A trip back in time --- HeartStop -- 1880 Town

As you head east on I-90, there are various places you can stop, stretch your legs, and have some fun as well.

A couple of our favorites in South Dakota, along that wide expanse would have to be Wall Drug.  The signs for it start showing up before you even know it exists.  We stopped in last year and had fun with the Sheriff's Dept, so we had to come back.  This time we got both the Sheriff's Dept and the Fire Dept .... and you know we love that.  This is one of those small towns with big heart and pride, and it shows.  We thank both departments for sharing part of their day with us.

Then, of course, the 1880 Town ... a walk back in time to the days of livery stables, stage coaches, and some real time cowboys. 

They had memorabilia from the movie "Dances with Wolves", including "Buck", Kevin Costner's character's horse from the movie.

We had a lot of fun posing Chief in the various set ups.  He hung out at the fire house, made a deposit at the bank to help us with gas on the tour, had a filling prairie dinner, swilled back a sarsaparilla at the local saloon, and had a danged good time.  Hope you like the results.

And since that couldn't enough for a long day on this tour, we had to stop back in to see our friends in Murdo to visit the Pioneer Auto & Prairie Town.  C'mon, how could you drive by them?  The General Lee, and Elvis' motorcycle are there. 

It's long haul on that I-90 stretch, have fun ... It's there to be had.  Before you know it you'll be right there at the Corn Palace ... But more about that on the next post. 

lj & the roadcrew

 

Rapid City Rocketeers

Well it had been a long time since I'd spent any real amount of time in RC, but it was good to go back there.

During Desert Storm, we were stationed at Ellsworth AFB.  The kids were "Patriots" at DHS, and Bo was a Carousel graduate.

We drove up to the dinosaurs, listened to thunder roll across the plains, visited Wall Drug, spent time in the Badlands, went climbing and camping, and had a blast with our friends assigned there with us.  Folks don't have any idea how much South Dakota has to offer for family living and tourism, but I can tell you from a personal point of view, it really is a pretty cool place to raise kids.

It's also a fun stop when you're visiting firehouses on a national tour.  We had a lot of laughs with the local heroes of the main fire house in Rapid City.

They were also helpful ... they taught Rookie about fire safety ... much to his chagrin.  But we seriously doubt that he will play with bottle rockets again!  Thought he was gonna launch for a minute, or two.  Remember, these are highly trained professionals, and we do not EVER recommend you try to duplicate any of Rookie's "stunts".

And kids, Rookie volunteered for this duty, and loves his work.  He is a little Super Hero who has special powers which make him impervious to pain.  Kids feel pain ... Stuffed animals do not.

Our RC friends also have an ornery sense of humor.  We sent our camera behind closed doors so they could download the photos we had taken at this stop.  We came away with an extra shot of a couple unidentifiable characters with big dimples, and cheeky grins.  Goofballs!  lol

We also enjoyed their tour of the station which included telling us some of their history and talking about their awards and honors.  They have some true bragging rights, and every reason to be proud.

They were also very generous to make sure we had a great nights stay with an outstanding view of the park below at the Rapid City Rushmore Inn.  This is the park where I remember the kids being so much younger.  And from our window I could see the very spot where one of my all time favorite photos of them was taken.

From the Chief to the the Rookie ... every member of the RCFD was friendly, helpful, and perfect representative for Rapid City.

AND, they have a Starbucks!  **Bonus Points!

Enjoy the pix, if we find more, they will go up as well.

Thank you, Rapid City!

lj and the road crew

Shakin' it up in Sheridan

Sheridan surprised us.  It's a fairly good sized town, filled with really nice folks, and even nicer first responders.

They had a basic idea of what the program was, so that definitely helped ... Sometimes we walk in and get completely blank stares, but there was a glimmer of some recognition.  It didn't take long for all the switches to light, and the whole crew was on board!

It probably helped that just a few days earlier one of their own units came home from the desert.  It was obvious that the entire city of Sheridan was filled with pride for these returning heroes, as banners hung over streets, and signs in business windows welcomed them home.  It just felt like hometown America, with a hometown twist to it ... And it felt good.

Rookie got to go "flying" with the assist of a slingshot style rope gun.  (Hope you got your nerf slug off the roof, guys!)  PS ... Rookie says next time he flies, he'll stick to Coach, thank you very much!  hehe

We asked what the local icon would be that every hometown troop from the Sheridan area would recognize, and without missing a beat, it was the "Mint Bar".  We pulled up to take a few pix as some locals were leaving.  Seeing our rig, they insisted that we needed to go inside to get the real flavor.  They were right.  How cool!

This morning we received an email from "Lucy" who advised us that she had parked beside our van while we were in Sheridan.  She took pictures and sent them to us.  It was a fun way to wake up, and we hope to hear from her again!  Thanks, Lucy!

And thank you all in Sheridan.  You know how to do patriotism!!!

Salute!  And start collecting those shirts!

Enjoy the pix ... BTW, there are more of these, but we cannot locate them.  We have 3 cameras going, and for whatever reason only one of them is uploading.  We will figure this out ... and AOL is working on the other photo issue.  We are hopeful.

( ;

lj and the road crew

 

JOURNAL PIX

AOL has changed the way we can show photos.  We have gone through all of our options and this one, called photo pile, seems to be the one that comes up fastest, and shows all of the picture.

We are hearing that some of you ... Yes Kevin, that means you, too ... are having trouble getting pix to load.

We do not have the option of loading the pix the way they used to be.  If anyone has any suggestions, we're listening.

In the meantime, we are about to leave the states, and will likely not have access to the internet for a few days.  Bear with us, it's a jam packed tour and we are shooting about 400 pix a day that have to be edited.  I know, waah, waah.  ( ;

The trip is a blast, and we can only imagine what each next stop will involve ... We've had a few hints, and hear we barely escaped the wake up of a lifetime in Canada ... WHEW!  lol

lj & the road crew

Helllloooo Billings!

One of our rare 100% perfect attendance stops is to the Billings Fire Department.  We have sooooooooo much fun here.  They really know how to make us feel welcome.  We have stayed in the station for all of our vists, eaten with them, rode with them.  They have taken up collections, and filled our tanks as well as our spirits.  They are always great with ideas to do a fun photo op, and are superior at helping us make outside contacts when we need help.

This is the home of the Stunt Bear.  They came up with the the idea of shooting our mascot out of a potato gun a couple of years ago ... I vetoed that motion, since it was highly likely that the mascot and all of its bling would not survive intact.  How to accommodate their enthusiasm and our need to protect the mascot?  A Stunt Bear.

And so they got to shoot the bear out of the potato gun ... 3 times!  The lil gal didn't fair too poorly, and luckily there were on duty medics to bandage her up.

We now have Rookie to take the flack, while Chief looks good.  But we had to decide what to do with Stunt Bear.  Didn't take long ... Stunt Bear is home ... at Billings Fire Department!  She has plenty of adventures and photos to prove every story, and they seemed very happy to have her.

We had more photo ops this time, and Rookie learned about heights after "someone" punted him off the Rims. 

Billings PD came out to play, and play we did.  Officer Becker was indoctrinated into the silliness of a morale stop when we decided it was time to let Kelly see what kind of fun we like to have ... So we had her arrested!  (Kathy, too!)  Note to us:  Next time notify the Montana Women's Prison, so they don't have a stroke when their cameras catch two women in handcuffs trying to thumb rides from passing truckers!  hehe

Before we knew it, our time here had come and gone ... Too soon.  We always have a part of BFD with us, though.  Chief Staley and all of our BFD Heroes are in our hearts ... A huge salute from HeroToHero.US!

lj & the road crew

Let's do Moscow, shall we?

**A message from H2H...  Our hearts are with you today.  We heard of the incident, and send our thoughts and prayers.  Liz, Kathy & Kelly

We continued east, stopping in Shoshone County, and Wallace, Idaho before getting into Moscow, Idaho about 9:30 pm.

Wallace has some fun stuff, and the local firefighter were more than happy to take a break from their painting duties to come look studly for us.  Not sure they had a clue who we were,or what we were doing, but heck, it looked like fun, so why not?

The town of Wallace has a storied past, as many of the mining towns do.  And looking for culture, we found our way to the museum.  That's my story ... and you know the rest.  Sadly they were closed, what with it being a Mother's Day Sunday ... But I'm going back, because I really want a t-shirt from this place!

Moscow was a great stop.  WSU graduation meant lots of activity for the local police department, but the most excitement we saw was going on the at the station.  Rookie got tasered, our first policeman this year gave the shirt off his back, and we all had a lot of fun.

Outside, the fountain was spewing pink bubbles into the air, adding to the festivities.  Unfortunately, without any rooms left, due to graduation ... we had to drive on to Coeur D'Alene for the night.  Normally not a big deal, but we were pretty tired and the sky unzipped onto dark, one lane roads.  The lines were nearly invisible to us through the racing windshield wipers fighting to keep pace with the rain.  We made really poor time, and finally got to bed around 1:30am.  It was a lonnnnng day, and the alarm would ring less than four hours later.

So here are the pix from the rest of day one.

lj & crew

Rookie is paying dearly for that last posting! hehe

We have a very bad lil bear on the tour with us.  and I am protesting ... I'm sure it was Chief doing the log-cutting during last night's hibernation!

We are moving along quite well.  Having a lot of fun.  Kelly is fitting in with the crew as if she'd always been part of the team.  Kathy rocks as my right seater, and Chief is getting pretty impressive with all of the pins and badges he has acquired.  Now, as for Rookie ... Well, maybe you oughta look for yourselves.  But suffice it to say that he is a hurting unit right about now.  Kids, don't worry, he is a highly trained professional stunt bear and loves his work.  And remember, do NOT try any of his stunts any where!  PS ... Anyone have an extra eye?

So, here's the deal.  We have had verrrrry little sleep, but are starting to acclimate to life on the road.

Kathy and Kelly are taking lots of pictures everywhere we go, and I add a few here & there.  So needless to say, we have bunches to add to the journal right now.

What we've decided to do is to put them up a city/stop at a time.  We're getting requests for them, so they will be first, and then we will try to go back and add text.

If we visited your hometown, or if you're one of the folks we visited ... feel free to leave us a comment about the stop.  the comments have us laughing almost as much as the stuff going on during the visits.  We have laughed so hard our stomachs hurt!

We're having a blast and enjoying the heck out of all the people we're meeting.  We can;t wait for you to get an idea of what's going on, so without further adieu ...

We made our first (unofficial) stop ... We call them "Heart Stops", in Ellensburg.  So fitting as ourembedded reporter is Ellen.  When she comes out to play, it always brings lots of laughs and adds a really fun element to the stop.

Across from the fire/police department in Ellensburg, is one of the m unique houses we had ever seen, so we wanted to share it with you all.

Enjoy!

lj & the crew