6/27/2020 Jack and Michelle Marry

We are SOOOOO excited to welcome a daughter and sister-in-law to the family.  Jack and Michelle decide to have a simple marriage ceremony in Hawaii to get Michelle into the Navy medical system before they arrive in Boston.  When the COVID thing subsides they will have a real wedding.  Our Hawaii friend Dean officiated the ceremony infusing Buddhist and Hawaiian traditions while his wife Jaynine did a spectacular job decorating with flowers.  The ceremony took place in their yard which is up the road from where we used to live in Kailua 20 years ago.  Michelle's family and ours was on  ZOOM to witness the festivities.  After the ceremony was a puppy reception with 10 puppies from Dean's dogs recent litter.  Soooooo cute.......both puppies and newlyweds.  Jack said good thing they were all spoken for or there probably would be a pup on the plane to Boston in addition to their dog Penny.   Later they had some photos taken at the beach.










On July 10, 2020 Jack departed from the destroyer USS Chung Hoon (DDG93) after serving for 4 years as Legal Officer, Auxiliary Officer, and Navigator.  For "meritorious achievement" during his two tours of duty Jack received both the Navy/Marine Corp Achievement Metal and the Navy/Marine Commendation metals.  

6/15/20 Geographic Center of US, Belle Fourche, South Dakota

6/15/20  Belle Fourche, South Dakota

Geographic Center of United States Monument

Here we are on the north west corner of South Dakota called the Tri-State area as it is 15 miles from Wyoming and not much farther to Montana.  20 miles north of here on private property is the geographic center of the United States since the addition of Alaska and Hawaii.  The geographic center of the lower 48 is in Kansas near where our Excel RV was manufactured at Smith Center.  

Rocky Point Campground From Our Kayak

We are staying at a lovely state camping area called Rocky Point Recreation Area on the Belle Fourche Reservoir.  Created in 1911 when the Orman Damn was built to provide water for the area, at that time it was the largest earthen damn in the world, just over a mile long.  Nothing on the Plains to stop the wind that blows regularly here, the locals call it Stormin Damn.  We meet one of the local RVers who brings us some fresh caught walleye.  We met because the night before the wind was sooooo strong that it blew their two large floats across campground into the woods so fast that I couldn't begin to catch it.  I told them about it the next morning and they found them over the ridge behind our RV.  We exchanged some stuffed quahogs (hard shell clams from Atlantic) that our Westerly neighbor caught and made the day before we left. We picked some sage on our way out the park for Zoe to use to smudge her new home.  

Custer Arriving Black Hills 1874

Another great visit with John's sister Joan and husband Craig who we social distance with eating on the deck. Deb and fellow rock hound Craig can't pass on an opportunity to dig rocks together so off we go on the ATV with masks.  I LOVE TO ROCK HOUND WITH CRAIG cause he knows his stuff!!!  I want to spend a week here so we can do it every day and not have to rush.  We pack up a 50 pound rock filled with rose quartz that Deb mined with Craig on a trip back in 2014 or 2015 to take to Zoe's new house.

6/16 John spends the morning remotely giving presentations on "the limitations of computer simulations" at the Military Operations Research Society conference. It was well received and I am so glad he continues to make a difference in the world of serious gaming.  He finds a few hours here and there to continue working on his book about using game theory to solve complex world problems.  We tour Deadwood and learn about the massive amount of gold taken from these hills and about Wild Bill Hickcok getting killed here. 

Deadwood Today

 6/17 NO TRUCK DAY - boy do we need a day off the road. John works on his book, Deb works on the blog and we enjoy a wonderful kayak on the lake where we see carp feeding on the surface.

6/18 Now on to Montana, which is 675 miles across and 10.5 hours of driving time.  Like traveling from Westerly to Fayetteville NC - 9 states.  Almost to our destination of Bozeman MT, we stop to change drivers and notice that we have a flat tire on the rig.  Doesn't take long to change due to electric levelers acting as a jack and VAST amount of experience.   Arriving at "Camp Walmart" at 3:40 there are already 12 RVs in the lot, by 9 pm there were 25!   The view of the Rocky's over the white RV in the photo is

Camp Walmart, Bozeman

magnificent. Good thing we have wax earplugs for the noise and eye shades for the parking lot lights at Camp Walmart.  

6/13/20 Deadwood Trail and Wall Drug, South Dakota

6/13/20  Sorta following the Lewis and Clark trail, we take the back roads along Rt 7 out of Minnesota onto SD 212 and see only farm after farm, corn and cows, with a small town and/or a granary every now and then.  Have to watch gas tank closely as LONG distances between stations.  Lovely and way more relaxing than Interstate 90.  Driving 65 versus 75 increase our gas mileage from 10.2 to 11.5 until the headwind kicks up and drives it back down to 10.

Missouri River at West Bend

From the camper on the Missouri River at West Bend Recreation Area near Lower Brule SC, we have views of the vast grasslands and gently rolling hills that were once home to millions of bison. The area has a rich human history, too, having been home to several branches of the Sioux and Dakota tribes.  The river here forms almost a complete circle (west bend) which Meriwether Lewis in his journal in 1804 stated that to travel the bend by land it was 2000 yards, by river it was 30 miles.  Because they had so many boats and supplies they had to take the river route.  

Traveling along Route 212 and SD 14 we follow parts of the old 200 mile Deadwood Trail seeing signs indicating wagon train ruts from the 1874 gold rush.   We take a break at Fort Pierce (pronounced "Peer" by the early German and Scandinavian   settlers) which was the nearest port to gather people and supplies heading to search for gold in Deadwood, SD.   Although the Fort is gone the state house and fighting horse sculpture is beautiful.  

Deb at Wall Drug

Leaving Minnesota on 212 no "Welcome to South Dakota" greeted us, just the first of dozens of "Wall Drug" signs.  Deb pouts when John says we're not going through Wall this trip so he changes his mind and goes 20 minutes out the way to placate his loving wife.  What a sweetheart he is.  We get our free for vet's coffee and doughnut at the cafe.  It is worth the stop just for that doughnut!  Meandering through to the bookstore where we always find a treasure or two, we pick up some jam in another shop.  We love to buy jam from the local area when we travel.  It keeps a long time and soooooo fun to pull out papaya jam from Hawaii for our waffles in middle of winter or cactus jam from Utah.  Makes us get the bug to get back on the road! 

Fighting Horse Sculpture, Fort Pierce SD

Wall Drug Sign in  France WWII

6/7/2020 Heading West to Hanley Family mini Reunion

June 7, 2020 Truck Mileage 55,212.  Packed to the gills (again...bringing treasures to Zoe's new home), the stars align and we are able to get on the road to what was supposed to be an RV trip to Alaska with John's cousin Kevin and several other RV friends.  With US/Canada boarder still closed, the Alaska trip is cancelled but we will pursue the front the part of the trip as originally planned.


Aligning stars meant that the (1) states along our route were open to out-of-staters, (2) covid cases were falling, (3) after another very public murder by police of an unarmed black man (George Floyd) in Minneapolis;  riots, burning and looting were mainly limited to large cities which we could avoid if necessary, (4) the RV repair shop opened on June 1 so we could leave the RV there on May 25 to decontaminate for 5 days before they would work on it to patch the leaking roof and do some routine maintenance, and (5) we felt we could travel safely without infecting ourselves or the others we were meeting along the way by wearing masks, consuming bottles of sanitizer and clorox wipes, and social distancing (6 feet plus).

After years and 10's of thousands of miles on the RV crossing US numerous times, we now enjoy the stress free freedom of driving till we're tired knowing that there are many commercial retailers/restaurants who welcome RVs to overnight in their parking lots.  Good thing because most campgrounds are still closed unless you have a season contract.  COVID lock down around the world has caused a massive drop in demand for oil/fuel as businesses are closed and people are not driving.  Found diesel as low as $1.99.  Real good news is that the world wide air pollution has also dropped dramatically. 

Some Rest Stops have Covid proofed with every other sink/stall blocked off, others have only signs.  Further West we go the fewer face masks we see.

Chicago Sign ..... #StayHomeSavesLives

First time that the GPS took us right through Chicago on I90.      Like NYC, a good time to see the city with less smog and traffic.   The world is stressed out from Covid and additionally in the US from our idiot President's antics,  with some people looking for an excuse to blow off steam. Demonstrations and riots around the world supporting BLACK LIVES MATTER may hopefully bring change this time, especially in police departments which have militarized.  There is serious talk about banning choke holds and de-funding Police Departments as way of getting rid of the Police Unions which protect police behavior no matter how bad.  

June 8   Drive for 10 hours to try to get ahead of tropical storm Cristobal which is also heading toward Minnesota from the Gulf of Mexico.  Expecting lots of rain and wind.  600 miles today is a very long day but adrenaline and some great night of sleep on the road has us up to the task.   Along the way we stop to visit John's high school buddy, Melissa's husband in Red Wing, MN.  So sad that she passed away unexpectedly about a year ago.

June 10   Arrive at Baker Regional Park Maple Plains MN about half hour from Aunt Joanne.  We love this park!!!!  Only campers are allowed, no guests, so we move what is left of the Hanley reunion to Aunt Joanne's lawn.  Cousin Kevin Hanley and wife Jamie arrive at campground in their new Airstream and we have a grand time.  This was supposed to be our meeting place for the Alaska trip, but not to be this year.  John's sister Barbara joins us at Aunt Joanne's for lunch and we enjoy reminiscing  as we social distance.  The weather couldn't be better.

The Hanley's - John, Kevin, Barbara, Joanne