June 10, 2022

Temperature 85 Degrees, Abundant Sunshine

Medora Musical, Medora, ND

We visited Medora, ND for two reasons and this was one of them. Opening night for the 2022 season was Wednesday, June 8, 2022 and we intended to be there.

Be there, actually, in the amphitheater which was way down there. But no fear there is actually an easy way to get there.

While waiting for the doors, or in this case

the escalator gate to open to take us down

I had a chance to meet the man Teddy and his wife Edith. I made sure to thank him for the lovely national park that bears his name.

About the show, according to their web site:

In this high energy, country-western variety show you’ll see singing and dancing by the Burning Hills Singers and Coal Diggers Band, live horses on stage, a dramatic reenactment of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous charge during the battle of San Juan Hill and a BIG patriotic finale 

But I believe my sister put it best when she went to their web site: It looks like The Grand Ole Opry on steroids.

And that it was from beginning to end!

Our one host making his grand entrance. His name is Dusty Drake.

The Coal Diggers Band. What a phenomenal group of musicians. This band could play, and play they did. See that young lady in the middle with the fiddle,

Oh could she, and did she do justice to The Devil Went Down to Georgia! I’ve heard this song many, many times and this young lady could really play that fiddle.

Here we have The Burning Hills Singers with our second host, Calamity Annie in the middle wearing the red outfit. What a high energy, spectacular performance they put on for the whole two hours.

A few minutes into the show and we had our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. The poor rider on the white horse, that horse just didn’t want to stand still. I believe I caught him in a rare moment, because the rest of the time he kept twirling around and tying to go everywhere he wasn’t supposed to. The rider definitely had his hands full.

Continuing,

Teddy at the Medora town hall getting his picture taken with some of the town’s folk.

The men doing Elvira and oh did they nail it. They were absolutely awesome. My, could they sing.

Roosevelt’s Band of Brothers, The Rough Riders. A really moving tribute to this time in Roosevelt’s life.

And the night concluded with America the Beautiful. What I couldn’t take is a picture of, if you look in the second picture, high up on the hill behind and to the right of the Medora sign was a rider holding high the American flag with a spot light on him.

As part of the night’s performance there was also a special guest by the name of Lynn Trefzger. She is a ventriloquist/comedienne with a trunk full of zany characters. She also enlisted some unsuspecting members of the audience to be her human puppets as well. Take a moment and google her and watch some of her YouTube performances. At times some of us were laughing so hard the tears were rolling down our cheeks.

Bottom line this was a special night that we both will long remember. It was worth the trip here as well as the price for the tickets. I wish I could have embedded some of the videos I took but alas I am unable to do so. If you have a bucket list of things you feel you should do, and if you love county and western music this is a show that you just must see. You will not be disappointed. I know we weren’t.

Thanks again for spending some time with us.  It’s always great to be able to share our story with family and friends. Comments? Feel free to share them with me. And always remember, cherish every moment of every day that God gives you and live those moments to the fullest.

Our continuing mission remains the same: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before.

June 10, 2022

Temperature 85 Degrees, Abundant Sunshine

Travel Day, Yesterday

Sort of behind on the blog but I promise to try and get caught up over the next few days. Well, yesterday was a travel day. We’re slowly starting to head back east. Today’s trip was an easy one, just a few hours. What we forget, though, was that we were going back into Central Time. Thus, we lost an hour there.

Today’s trip was Route 94 from beginning to end. The road is in good condition and since there was little to no traffic we made good time. Thankfully, no rain this time. We made one stop for fuel and then it was on to the Bismarck KOA.

In just over two hours actual drive time we were pulling into the KOA. A quick stop at the office to receive our site assignment and with an escort in front we were headed to our site. That’s when I began to get an uneasy feeling about this park. The road’s in the park are narrow, tree branches on either side with only inches to spare. Slowly, ever so slowly we made our way to our site with the alarm bells in my mind beginning to ring.

We finally turned toward our site and by now the alarm bells in my mind were really ringing loud. This was our site? Is this some kind of a joke?

Our site is right on the main road leading in and right on the main road outside of the park. The traffic noise is constant and to make matters worse we have a train on the other side. Then, to access the sewer I had to back all the way up off of the site into the so-called road behind.

As for the site – forget it. It is so unlevel. I have the jacks fully extended, with blocks underneath in the back and we are just barely level front to back. Mind you when I checked this was the only park in the area with a 7 for a rating. I can only imagine how bad the others must be. I can guarantee you that we’ll never come back to this park.

Once settled in and all utilities hooked up it was time to get busy with repairs to our front inside steps. In front of Ms. Barbara’s seat, in the entrance way, the step is supposed to come up when you press a switch so that she has a level floor in front of her when traveling. Well, it would come up but for some reason it would not go down unless you pushed it. I could hear the motor running so I was pretty confident it was good. Time to figure what was going on. To make a long story short some screws came out that linked the motor to the step. I replaced them and we are all good once again. I love it when the fix is so simple.

So that is where we are at on The Road of Retirement. We’re not happy at all with our new home but we’ll make do. We have to, there is nowhere else to go! This time next week this park and this site will only be a distant memory. A park, though, that we will definitely put on the don’t ever use again list.

Thanks again for spending some time with us.  It’s always great to be able to share our story with family and friends. Comments? Feel free to share them with me. And always remember, cherish every moment of every day that God gives you and live those moments to the fullest.

Our continuing mission remains the same: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before.

Monday, June 6, 2022

Temperature 48 Degrees, Rain

Travel Day

Yesterday was a travel day. We moved from Sundance, WY to Medora, ND. It was a long day for us, a total of four hours drive time. OK, I know for some that is next to nothing. But we usually like to limit our time on the road to between two to three hours. Plus, the entire trip was made in the rain. Intermittent at first then the last two hours was never ending rain. Ugh.

We were on Route 85 North the majority of the way. It was an OK road, two lane but in great shape. I will say though that the part of the country we went through has to be some of the most desolate anywhere. No houses, barns, nothing for miles and miles. It was odd that you could literally see the road 50, maybe 60 miles in front of you because it ran straight as an arrow.

In due time we arrived at Medora Campground in the rain. There were puddles, lakes, and rivers galore. In other words the park was as wet as wet can be. We had already preregistered so in a matter of minutes we were given our site assignment and were off to our new home.

Our site is pull-thru, hard gravel base, with all utilities readily at hand. The site spacing is OK with grass between the two sites. However, the site is anything but level. Thankfully, the leveling jacks took care of that issue. I’ll be honest, this was not my first choice for an RV park because they charge way too much. However, we were here for just one thing, The Medora Musical and it is just across the street. This location would allow us to get home immediately after the performance and get a good night’s sleep since we would be leaving the next morning.

I went to work setting everything up outside – in the rain. Once finished, I went inside to dry off and – you guessed it -that is when the rain stopped! We also encountered our first major issue of this trip. Note the satellite antenna in the above picture. It is stuck in that position and will not come down nor go up. We did some troubleshooting and have determined that the motor in the turret is burned out. Mind you, the antenna is just over two years old and just out of warranty. The first issue I’ll have to deal with is getting it down into travel position. There is supposed to be a way to do that manually which I’ll try today or tomorrow. If that doesn’t work I’ll take it apart piece by piece. Then we need to find a new antenna. It’s always something isn’t it.

So that is where we are on The Road of Retirement. We’re almost to the halfway point of our trip. Soon, we’ll be moving east and then south heading back toward home. We’re looking forward to the musical tomorrow night and then we’ll start moving north to The International Peace Garden where we’ll meet up with our friends, Isaac, and Sheila. We’re getting there, day by day, mile by mile, RV park by RV park.

Thanks again for spending some time with us.  It’s always great to be able to share our story with family and friends. Comments? Feel free to share them with me. And always remember, cherish every moment of every day that God gives you and live those moments to the fullest.

Our continuing mission remains the same: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before.

Sunday, June 5, 2022

Temperature 69 Degrees, Sun and Clouds

Sundance, WY

So we’re sort of sitting on the fence today. Tomorrow is supposed to be our next travel day but the weather report is not good. As of now they are forecasting gusting winds, rain and a possible hail storm. The question is How far north would we have to go before we are out it? We’ll continue to monitor the weather and make our decision tomorrow morning.

A couple of days ago as we were returning from Devils Tower we passed through the town of Sundance and discovered this

and decided that further investigation was needed.

I was curious about The Sun Dance so I did some further investigation. I discovered that Native American tribes periodically performed the sacred Sun Dance, the ritual cleansing of one’s spirit. The ceremonies typically involve singing, dancing, drumming, fasting, and in some cases various participants would claim that they saw visions.

Sundance is named for Sundance Mountain which is directly behind the RV park. The Sun Dance was usually performed on the slopes of this mountain.

And there he is!

Afterwards, to the left of the square we also discovered

The Bison in the first picture was made of old horse shoes. Someone knows how to recycle!

Since we were already here we decided to go take a peak inside.

We learned that the museum was housed in the former Sundance School Building which was constructed in 1923. In 1971 it was closed and fell into disrepair. It sat vacant for many years until 2017 when concerned community members worked together to restore the building to its original splendor. Some time in the past it was given the nickname Old Stoney that

references its stone façade, age and dominant place in the community.

I really got a chuckle when I read this. All I can say is, times have sure changed.

Keeping with the school theme for the time being.

Think about it, if your bedroom was the school room during the day you definitely would not get to sleep in!

Annual school meetings must have been very interesting at times.

What’s so interesting about a broom maker? Nothing really, but

this was something I had never heard of.

Then there was this

And I for one know that they are real because

I actually got to ride one!

Now what is so interesting about this woman?

Sometimes, I guess, you just have to do what you have to do.

Anyone recognize this? A dentist chair with a couple of drills for drilling your teeth. But get this, the drill was foot powered. You pedaled it to get it to work. Here, though, is what’s interesting

Can you imagine having to pedal the drill because doc is too old to both pedal and drill? Oh no, not me that’s for sure.

Well there were other exhibits in other rooms but nothing earth shattering. It was, however, a wonderful way to pass some time. I truly get a kick out of museums like this because they so often reveal a lot about a town or area you are in.

Time now to start getting our affairs in order for our move tomorrow. Rain or no rain we’ll probably go because the weather report is no better for Tuesday. The only thing that would keep us from going would be a hail storm. Fingers crossed that they’ll be none of that.

Thanks again for spending some time with us.  It’s always great to be able to share our story with family and friends. Comments? Feel free to share them with me. And always remember, cherish every moment of every day that God gives you and live those moments to the fullest.

Our continuing mission remains the same: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before.