Ben’s Trip to Alaska

Hi Everyone, we haven’t made it to Alaska yet, acutally we haven’t even crossed into Canada yet, but we are on our way, and have already seen quite a bit. Here’s what we look like going down the road, and parked at a campgorund.

Motorhome and truck at a rest area.

Motorhome and truck at a campground.

For the first portion of our trip we traveled up the Mississippi River, starting in Tunica, MS and up to Saint Louis, MO. Then we shot across Missouri to the Missouri River, and followed it up to South Dakota through Nebraska and Iowa on pretty much the route Louis and Clark took when they originally surveyed the wild west. We stopped along the way to see a replica of Keelboat like they used on their trip.

Keelboat

After this we traveled across South Dakota stopping at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD:

CornPalace
Then the Pioneer Auto Show in Murdo, SD:

PIONEER_AUTO_1

PIONEER_AUTO_2

Finally we ended up in Rapid City to see Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and a few other attractions including Reptile Gardens, and Bear Country USA.
MOUNT_RUSHMORE1

We learneda all about Borglum, and what he did:

MOUNT_RUSHMORE2

Bear Country (we are driving through in our truck):

Bear Country
Reptile Gardens:

REP_Gardens1

REP_Gardens2
While in Rapid City mother nature decided to let us experience a full fledged blizzard. We were stuck in the camper for most of a day while 40-60 MPH winds blew snow at us all day long. We did trek out into the blizzard to the playground across the street for a few minutes.

blizzard
Next we went to Devils Tower, WY, to see Devils Tower National Monument, this was the first National Monument. We watched Close Encounters that night from a campground we were staying in at the base of Devils Tower.

devilstower
After this we stopped in Garyowen, MT at 7th Ranch, just south of where Custer was defeated by the Indians in the Battle at Little Bighorn.

After this we took a break in Billings, MT to stock up on supplies and a few parts for the camper. After that we took a Detour down to Yellowstone National Park ( First National Park ) for a few days of exploring and hiking. Bison were all over the place, including the roads, and geothermal activity was all over the place too geysers, hot springs, boiling water, boiling mud, and snow!