final post

This is our final blog entry. We have been home about 24 hours and in some ways it seems as if we never left, but yet, we are all so full of the wonders of the last few weeks.

We left Yellowstone on Wednesday morning (is that possible???) heading north into Montana and then back into Wyoming and then South Dakota. A long day of driving, but with beautiful scenery through the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian Reservations. We made a token stop at Wall Drug. We landed in Keystone, SD just a few miles from Mount Rushmore. We had been spoiled by the relative lack of tacky tourist traps with all the National Parks. Keystone is on a par with Old Orchard Beach, except there is no ocean. We were lucky to speak to  a park ranger at Mount Rushmore who took a lot of time explaining the history of the monument and the efforts required to finish it. We left more informed and engaged than we had anticipated being. (But that has been a common theme on this trip).

More hours in the truck later, we arrived in Correctionville, Iowa. No, it was not named after a prison, but rather a surveyor’s tool to document the area. Small, friendly town with not a lot going on (or so it seemed) but a sweet little state park with river meadows and our first lightning bugs of the season. Largely agricultural landscape with towns few and far between.

Still more hours through rural landscapes. A nice stop in Iowa City and the Prairie Lights Bookstore. We ended up in South Bend, Indiana (references to Notre Dame everywhere) and the vistas began to change to more urban/suburban, although we crossed the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers within an hour. We had been listening to an audio book of Huckleberry Finn and it was easy to see how a raft could float down the rivers and find comfortable hiding places.

More hours in the truck. Everybody relatively cheerful but at this point ready to be home. Lake Erie to our left. We stopped in Rochester, NY on Friday. All those nights that Martin spent commuting to Springfield and staying in hotels payed off as we had a free 2-bedroom suite complete with full kitchen. State parks in NY require 48 hour reservations; we had been hoping to spend our last night camping. But we were able to see another minor league baseball game (The Rochester Red Wings (Minn) vs the Norwich Tide (Baltimore?) – triple A) A nice park in the middle of town and lots of enthusiatic fans.

We criss-crossed the Erie Canal and arrived home on Saturday. I was glad to see the poppies and lilacs still in bloom.

It will take us weeks, months, years to digest what we have seen. It has been beyond our best hopes. We realize how fortunate we are to have been able to do this. A special thanks to Ted, for minding the house and the animals; to Mary and Poppy, for help with travel arrangements and especially the rafting trip; to both our families for their encouragement and support; to Barre Town Elementary  and Middle School (especially Mary Bowers) for their support; to my colleagues at CVHHH for their encouragement and for filling in for me; to all who have read and commented on the blog. We appreciate the support.