Maximum Overdrive

  Hey! Three days and 2,900 km later, here we are in beautiful Montgomery, MN. A lot of driving? Ubetcha. But what a drive. Saturday we drove through southern Alberta then the length of Montana and into Idaho. Sunday we headed up into Yellowstone National Park and east to Rapid City, SD and Monday we drove to our new home for the next two and a half weeks. If you want to know how all that went, read on! If not, I'm sure there's poker on TV or you can sit by the front window to watch the guy who takes out his garbage wearing only his boxers. Your choice.

  Our first stop after leaving Calgary was a little town named Vulcan. Yes, like where Mr. Spock comes from. Just to prove it, please note the following exhibits:

  The street signs all have little Star Fleet emblems on them so it looks like the town has embraced this whole thing and not just a bunch of Trekkies with time on their hands.

  At the Alberta Welcome Centre, just north of the US border, we encountered some stones that spread some wisdom particularly applicable to my writings. Here's one I'll share with you today:

  Once again we crossed the border, this time into Montana, and the first thing we noticed was the speed limit, 80 mph (130 kph for those not in the US or UK). Since the north of Montana is largely flat with no people anywhere a 140 kph drive was welcome. Of course, with a state population only a little north of one million there's not a lot of people anywhere. The same can be said for Idaho and Wyoming so fast driving was on the menu for the foreseeable future.

  Did I mention there's no one around? No one. Maybe some militia idiots as Montana is known for that but, largely, no one. If you want to be alone like Greta Garbo, this is the place. As we searched for signs of intelligent life we meandered south into Idaho where we started looking for Atlas Obscura thingies. We finally found something noteworthy in a little one-horse town called Dubois.

  Now Penny, who assumes French words are pronounced with the appropriate French accent calls this place "Dubois", like Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. I, on the other hand, know Americans pronounce French words like they're English. Therefore, I'm betting "Dubois" is pronounced "Doo-boys" by the locals. See also, Boise, ID (boyzee), Pierre, SD (peer) and Beaufort, SC (byufurt). To be fair, there are many examples where they pronounce them almost correctly, but I like to pick on them and it's my blog. So there. If anyone knows for sure how the locals pronounce Dubois please pass it along.

  Now back to what we found in Dubois:

  It's an old beacon used for transcontinental air mail service, established in the 1920's. They were used along with a series of bright yellow concrete arrows every few miles to point the way for nighttime air mail flights. Remember the concrete surveillance satellite aiming target in Arizona? If you don't then consider that today's homework. Find it in the Scenic and Scary Episode. By the way, they grow a lot of potatoes in Idaho. Perhaps you've heard.

  After a brief night's sleep we headed into Yellowstone early the next morning hoping to be early enough to miss the crowds.

  Well, we were early but I think we'd have to arrive in May to miss the crowds. Just the same, our quick park overview managed to capture many of the highlights and avoid much of the congestion. Except for the stupid woman with the little dog. But, before I get to her in this chronology, take a gander at Prismatic Spring:

  It's important to note the temperature of the water you see is around the boiling point. No touchie. Of course, there are a TON of stupid people at Yellowstone so I'm sure the burn unit has regular work. This is the busiest park in the system with millions of visitors annually. Just Google "stupid" and "Yellowstone" and you'll see what I mean. They actually sell t-shirts with "Look at the furry cows" with an image of a bison emblazoned on them.

  Speaking of stupid people, there we are at Prismatic Spring getting ready to pull out of our hard-earned parking spot when this woman walks over trailing a little dog on a leash. "Are you leaving?", she stupidly asks as I'm backing up. I told her I was so she promptly walks herself into the middle of the spot to "hold" it until her significant other can drive over to claim it. Trouble is, there's a lineup of cars looking for spots and the first one in line starts pulling in, only to be stopped by the idiot woman. We drove away, laughing, wishing we could have stayed to get it all on video.

  Back on the road, we stopped in at whatever spectacular sight we happened upon, like this:

  I mean, how often do you just happen upon a geyser? "Hey hon, I was coming back from the grocery store and I saw a geyser on Main Street! Oh, and I got the coffee you like and they didn't have any avocados." Like that. Anyway, we saw a lot of stuff but I won't bore you with all of it because some of it is "been there done that" for jaded travelers like us, right? So don't expect photos of elk or mountains or waterfalls or any of that shit because we did that already, remember? Again, homework. See ALL of the preceding episodes.

  Now, remember we are in Yellowstone so we had to stop to see the hallmark scene, Old Faithful. For those of you not familiar with this landmark, it's the largest and most reliable geyser in the world. Oh, and for those of you in South Africa, it's pronounced guy-zer, not gee-zer. A geezer is a decrepit old man (not me) and a geyser is a fountain of superheated water near a volcanic vent. As far as geysers in Yellowstone are concerned, they're everywhere along with bubbling vents and mud pots, etc. The park encompasses the caldera of a super volcano about 40 miles across. It last erupted 640,000 years ago and, if it decides to erupt again, wave bye-bye to most of western North America. Just sayin'.

  So there we are waiting for the scheduled geyser eruption at 11:33 (+/- 10 minutes we're told) and it starts raining. Back to the car for the umbrella and back to our seats to see this:

  It's a short sample because it's a pain to upload three minutes of video. Sorry. It's impressive. I mentioned rain, right? Well, while we were sitting in the rain watching the world's largest hot water tank explode it was hailing a few miles away. Yes. Hail. Lots of hail. When we drove down the road we drove through piles of it like slush after the snowplow has gone by. In case you're reading this in 2037, this took place in August. Brrr.

  It was getting colder (hail, remember) and we (well I) were dressed for warmer climes so not a lot of wandering took place after Old Faithful although we did manage a walk around some mud pots and saw the Artist Paint Pots:

  It's hard to capture but the muddy pool you see is bubbling with sulphur-laced water and the clearer vents contain water of different hues so it's quite spectacular.

  From there we motored out of the park along two lane roads up and down mountains all the way to Cody, WY. When I say "up and down" I mean "UP and DOWN". We painfully ascended to Granite Pass in the Bighorn Mountains at 9,000 feet above sea level only to descend to 4,000 feet within the next ten miles. Yes, our brakes are still good. My nerves? Maybe a bit frayed. They had some guardrails this time.

  Our day ended in Rapid City which has the distinction of having a decent hotel only a quarter-mile from a gas station and a Walmart. Why is this important, you might ask. First, another homework assignment. See the Food, Glorious Food episode re "Hatch chiles". In our search for Hatch green chiles outside of the US southwest I discovered Walmart carries them in all their stores west of the Mississippi. Since we'll be crossing said river here in Minnesota it was incumbent upon us to grab a supply of these little wonders before waving buh-bye to the west. So we strolled into the store, swept the cans from the shelf into our basket, and left. Yes, we paid for them. We're not assholes. And that's why Rapid City is so cool. I'm easily satisfied.

  Monday was the last day of our Long Drive to Minnesota. If you've not been out this way, South Dakota is not the most scenic place in the world. Think Iowa without Shoeless Joe. There's corn and soybeans... and corn and soybeans... and sorghum.. and Penny says there were sunflowers. I think the sunflowers were in Minnesota because I like that state better. You get the picture.

  Oh, and there's Wall Drug.

  All along I-90 for a hundred miles you'll see billboards advertising for Wall Drug. It's a thing. Anyone who's traveled this stretch of road knows about Wall Drug.

  Remember Uranus? If you don't, more homework. Read the On The Road - Day 3 episode. Wall Drug is somewhat similar to Uranus except a) it's not funny and b) there's actually a town called Wall. We skipped it since we saw it during our last visit to South Dakota twenty-five years ago.

  Did I mention South Dakota is BORING? It is. It's so boring I actually turned on the radio which has almost never happened on the entire trip. We sang along to some oldies for a couple of hours and carried on a conversation with the kids over Facebook Messenger which made it all enjoyable.

  Many hours later we rolled up to our temporary lodgings in rural Minnesota. On the way we passed through St. Peter, MN. As soon as I saw the sign I said, "I wonder if there are pearly gates here". There are. I love it when people don't take themselves seriously.

  When I said we were staying in Montgomery I didn't mean "in", but rather "near". We're in a rambling hundred year-old completely renovated house on twenty-two acres surrounded by farmland, woods and a small lake. Did I mention it's a beautiful spot? It is. Today is reserved for exploring and discovering so stay tuned for all that in the next episode. In the meantime, I remain, your Intrepid Traveler.