Yesterday and today was spent lazily traveling thru Wyoming and South Dakota, which is honestly my favorite part of this trip. Such beautiful landscape and very sparsely populated… I can imagine myself traveling in a true Conestoga in a wagon train as one of the many first settlers to the area. Some of the mountains still have snow off in the distance and the views are spectacular!
For such a sparsely populated area of the US there are a surprising number of very interesting stops to make! Sturgis being one of them, famous for its motorcycle rallies. Then Deadwood and Rushmore and a ton of state and national parklands to include the Badlands! Beautiful to view but I couldn’t imagine trying to traverse the Badlands on horseback or via Conestoga back in the day. Those pioneers were some tough hombres! I was totally enjoying my ride by also listening to radio classics on Sirius radio channel 148 especially the westerns! Something amazing about listening to classic western radio shows while driving thru the west. I was also listening to shows like Sherlock Holmes, dragnet and a bunch of other old time showed I have never heard of. Who knew there was a super secret hero dude called “the blue beetle”? Lol
Some other awesome stops include a sod house museum near the badlands entrance, a prairie dog park where you can stop and visit a colony of prairie dogs, an old west town called “1880’s town” where you can walk thru town and stop in the saloon and listen to the saloon girl sing and piano player accompany her while drinking a sarsaparilla! There is absolutely no way you can miss Wall Drug, which is a must see, because for hundreds of miles all you see are billboards (both large and small) all along the highway saying stop at wall drugs! Lol… those are about the only billboards you see too! Makes me think of the old Route 66 signs back in the day lol.
So now for my public service announcement part of the blog. If you travel with pets: you should have poop bags stashed in multiple places! In your jacket pocket, your purse, on the leash, in the glove box… heck you should have a box of those little roll of bags! If I had a penny for every time I have seen an owner at a rest stop or RV park walk their dog and leave the poop laying on the ground I’d be a rich person! Don’t be rude! Pick it up! Argh! One person left their pups precious package of poop in the doggie park provided by the campground… a mere foot or two away from the pole with the complimentary bags and handy trash can!!!!!! Yes we all saw your rude self walk away and leave it! Yes I (fellow camper) had to pick up your dogs poop (several times in fact) so my dogs could enjoy the communal doggie park and play without stepping in YOUR DOGS CRAP!!!! Sometimes people suck! Don’t be a sucky person…. just pick up after your dog please. Nuff said. Don’t be that person. If you can’t afford to buy some poop bags (or recycle some grocery sacks) then you can’t afford to own a pet so don’t get one.
Next up (conveniently following a poop rant lol) is an awesome recipe! We installed a new microwave/convection oven/ air fryer unit in the RV over the winter, and just got our first chance to use it. We wanted to try out the air fryer since we have never used one before and I am happily impressed! We bought a bag of Brussels sprouts and asparagus tips prior to leaving on this trip just for this purpose. Lightly coated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper… then we cooked in the air fryer on the setting for French fries. We then sprinkled some real parmesan cheese on top and air fried it a few more minutes to melt the cheese (OMGosh happy happy happy yummy goodness!) meanwhile I wanted to also try making some grilled cheese sandwiches using the air fryer option and instead of butter on the bread, I read you could use mayonnaise and it would turn out even yummier and boy-boy is that correct! I am always going to make grilled cheese sandwiches with mayo instead of butter from now on! While all that was happening we opened a can of organic tomato basil soup and heated that up on the stove top. Honestly this was the best gourmet meal I have had in a long time! 5 paws… I mean stars!!! Lol we do eat healthy and a bit fancy even when traveling lol… but that whole meal cost probably less than $5 total so I can’t complain either! Non appetite everyone!
Conestoga Chuck 