Can You See Sunflowers

 We made it out of Rapid City via I-90 East, so we could go north. We went east to avoid all the mayhem of the Sturgis Rally. Carol and I saw and heard enough motorcycles while we were in Rapid City. I was actually amazed at how many were trailer-ed in, vise rode in. Some of the true bikers were only tents, while others had little pop up trailers they pulled. Unfortunately most of the motorcycles were touring bikes, the customized / choppers were probably in Sturgis already partying.

North of Pierre South Dakota we celebrated 50,000 miles on the truck, which means over 15,000 miles traveling America's highway (for pleasure).

Can you see the sunflowers? While driving through South and North Dakotas we saw so many sunflower crops. Carol researched sunflower production and found out the Dakota's are the primary sunflower producing states... with this pandemic, and the major league players agreeing to no spitting, what will happen to the sunflower seed industry?

Between South Dakota and North Dakota there were hundreds of thousands of acres of sunflowers.

Our stop eastbound was a town call Presho, where we stayed at "New Frontier RV Park and Campground" (http://newfrontiercampground.com). The folks running the place are very friendly... how friendly are they... they are so friendly they gave us some of their own goodies for fighting an uninvited guest on the trip (mouse to be exact). Thanks to their kindness we were rid of the mouse the next evening in Bismarck North Dakota. Back to Presho, there isn't much to see, forget grocery shopping. The store does not stay open very long... two hours on Sunday, four to five hours the rest of the week.

From Presho we headed to Bismarck North Dakota.

We stayed at the Elks lodge in Bismarck, while we were backing in and settling down for the day, we were informed that we needed to move our rig to a different area because they were having an annual car show where we parked. After we moved the cars began rolling in... some brought back memories of our so called glory days.

There were over a hundred cars on show, most of them were either restored, or customized, some we were not sure why they were there.  The pink and grey one is for sale if anyone is interested. After the show was over we moved back to our original spot.

During COVIDS19 the lodge does not have their dining room open, but they are serving food and beverages in their patio area. Most of the food is from their regular menu, some of it served as specials each day.

We took a drive to the North Dakota Heritage Center and Museum (https//statemuseum.nd.gov). This is a large center divided into sections of time and eras on two floors. Carol and I only walked one floor before going to lunch. Our game plan is to revisit the museum and complete our tour. There is the opportunity to view fossils as well as local indigenous artifacts.

After lunch we went back home for the afternoon, and to make  plans for the next day.

Next day... the old Governor's Mansion. The governors used the home from 1893 to 1960. It is free to tour the house and carriage house. Time was taken renovating the house to it's original look wherever possible. You walk the rooms, and notice small sections of framed wallpaper, each one represents an era of the occupants that lived there. As well as meticulously removing wallpaper, they carefully exposed the different layers of paint colors. 

Back home we go to start prepping for our first stop in Montana, which will Wibaux (Wee-bow).