Pickleball in Usk, WA

LHC friends David Rossing, Grant and Kathy Brock own RV sites in a campground in Usk, WA.  Where the hell is Usk, you may ask.  I certainly did.  It's a small village 50 miles north of Spokane.  Trish and I stopped there for 5 days to visit - and play pickleball!

The Brocks had a 60' by 30' concrete pad laid on their large corner lot.  On August 10th, we chalked court lines and played PB there for the first time.  Next year, there will be permanent lines and most likely a painted surface also.

Many thanks to the Rossings and Brocks for inviting us to visit and arranging a free site for our RV!  And thank you, Trish, for your sport photography.

God's Country

A blurb I found online:
Wisconsin, a state in the United States of America, commonly referred to as "God's Country", with many businesses throughout the state using some form of the nickname. Otter Tail County, Minnesota, a county in rural Minnesota containing over 1,000 lakes, commonly referred to locally as "God's Country".

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Otter Tail County, never heard it called God's Country.  About as far from it as you can get in my humble opinion.

Trish and I returned to our definition of GC when we hit the Rocky Mountains and Glacier Nat'l Park a few days ago.  GC for us means interesting terrain, sun, warm, dry - with darned few flies and skeeters.  After 6 weeks of  the flat, rainy, buggy, humid Midwest we were delighted to be back in our favorite part of the world.

This monument to Teddy Roosevelt welcomed us back to GC.  It is on US highway 2 in Montana, at Marias Pass; highway 2 is known as the Roosevelt Highway.  The bronze chap to the right of the obelisk is the guy that surveyed the area for the railroad. 

Great Plains Dinosaur Museum

Malta, MT has a small dino museum.  Not impressive, mostly small pieces of bone and a few casts.  These colorful guys (gals?) are fun, though.

This critter reminded me of Star Wars character, Jar Jar Binks.

Rustyjunkosauros.

Combine!

It's the talk of the town and a must see, according to our hosts, Tom and Louise, LHC friends.  The town is Willow City, ND, population 162.  We stopped there to visit, parked the RV on their lot - with full hookups, no less.  The combine is new, cost $650K, and it's a huge mutha.

Kevin, proud owner of the combine, and his 2 sons, have 5,000 acres in crops.  Incredible that 3 men can handle that much acreage.  They couldn't do that without the help of this tractor, though.

Just kidding.  The old tractor still runs but the one below is the current edition.

This little doohickey is called a header; it fits on the front of the combine, cuts a 40' swath.  We got our first combine (on the family farm in MN) in the early 60s.  It could pick up one windrow, the result of a 6' swath.



My, how the times have changed!  I spent 100s of hours on tractors back in the day.  They had hard metal seats with hardly any springs, no cabs - sore butts and a dirt diet.  Now: enclosed cabs with cushy seats, A/C, fridge, microwave, stereo, computer.  As far as I know, they haven't added toilets yet.  Maybe next year's model.

Cranes, Forts, Obelisks

Sandhill Cranes in a slough near our campsite in Munising, MI, first I've ever seen.  These are much larger than herons and egrets, up to 4' high, with 6' 8" wing span.

Copper Harbor, MI is highly touted in the tour books but highly disappointing in reality.  Driving there is slow, over poor roads.  The 'scenic drives' are a joke: even worse roads, no scenery worthy of the term.  The only thing of interest in the area is restored Fort Wilkins.

Rugby, ND lays claim to being the geographic center of North America - a false claim.  The real center is 16 miles away.  "Close enough," said the town's leaders several decades ago.  "Let's build an impressive monument with a large plaque.  It will draw lots of tourists here."  It didn't draw us but we were passing through, so what the hell, stop and take a picture.

Superior, Indeed

Lake Superior is aptly named.  Because it:

1.  Contains 10% of all the fresh surface water in the world.

2.  Is as big as the state of Maine.

3.  Holds as much water as all the other Great Lakes combined - plus 2-3 Lake Eries to top it off.

4.  Has enough water to cover all of North and South America with a foot of water.

5.  Has the largest surface area of any fresh water lake in the world.

Pictured Rocks

The Pictured Rocks boat tour is 2+ hours long.

Munising, MI is the launching point.

The colors are leached minerals.  Red is iron; blue/green is copper; black is manganese.

Several boats offer kayak tours, the kayaks loaded on a rack on top of the boat.

There is no soil under this tree, just solid rock.  Notice the rope-like thing between the large rock on top and the 'mainland' to the left.  That's a bundle of roots through which the tree gets its nutrition.  Mother Nature is indeed a determined mother.  There used to be rock between the tree island and the mainland, long gone.