-
Town Square Craft Show
Paola, KS, November 2025 I am notorious about finding local activities. Today was no different. Paola Kansas is about 10 miles from Hillsdale State Park. The town has a population of around 5,800 people. The main street stores surround the Town Park. Since it was just Halloween, John immediately noticed the sign “Potawatomi Trail of…
-
Clinton SP North Shore Trails
Lawrence, KS, October 2025 In 2024, John hiked part of the white and blue trails, and, for some reason, I did not. I’m not exactly sure why. Potentially, my Achilles was hurting, or I went shopping 🙂 This year we did a little of each trail all on the same hike. John said that the…
-
Falls Park
Sioux Falls, SD, August 2025 Kate found out that there was a Farmer’s Market in Sioux Falls at Falls Park. We decided to kill several birds with one drive by going to the Farmer’s Market, touring Falls Park, and getting groceries all in the same trip. On the way out, we saw a Great (White)…
-
Badlands National Park
Interior, SD, July 2025 Kate put together a plan to do everything within about 100 miles, except John ruined her plan by pointing out that her route bypassed most of the Badlands National Park. The revised plan skipped the extra grasslands visitor center, and passed through the badlands. This plan involved going to the Minuteman…
-
Gordon Stockade & Gold Panning
Custer State Park, SD, July 2025 We spent the morning completing chores around the trailer, making calls, etc. In the afternoon, we went gold rushing. The park naturalists offer a wide variety of free programs that anyone can attend – animals talks, nature walks, archery, gold panning, etc. The 2 pm event at the Gordon…
-
Barnes Canyon Trail
Custer State Park, SD, July 2025 We needed to get some exercise, so we decided to go hiking. Since all the places that we wanted to hike had rattlesnakes or poison ivy, we decided to hike on Barnes Canyon Trail. Since we could not decide which direction to hike from, Kate picked “B”, and we…
-
Buffalo Farmers Market
Buffalo, WY, July 2025 Whenever I hear that a local town has a farmers’ market I can’t resist going. John has the advantage of me sending him pictures of the food and asking him if he’d like any and not having to go. In Buffalo, Wyoming the farmers market is held every Wednesday between 5…
-
Jewel Cave National Monument & Canyon Hike
Jewel Cave National Monument, SD, July 2025 There are 3 national monuments within an hour of Custer State Park. The monuments are Jewel Cave National Monument, Wind Cave National Monument and Mount Rushmore National Monument. Jewel Cave has a .25 mile, 3.5 mile, and 5.5 mile hike near it. The .25 miles hike starts and…
-
Bighorn National Forest (North)
Burgess Junction, WY, July 2025 We stayed at Garryowen, MT because Kate wanted to drive the Northern Route through Bighorn National Forest on Route 14. Route 14 through the forest is almost 60 miles south of Garryowen and about 35 miles long. In total, it is about 2 hours of driving, each way, due to…
-
Protection from the Storm?
Garryowen, MT, July 2025 An afternoon storm with chance of high winds and 1/2 inch hail popped up. The skies all of a sudden turned dark with major wind gust rocked the trailer. Not knowing if Montana is at higher risk for Tornados, we pulled out the cat carriers just in case we needed to…