike, we met a group of mountain climbing cows! They looked at us like we didn't belong... 

After our hike, we had lunch at Dash-in - a fast food joint that last night's server recommended.  We had fried chicken and lemonade.  It was decent - actually better than KFC - nice and crunchy without the oil dripping.

We made our way to Billings - gotta love the 80 miles/hour highways!  It gets you places! Ontario could learn a thing or two about highways!  The road here is not boring, but boring.  There are no trees, only dead looking grass and mounds.  It's pretty for a while but then...

Once in Billings, we stayed at the hotel for the rest of the afternoon.  It's crazy hot here it was 34.  It's a dry heat - so much different from Ottawa.  You feel like you are burning!  My hands actually feel somewhat better in this dry heat (arthritis in hands is no joke - some days, I can't even make a fist it hurts so much).

We did have dinner at Cracker Barrel - we were really excited!  We first saw this restaurant in Nebraska and wanted to go.  We thought we had missed our chance until... What are the chances? There are 2 of these restaurants in all of Montana and one of them is 5 minutes from our hotel!  Cute restaurant, good food.

We are spending tomorrow in Billings - planning on a couple outings and then paddle boarding in the afternoon.

Farm animals:  Cows and horses

Birds: Mountain bluebird, grouse (they were too fast for a picture), turkey vultures, some other little bird, flicker?, robin, chickadee -not sure if it was black capped or mountain

Road Kill: porcupines - lots of them.  Why are there porcupines here? There are no trees... pronghorn looking thing - can't be sure as it was mush... but it was big so...

Wild animal: pronghorn, butterflies

From Ogallala, Nebraska to Buffalo Wyoming

 

Let's start with a funny story - we are driving down the highway - two lanes, 65miles an hour - we've just had lightning and thunder, everything is good and beautiful when all of a sudden, I see something in the middle of the road.  I yell Oh my God! Oh my God! an armadillo!!  I hit the breaks, turn around only to find a turtle.  Duh- I know there are no armadillos in Nebraska - they live south of the states... why did my eyes/brain see an armadillo?  I have no idea!  Rémi will never let me forget that one I'm sure.

I'm still happy I got to see this turtle - it's one I've never seen before - I've been identified it as a Blanding's turtle.  We have some in Ontario but I've never seen one.  Yip! Yip! 

Our one planned stop was Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska.  Yup, a little weird but fun nonetheless!  

Second story - this one not as funny - it's kind of sad.  We stopped in Wyoming somewhere for lunch. I'm wearing my Be equal t-shirt. In the restaurant, as we were eating, some man had a comment about having the right pronouns to be able to use the bathroom, and laughing - I didn't think much of it at the time, just that it was an ignorant comment.  We left the restaurant and went right next door to fill up before continuing on our way when all of a sudden, some cute older man knocked on my window.  I put it down halfway to see what he wanted.  He says: "When I saw your t-shirt, I knew you definitely were not from Wyoming - in fact, I see you are from a different country!"  To which I replied that yes, we are very accepting of differences and people.  He then asked where we were headed to.  When I told him we were headed to Montana, he made a face.  I think he was thinking they are even worse than Wyoming (in being open-minded). Maybe I read more into it, but it sure felt real.  He thanked me, and wished us a good trip.

We had dinner at Bozeman Trail Steakhouse - yuck - but we had the sweetest cutest waitress ever!  She was super friendly and gave us some ideas of things to do for tomorrow.  After dinner, we walked in the downtown section to see some amazing artwork.  Have a look at a few samples.  Buffalo, Wyoming- quite the quaint little town! 

A new business perhaps?  I don't think we have one in Ottawa... Inside, you can find a large tub with a ramp for the dog to get in, a soap machine, water.

Farm animals of the day:  you guessed it cows!  I'm starting to think there are more cows and people in
Nebraska! a cat, horses, a donkey and buffalo.

Wild animals: pronghorn 

Birds: lots of birds of prey - red tailed hawk, turkey vultures (sunning),
something I think is a grosbeak, blackbirds, pelicans, ibis, mallards, coots, night herons, great blue heron, shore birds (will have to have Sophie identify them for me)

Road kill: fox, turtle (not my turtle, I saved it), some little creatures like mice maybe?

Random thoughts:

• Nebraska is interesting - has everything from tall grass, to grasslands that look dead, rock walls, trees, corn fields.  It's a special place! 
• Wyoming so far has a lot of grass land - it looks yellow and dead.  You can see white capped head in the cloud mountains in the distance - we followed the Big Horn range - nice! 
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From Des Moines to Ogallala

 Today ended up being an interesting day.  We drove about 6 hours.  When traveling, we like to make our driving no more than 6 hours.  That way, we have time to stop and walk and see things -not that there was much to see today.

Did you know that Iowa has over 5 500 wind turbines? That's a lot of ugly but beautiful windmills.  No wonder we could see them as far as the eye could see!  Why do I say ugly and beautiful?  Well, in theory, it's great to use renewable energy - that's the beautiful part.  In reality, how many birds are killed each year because of the woosh woosh sound, or get sucked in? I found this website to give more information.  Good for them for trying to go greener.

After about an hour and a half, we arrived at our first destination - Avoca, Iowa.  A spider structure made with an old VW Beetle.  Fun!  We had seen it online and had planned to stop and take a peek.  It was only about 2 miles from the highway so not bad.

In Iowa, there doesn't seem to be a speed limit for anyone - even though it's clearly marked 75Miles/hour.  You get passed by everyone - and I mean EVERYONE!  It's scary to see a Transport truck coming in behind your seemingly out of control, pass you and lose them from sight within a couple minutes... NUTS!  We did see a truck on its side - so no, this doesn't only happen in Hearst.  The traffic was backed up for KMs!  Good thing they diverted traffic to another road further up. I sure was glad I was going the opposite direction! In Nebraska, trucks have to have speed limiters - which makes way more sense to me.

What else happened today... We pretty much just drove to our next stop as there wasn't much of interest on I80W.  Ogallala here we come.

Ogallala is sort of a small dinky town in Nebraska.  We arrived at our hotel a little early (2:30).  The lady at the front would not let us register - she was such a peach (not).  I don't think she knows to "Smile, it's free".  We try to get some information on what to do here - she couldn't muster up much information other than there a lake.  That's what people do. They go to the lake.  Ok...Thanks?  We set off on an adventure to find Lake McConaughy.  I had to stop somewhere to get directions to the lake.  It's difficult not having internet service to look things up! We found a beach where we could drive right up to the water, blow up the paddle boards and get out on the water.  What a lovely way to end a long day in the car! 

Once we got back to the hotel, we walked to a nice little authentic Mexican restaurant.  We sit down when all of a sudden, our phones start buzzing really loudly -you know that sound alerting you of possible imminent danger... it's a  tornado alert!  Luckily, no tornado hit the restaurant.  It got really windy and rainy, but it passed and the sun came back out.  

This was the best food we've had since leaving Ottawa.  Yum!  I had a Mexican stir-fry and Rémi had Taco Pastor. 

Birds: Oriole, kill deer, swallows, red wing black bird and birds we don't have at home so I don't know what they were, birds of prey, pelican, turkey vultures.

Farm animals: Cows and horses

Road Kill: raccoons and more raccoons - whole families of raccoons too.

Random thoughts:  

• Wisconsin was the prettiest so far - they have wildflowers along the road - purple, yellow, white all mixed.  So pretty.
• I'm tired of seeing corn fields.  What the heck do we need this many corn fields? Can't they grow anything else?
• Nebraska brings a welcomed change of scenery - more trees, less corn and bare mountains in the distance - what I would call bad lands - very dry.
• There are rattlesnakes and bull snakes in Nebraska.  Keep your eyes and ears open.
• Darn it - I think we missed our chance to eat at Cracker Barrel.  Maybe tomorrow - fingers crossed. 

in front of our hotel

Appleton Wisconsin to Des Moines Iowa

In a nutshell:

Huge air show in Oshgosh - as we left Appleton, we saw cloud pictures in the sky made by the airplanes.  This must be a huge deal as there were so many cars - incredible! Here's a smily face - there was also OSH22 written in clouds.

Drove to our first stop: The pink elephant.  To get there, we drove through small roads surrounded by corn fields - you know... exactly like in horror movies!  As you can see, it is indeed a big pink elephant!  We continued on our merry way
after taking a couple photos. 

Our next stop was 1.5 hours later: Dickeyville - The Shrine of the Grotto of Redemption.  I don't know what to say about this place... It is spectacular - the priest who created this truly was an artist. It was worth the little detour for sure!  You can see the grotto here.  There was also a water fountain and other Shrines all depicting the life of Jesus.

There were even a couple bird motels with house sparrow nests in there. 

In Dubuque, right at the border of Iowa and Wisconsin, on the mighty Mississippi river we stopped at Eagle Point Park .  It's an amazing park with great views of the Mississippi river.  If you know what you are looking at (which we didn't) you could see 3 states: Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois.  

In the parking lot, park, we were "lucky" to see a  real live soap opera.  Some teenagers/young adults fighting and throwing things, swearing, baseball bat, pushing, shoving, the whole shebang - it was a sight. I could've gone without and be happy...

After walking in the park for a little, we continued on to our last destination of the day: Des Moines.  We arrived at our hotel, registered and went out to our car to get our luggage.  Brought in the room and were leaving for dinner at the Zombie Burger when 3 police cars showed up.  No idea why but it didn't give us a good feeling.  Dinner was good - similar to The Works but all zombie related names and decorations.  We also stopped at a chocolaterie - we bought some
chocolate and fancy cotton candy.

We drove downtown a little to see and came upon this gorgeous building - the State Capitol - wow - it's a beauty! 

Birds of the day: Pelicans, cormorants, chickadee, goldfinch, turkey vulture, Canada geese and a few birds of prey - I suck at recognizing them so birds of prey it is.

Farm animals: goats, sheep, dairy cows, brown cows, black cows, cows cows cows and horses.

Roadkills: lots of raccoons, skunk, and non-identifiable animals

Weird things for today: 

Gas station name... who ever thought of that??

Lady's waxing place... really?  Hilarious! 

From "the Soo" to Appleton Wisconsin

Remi going to Walmart.

Our first stop of the day, believe it or not, was Walmart!  We brought a few movies and episodes to watch as we wind down in the evenings... Of course, we were missing a wire, and as we were walking through the Walmart, Remi remembered he also forgot a towel.  After our Walmart excursion, off we went to continue the adventure.

When you cross into the States from Sault Ste Marie, you cross over a gigantic bridge.  It's 3.2 km long.  You pay $5.10 Canadian or $4 American to enter the USA.  Pretty uneventful deal - usual questions: where are you going, what for and do you have anything to declare.  Lastly, are you vaccinated.  Malta, Montana, pick up our child, no and yes.

The waves were quite large!
You wouldn't want to fall in! 

Our picture with the lighthouse.

Let's say that Michigan isn't very scenic. At least not the road we took.  Michigan is just as boring as going to Hearst.  Trees, trees and more trees.  We thought that following along the lake would mean we would actually see the lake... WRONG! we saw it a few times but nothing like what we expected.  Oh well.  We did stop in Manistique. There was a boardwalk sand dunes on what side, beach on the other.  The boardwalk led us to a red lighthouse.  The waves here were something else!  I couldn't even look on one side of the walkway as I felt so nauseous from the movement of the water.  It brought me back to whale watching and feeling ill the whole time!  Near the lighthouse, the big waves hit the rocks and splashed over the breakwater.  It was a beautiful stop - about 1.3 km walk just enough to stretch our legs a little.  

Walking the trails.

We continued on to Appleton, Wisconsin - our destination for the night.  We didn't realize we would be turning our clocks back an hour already so we arrived a little early.  We checked to see what was around and we found a nice nature conservation area called Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve.  What a gem!  Here you can find nicely maintained trails - some forested, some fields, around ponds, along a creek - a nice variety. We walked for 5km, taking lots of pictures of flowers, birds and insects to add to iNaturalist.   

We had dinner at Perkins - let's just say we won't be eating there again.  Not my cup of tea.

Indigo bunting

First bird we saw today: sandhill crane - in the middle of the road at the border crossing

Other birds: chickadee, wild turkey, quail, eastern blue bird, white breasted nuthatch, downy woodpecker, indigo bunting, mourning dove, waxwing, common yellowthroat, peewee, song sparrow

Animals: turtles, toads, frogs, and snake

Insects: bumblebees, carrion beetle, butterflies, Japanese golden beetle (a pest), jagged ambush bug, various dragonflies.

Roadkills: raccoons, skunks, deer, opossum, crow, gull

grasshopper

ambush bug

Montana Bound

Adventures have been sparse in the past 2 years.  Other than Toronto once and Hearst a few times, we haven't been anywhere since our trip to the Alps because Covid Pandemic.  

Leaving Ottawa

Sophie is working in Montana for the summer, so we decided to go pick them up instead of having them fly back.  Great way for Rémi and I to go on an adventure.  Since we've been to Montana before, we will be making a longer route and going down to Iowa and Nebraska, 2 states we have not seen before.  We left this morning and made our way to our first stop:  Sault Ste-Marie, Ontario.  It was a pretty uneventful day of just driving.

In a nutshell:

• Tons of traffic . 
• Two groups of "freedumb convoy" - slowing traffic big time - I would've been swearing had I had to follow them... luckily for us, they were headed the opposite way.  What the hell do they want this time? 
• Many large groups of motorcycles - wondering if they were coming back from their outing in Toronto earlier this week?
• Beautiful sunshine and views.
• A near accident - some dumbass almost pushed us into the ditch so they wouldn't have a head-on collision. Perhaps she should've left earlier if she was in a such a hurry.
• Lunch in North Bay.
• A walk along the waterfront.
• Ice Cream at Holy Cow.
  
• A night at the Water Tour Inn.

Click on photos for bigger view. 

Sault Ste Marie

  

Wondering if the Coastguard eat
Beavertails instead of doughnuts? 

Fun with the cows

Remi's turn!