We are in JFK airport about to fly to Auckland. Managed to get all six bags close or up to our 32kg limit. Jo will blame the fact I bought things like a compressed air operated hydraulic pump at the last bin store for putting up the weight which I can’t deny! But it was a bargain!

We drove through Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut before getting into New York City.

Last time I wrote we were about to leave Vermont and head into Canada. That didn’t happen, this did!

The kids were happy, they got to go catch frogs

Been a while!

We were hot footing it to Canada for July 1st for Canada day. Here are some photos, nothing too exciting. We have had a swim in Lakes Superior and Michigan and will do Huron next. Currently we are in Bruce Mines, a small town near Sault Saint Marie where we crossed the border. Just had a parade with fireworks etc. tonight. We have the RV parked in a restaurant parking lot right on the green where the festivities are happening. The band rotunda is about 10 meters from the door and we can stay there the night. Might be a late night though!

Made our way from Rapid City, South Dakota into the Badlands but before we hit the park we stopped for a donut and a missile exhibit.

https://www.nps.gov/mimi/what-is-so-special-about-this-place.htm

Had the virtual tour of the last remaining of S Dakota’s 15 missile control bunkers. The real tour was booked out months ago. The presenter was a retired missileer who worked there through the Cold war.

After learning how NOT to destroy the world we proceeded into Badlands National Park.

We went though the visitors centre, procrastinating as much as possible to avoid being outside in the heat before setting off for a walk taking advantage of the shade provided by the afternoon sun.

The kids were probably most interested in the small striped squirrels (which I don’t have a photo of on my phone). We decided much to their dissatisfaction that we would sign up for the Junior Naturalist program the next morning at 8am to hopefully avoid the heat. The only problem was that we didn’t have a place for the night and drove 45 minutes and out of the park to find some dispersed camping on BLM land (Buero of Land Management). We had lots of neighbors all parked along the rim, it was a cool spot even if we had to get up early to drive back to the visitors centre. I’m glad we did though as even at 8am it was sweltering, the rangers did a good program and the kids even found some new fossils that weren’t planted!

We are now in Bismarck North Dakota after boosting up from Badlands and will head to Grand Forks today to meet my cousin who is coming down from Winnipeg.

We got on the road from Gillette “the best a man can get” with the idea that we would go to Spearfish for the night. We asked the kids if they would be happy to go another hour and get to Rapid City and have Sam’s Club pizza for dinner, which was a resounding yes! Only it didn’t happen! We boosted to get there on time but apparently they run out of pizzas! Even worse, because we went through Spearfish we missed the opportunity to go to where Dances with Wolves was filmed and where Kevin has a museum etc.. I was informed it was only me missing out on that one!

The next day was going to be better, after staying the night at Sam’s Club we headed down to Windcave National Park..,. unfortunately the cave is closed due to a new elevator being put in. We had a talk from Adrian (Coyote Boy) about the origins of the Lakota people and the kids got photos with a Cybertruck in lieu of going caving.

Katie wants one, but they only come in five seats.

So we drove through Custer State park to see some animals and do the Junior Naturalist program only to find that we had run out of time to do all the activities for the girls to get their badges and would have to come back another day. It was not working out well!

So we headed up towards Mount Rushmore hoping to see the faces lit up at night. It was not looking good as the fog had been setting in all day and there was nothing to see. We decided to stay the night in a pullout just out of the National Park area and hope for clear skies the next day and it paid off! This morning we could actually see the trees…..and more.

We got some great views of the presidents and as we left they were completely clouded over again. We drove around to Crazy Horse and got a good view of him too. Crazy Horse is still being chipped away at after 75 years and still has a long way to go but will be very impressive when done.

So Today was going well, we even went back to Custer and the girls finished their programs and got their patches and we even got back to Rapid City and got pizza from Sam’s club!

Ended up skipping Teton national Park and went straight into Yellowstone through the west entrance in Montana. Happened to get awful winds with trees down and tourist’s hats and sun glasses strewn over the no go areas. The kids did their Junior ranger programs and did the young scientist program as well.

We have more than once been asked if we’ve seen the New Zealand Geysers….maybe one day!

Had a good second day, saw Old faithful for the second day and also Grand before heading up to see the ‘Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone’ and the waterfalls that go with it.

We then headed out through the east entrance to Cody Wyoming. Charlotte was saying that we were going to see a bear next, we take it for granted that she was only three when we last saw one. So on the way out we rounded a corner and people were gathering and we got a look at a mother Grizzly and cub.

We then went around another couple of corners and came across another Grizzly, and then just to be silly we stopped up a bit more and spotted another down in the valley. Getting fed up with seeing Grizzly bears we got out of the park as quickly as possible without looking at any more animals!

Headed into Cody, named after William Cody aka Buffalo Bill. The home of rodeo according to their sign at least. So we went to the Nite Rodeo that’s on every summer night for the last 80 odd years. Just happened that it was blowing a gale and really cold. Still we had a great time with our puffer jackets, wollen hats and blankets. A bit of a change from the 30+ degrees we had a few days earlier. We found it hilarious that they still managed to fit advertising in between acts all on horseback!

Got snow as we drove at 8000ft towards Gillette (the best a man can get) Wyoming. Today we headed off to Devils tower and will head to Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore tomorrow. Camping out in another Sam’s club tonight.

Headed off to Idaho falls this morning passing through Arco, the first town to be powered by atomic energy. Turns out we were driving through the Idaho national laboratory which is where much of the nuclear research has been conducted. I took a little detour to visit EBR1, “The birthplace of nuclear power”.

There is a fantastic museum, well worth the visit. It did cut into the George and Jo’s plan for the day of visiting a bin store where returns/end of line stuff from the likes of Amazon are sold at a single price. Starting at $7 each today then $6 tomorrow etc.. Although we got there a little later than hoped (by some) we still managed some bargains, some better than others. I got a new starter motor for the lawn mower and a motorised valve! How do you compete with that? The others: a school bag, SSD drive and earrings to name a few. The 12 pack of expired Cheeto flavored Mac and Cheese were surprisingly tasty!

We ended the day with $1.38 All beef hot dog and drink from Sam’s club, (Walmart’s answer to Costco) the hot dog combo is $1.50 at Costco! Win for Sam’s club! Unfortunately, free refills of fizzy drink are a terrible combination. Mainly because they feel like they have to get as many refills as possible. Unfortunately, Sam’s club doesn’t have root beer! Win for Costco! Sam’s Club does however allow you to stay the night in their car park. Both have pretty good fuel prices. We paid $3.09/Gallon today. Which is helpful since we only get 8 miles to the gallon.

We will head into Jackson tomorrow and do Grand Tetons National park and try stay the night in National Forest before heading into Yellowstone the next day.

After spending a couple nights in Seattle with Jo’s relatives, we made our way down to Benton City in a rental car to become reacquainted with the RV that we left with Mark and Charissa. We left it with them for nine months ish….five years ago!

I had a few things to do before we got on the road again while also trying to dodge the hornets that had made their homes in the nooks and crannies which just happened to be in the same places I was fixing things. I did get a little fright when under the vehicle changing the oil. I heard a buzzy sound and I thought nothing of it at first then remembered Mark saying that the rattlesnakes around don’t rattle they make more of a zzzzz sound, fortunately it was just the oil pan vent! The next day however, Charlotte spotted one near the chickens!

It was a giant, all of at least 12 inches (rattlesnakes don’t come in metric). It was hiding under the wood pile, so armed with a plastic bat and wearing our best New Zealand safety Jandals, we moved the wood pile to get a better look. Steve Irwin would be impressed, that is until Mark removed the sharp end! I wanted to at least put it in some Tupperware for a night!

Since we’re all experts now, I should inform the uninformed that the baby ones are more dangerous than the big ones because they can’t control their venom and will inject everything they have into a threat whereas the mature snakes don’t see you as prey and don’t want to waste on something they can’t eat. That’s the reptile lesson for today!

We got on the road after four nights there and drove though Oregon and into Idaho on the interstate all the way. Had a semi truck swerving to the side of the road and back, I didn’t want to stick around when he fell completely asleep, as we passed him we could see that he was hooked up to oxygen! Hmmm.

Had a good little visit to our first interpretive centre, the kids did the junior ranger program there learning about the Oregon trail. I reckon the writer of 1883 must have gone there and written the entire script after a wonder. One of the writings mentioned 8 to 12 foot rattlesnakes back in the early 1800s, they were probably quite tame back then though! And weren’t metric then either!

Had our first night in Boise, Idaho near the Hilton….in a Cracker Barrel car park next door.

The last time we were in the RV was five years ago, the kids have aged and grown a collective 20 years, last time they all slept in a pile like where the wild things are, now they want weird things like….space, and they are the wild things! Haha. They’re  going to have to stop growing as the sleeping arrangements are getting a bit tight and now every time one of those lumps move, the RV moves, I’ll have to start putting down the jacks.

Today, after visiting Walmart and 🎯, I got ours phones and air conditioning working. Hopefully both keep working, especially the air con! We proceeded on to Craters of the moon national monument to learn about lava! Unfortunately, I didn’t take many photos on my phone so can’t put them on here right now. Tomorrow we will make our way towards Jackson Wyoming and Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National parks.