Montana, ND, SD, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois

So we left Canada to head back to Montana.  Border crossing was easy and we stayed in three separate places in Montana as we crossed the state from west to east.  (Yes, it's that big)  Some of these campgrounds were fairly small and doubled as farms. 

Burros?  Mules?  They were part of our campground

As were ducks, chicken and geese.

Not that everyone stayed where they were supposed to

So if I've delayed posting a bit - it's because it was fairly uneventful.   As we spent our last night in Montana, a neighbor asked where we headed next.  We mentioned North Dakota.  He replied "I'm sorry."

We did see lots of oil wells in North Dakota (mostly from the flames of the burning gasses).  We didn't take many photos.

From North Dakota, we headed to South Dakota.  Uneventful except we got to see the Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead.  (This is great if you are into Laura Ingalls Wilder...or have a partner who is)  It's  interesting to note all of the references and descendants. 

Also in South Dakota, we headed out to see Mount Rushmore and got to see the Dignity Statue along the way.

Dignity Statue

Mount Rushmore is at a bit of elevation, so to prevent altitude sickness - we parked Moriarty (the Arctic Fox) and traveled over in Watson (the truck) to see it.  It was a 4 hour drive from the campground. 

But Mount Rushmore is worth seeing.  They do a night-time ceremony where they honor the servicemen and light-up the mountain side with spotlights.  Late in the evening - if you watch closely, you can see bats flying in and out of the spotlights.

Mount Rushmore - at night

After South Dakota, we passed through Minnesota, Wisconsin and into Illinois to get close to Chicago.  We had planned to visit a bit of Chicago but weather unforuately made this difficult.

We are currently planning on travelling west again - through Iowa, Nebraska and eventually to Colorado to get Thomas to a conference in Denver.