MY 50-STATE STRATEGY

RED, WHITE & BLUR!

All good things must end. And this trip, my greatest thing so far, ended after 14,474 miles and 104 days. An unforgettable experience. Some indelible images. Many lasting friendships.
I will be posting more detailed copy and many more photos as time allows.
For now, here's some photos from the final leg of the trip, through the Dakotas, the upper Midwest and Canada; and a final map and a last peek at the trailer trophies.




MAKING ROOM ON THE MOUNT: Just over my shoulder you can see workmen on a scaffolding clearing space on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota for its latest addition. Off to the side, your correspondent gets ready for his closeup.

 (Thanks, Photoshop.)

  



A VERY APPROPRIATE NAME: This is a little slice of the South Dakota Badlands inside the Badlands National Park. The moniker hits the nail right on the head: this is indeed just "bad land." I can imagine the government scouts now: "Can't farm it, can't graze cattle on it, can't travel over it, can't find any use for it at all. Hmmmm ... OK, let's make it a national park!" The good news here is that I don't have to post a photo of the North Dakota Badlands here. Why? Because they look exactly the same.

  



BRICKS FOR THE BIKERS: Each August, tiny Sturgis, S.D. is the site of the biggest motorcycle rally in the world. This town, of maybe 7,000, hosts a half-a-million bikers with the radius of where the enormous crews camp out stretching 75 miles in all directions. There is a brick walkway outside the front door of the town's Motorcycle Museum with some pretty funky messages carved into some of the blocks. Pictured above is a sample of one of the milder ones.

Also nearby was the the famous Wall Drug (not pictured). Seemed to me that Wall Drug is just a poor man's South Of The Border, the town you have to be blind to not see while traveling on I-95 astride the borders of North and South Carolina.

  


TWO FROM TEDDY ROOSEVELT: This buffalo was grazing near the gate to T.R. National Park in western North Dakota as I arrived around dusk. That night there was a bobcat near my camp. I could hear fellow campers about the area loudly remarking about the cat and waited 'til the chatter quieted down before I left the campsite. After night fell and the moon rose, I was on a misson, walking down a path, when I heard the cat's roar in the woods right next to me. I swiftly retreated to the safety of the trailer (Yep! I can pick 'em up and put 'em down, but only if I must).

The next day I came across this string of wild mustangs

 in the middle of a prairie dog town.






SUNRISE IN SUDBURY: I left North Dakota at noon Tuesday (about 20 miles from the Montana border) and traveled in almost a straight line through the upper Midwest and thenthe Ontario province of Canada, stopping once in a motel on the Michigan UP, but mostly catching short naps in assorted parking lots. I finally turned south at the Ottawa River, near the Quebec border and crossed back into the U.S. near the New York-Vermont border at dinnertime Friday and arrived at Dolly Copp early Saturday morn. The trip from western North Dakota to northern New Hampshire was 1,934 miles. Pictured above is sunrise in Sudbury, Ontario on that Friday morning. This beacon greeted me as I awoke from a nap in a CostCo parking lot. A good day for sunglasses.

14,000-mile-plus trip still leaves the very center of the country, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri,  Nebraska and Oklahoma. That's next, then Hawaii. 

 

 


LAST, BUT NOT LEAST: The last map and some trailer artwork.