I almost have you up to date but first I have to tell you about North Dakota, (a little bit about Montana) and Southern Idaho…….

From South Dakota, we headed directly north to Medora, North Dakota.  This is a quaint little prairie town in the middle of the Badlands and prairie on the western part of the state. Seems like a remote place to head,  but alas, they have two big attractions there.

First, there is the Medora Musical.  This is a great family friendly show presented in the Burning Hills Amphitheater overlooking the Badlands “canyons”.  The show focuses on Teddy Roosevelt and his rough riders, so we gained knowledge as we were entertained.    They really know how to put on a terrific show and we were completely delighted.   We were there on a beautiful day and evening.

The second and unique attraction is the pitchfork steak fondue, immediately adjacent to the amphitheater.  Here they skewer steaks onto pitchforks and fondue them western style by submerging them into huge vats of oil.  Of course, they put on quite the feed by adding all the fixins, including baked potatoes, coleslaw, baked beans, veggies, fresh fruit, garlic toast, brownies and cinnamon-sugar donuts.  It all comes with coffee and lemonade and you eat out in the fresh air with the canyons as your backdrop.  A unique dining experience – one we definitely recommend.

The town has quite a few interesting specialty shops which Marj and I (of course) found worthy of our perusal.  So while we shopped, Larry and Howie hung out on a bench soaking up the warm sunshine and talking about what ever guys talk about.

It was a quick trip through North Dakota, with Medora being our only stop.  From there we drove west, basically through Montana and onward to Idaho.  We’ll be coming back for a lengthy stay in the state of Montana – Idaho was a quick addition to our itinerary shortly before leaving Florida, as we were informed the Canadian border remained closed.  We were sorry to miss our month long stay in Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, but we know we’ll have a great time in Idaho.

On the way through Montana, we stayed 2 nights in Billings where we had a good dinner out and caught up on grocery shopping.  The one stop we made in Montana was at Little Big Horn – we all wanted to see Custer’s Last Stand.  This is a country of rolling hills stretching for miles and miles and you have to wonder at Custer’s bad luck by riding in the direction of this historic site of 1876.  Here the combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment battled which resulted in the defeat of the US Army.  In the end 268 soldiers died and 55 were wounded, 6 later dying from their wounds.  Numbers vary by differing accounts, but it is believed there were 36-100 fatalities of the Native Americans.  Even so, this battle is recognized as the beginning of the end of the Plains Indian wars.

US Army Memorial

Native American Memorial

We had a quick one night layover in Island Park, ID and we managed to take a scenic (and a bit treacherous) drive up a mountain.  It was beautiful at the top and well worth a few frayed nerves.

We are now in Twin Falls, Idaho.  We will have been here for a week before moving on tomorrow morning, the 24th.  By far, the greatest attraction here are the Shoshone Falls.  They actually measure taller than the Niagra Falls and are certainly something to see.

We also watched some base jumpers leaping off of Perrine Bridge – about 486 feet over the Snake River.  These people are truly thrill seekers (and maybe a bit crazy!)  This is also the site where Evil Knievel attempted to jump the Snake River on his motorcycle – some of you may remember……he didn’t make the jump but lived to tell, thanks to the parachute strapped to his back.

So as I mentioned, tomorrow around 9:00 am, we head out once again, heading north where we will be staying at Creekside RV in New Meadows, ID.  While there wasn’t a lot to do in Twin Falls, it allowed all of us to catch up on a bit of much needed relaxation.  We were a bit road weary since we put on around 4,000 miles since leaving Naples in about 2 weeks time.  Even so, we’re healthy, rested and now energized to hit the HAPPY TRAILS!