Replies

L&C Vicarious Road-Trip (for FReepers):

1) We were in the Idaho panhandle end of July (31-2) visiting a friend in Sandpoint. She showed us all around. It was beautiful.

2) We did not get to the Badlands or western Dakotas bc - the morning we were leaving for Mt. Rushmore from Pierre I happened to read (being essentially off-grid) “250K bikers expected in Sturgis starting TODAY.” We saw them coming in from everywhere, tho, and it was quite exciting. My vision had been to be FREE of masks and such-not, and there were the bikers living that to the hilt. I am watching for the 2-week bump (when they all die.) I do not expect to see it, which will be proof again that Fauci is lying. Again.

3)Travelers’ Rest west of Missoula was our first L&C stop. It is flat, streams wind through it - obviously a great place to camp. Stephen Ambrose spent a lot of time there, and they had run scientific tests. Found globs of lead exactly where they expected they had made musket balls. They had also dug in the latrines and found mercury, from Dr. Benjamin Rush’s ‘Thunderbolts’ - mercury laxatives which they used to cure everything. TR is one of the few sites with real artifacts known to be L&C items.

4) Heading towards Idaho, Lolo Pass leaves from here. We had driven that previously but were not heading SW.

5) The Expedition headed towards Great Falls from here over Highway 200 via “Lewis & Clark Pass.” There are supposed to be wonderful travois tracks here bc it was an Indian trail for many years. We had left quickly wo a lot of detailed planning, so we only found out about this later!

6) We avoided Great Falls MT bc they had demonstrated against President Trump when he was at Mt. Rushmore. Also, the L&C followed the Missouri River, right? So it’s a lot of back roads. They portaged for 18.5 miles around the falls; out of 8, 6 have hydroelectric dams today. However their 4th of July campsite at Belt Creek near White Bear Islands is now marked and preserved. (next trip).

7) My husband is a geologist, so we next went to Yellowstone. L&C did not go there and we should not have. Mid-August, Yellowstone?? Hot, lots of sagebrush, not the piney forest I was hoping for. So darned much traffic - people stopping in the middle of the 2-lane highway to get out of their cars and photograph (pet?) the bison. We did not stop even at Old Faithful due to the traffic. And DO NOT get a hotel in Cooke City (NE corner of the park). Y’stone is also expensive. We blew out of there pretty fast due to traffic.

8) Cody Wyoming has an amazing museum sponsored/ put together by the Smithsonian. There is a whole wing of historical guns; great natural history display of animals; Plains Indian area. We spent two days there. They even have a chuckwagon cookout on Tuesdays/ Fridays (we missed that too).

9) Back to the Yellowstone River to follow the Trail on the Interstate. Pompey’s Pillar was closed, due to much rain and falling rock + the WuFlu. There was a guy demonstrating the guns the Expedition had most likely used, which was fascinating.

10) Next we stopped in Bismarck. We wanted to avoid the Indian Reservations, as some have been closed to travelers due to the WuFlu and we have had our own ‘fun’ with reservation travel. The Mandan Village is about 45” north of Bismarck and well worth a stop. They have recreated Fort Mandan, which the Expedition built for themselves there. Interesting display there.

11) At this point, we decided to leave Points East for another time. Some of the L&C Interpretive Centers were closed due to the WuFlu - call ahead, they vary quite a bit. My Peet’s coffee stash for the hotel rooms was getting low, and we were a bit road-weary.

We had intended to go to St. Charles/ St. Joseph to see the National Frontiers Trail Center - Pony Express and the Oregon Trail also left from this area, so there must be lots to see. However - BLM/ Antifa had just closed the I-70 in St. Charles, so we decided against it. Next time.

We decided to go to Pierre SD (we love Governor Noem and wanted to check out moving there). They camped up-river from Pierre at the Confluence of the Bad River there, so that was interesting. We were going to head to Mt. Rushmore and happened to read, that very morning, that Sturgis was on and 250,000 bikers were expected to arrive that day for 10 days. Change of plans!!

12) We headed south from Pierre through Nebraska - flat and empty, hitting the I-70 west of Kearney NB. Now we were in Pony Express-land. We found a marker (via GPS) on a country road and another way-station that had been moved to a city park (in Gothenburg I think). Kearney is supposed to be very interesting, but we headed south to Hays, KS, to visit a cousin, and then back to Colorado to stay with my sister’s family in their cabin in the Rockies.

Well, FReepers, you caught me on a cup of coffee this am and still processing all that we did. Do the trail if you ever have the opportunity to - it is mostly campsites, of course, but still fascinating. Lots of Trump signs EVERYWHERE!! There is a good website with all the details that we should have looked at but did not (Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, I think); next trip we’ll pick up the pieces.