12 Oakdale

June 13th There is always a work around. I just realized I can creat a Google Note without cell service. Even if I can’t save it, I can take a screen shot. I’m back! I knew there was no cell service at the campground, but I had counted on being able to connect to the internet at the visitor centers with our cellular data. Which we could, if we had a different service provider. We can text. That’s it. And so far, I haven’t been able to send pictures.  I chose this service because it was the best in Okinawa. Time to change, which I can’t do until we get home because I can’t connect to the internet.  In the meantime, we will text when we can, then perhaps use WhatsApp when we go out of the park. June 8th: Arriving Other than the motels that advertised breakfast and didn’t actually have one, today’s was the worst: a paper bag containing a banana, bad bears claw pastry, and canned OJ. We put the pastry in the front window to warm and went to search for breakfast which we found at ...

Buffalo, Wyoming has a charming downtown with lots of chichi shops mixed in with the usual tourist fudge and ice cream stands. Since I don’t want to add Western art to my tiny house nor extra pounds to my non-so tiny waistline, we passed on doing the sidewalk stroll.  We’d hoped to get Clara into a children’s art class at the museum, but it was full. On towards Yellowstone. On the way out of town, we stopped by the Mountain Meadow wool factory where they start with local sheep fleece which they spin and dye into beautiful yarns. We watched the process from a second floor balcony which had good placards explaining the process. They also machine knit knit small quantities of high end woolen products.  University of New Mexico and other colleges that raise wool sheep send their fleece here to be made into custom blankets.  Beautiful yarn, but my shoulders hurt too much to consider knitting, especially after a rough ride into the parking lot with a couple of unexpected deep p...

Driving out to Devil’s Tower National Monument pulls up my awe at the people who made these trips before superhighways and big cars. Shank’s mare or even riding on horse back would make the trip more than I’d probably want to do.  On our drive through Custer State Park, we met two beautifully restored Ford Model T’s (or their equivalents, not knowing anything about old cars). That evening, they were parked at the motel next door in Keystone, so I could see their California licenses plates. Did they drive those open top roadsters all the way? Without AC? I assume via blue highways because I doubt they can drive the required minimum 40 miles per hour for the interstates. How long would that take? It’s 1200 miles one way to Sacramento, farther to other places. Perhaps a whole summer to come and go. Lots of bugs along the way, if our windshield is any indication. We were lucky to get the last parking place at Devil’s Tower, only because Grant went in the out to double back and grab it ...

The Badlands were amazing, even after seeing them over 60 years when my family did a cross-country trip. Not quite as hot, just because we are here in June rather than late July. I complained then that I was hot, to which my unsympathetic mother replied, “It’s not hot!”. Yes it was, 104° on the ranger’s station thermometer. At least our long hair dried quickly in the hot air. This was all without air conditioning in the car. Now I refuse to drive 15 minutes to the grocery store without AC. Outside of the park, I saw a pronghorn and deer (whitetail?). Inside, we saw bison, prairie dogs, more pronghorn and deer, and after stopping where another car was pulled over, a mountain goat. Clara then spotted 2 more goats and a baby one. No piles of rocks could compete with that, even Mount Rushmore. The more I think about it, the more I am flummoxed that someone was inspired to sculpt huge heads out of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, before there were really even roads to get there. The hum...