The Blizzard of Spring 2011

Yes, the spring blizzard did hit Montana, and North and South Dakota, shutting down Interstate 90 and others, blacking out much of eastern Montana and causing huge drifts.  On Saturday morning, there was a light coating of snow at Glendive MT, but the wind was blowing more than 50mph, so we decided to stay put until Sunday.  At 10am I met a lady checking out of the motel, and at 6pm, I met her checking in again.  She had gone 15 miles east to find snowdrift filled roads and it took her 6 hours to return to where she started!  We were lucky that we had stayed put!

Before we became blizzard-bound in Glendive, Carole received word early Thursday morning that a tornado had torn through the development where she lives – a stressful time of not knowing what had happened to her house was somewhat relieved when her daughter finally was able to enter the development on Sunday to find that, while most of the forest was gone, Carole’s house was the lucky one with no trees through the roof!  All of the power poles were downed, but have been replaced and electricity is on again.  Volunteers came Monday and cut up most of the downed trees – still a lot to do though and Carole obviously wants to be home.  So, we are heading eastward faster than planned.

Sunday, we left our safe place in Montana, and soon crossed into North Dakota.  At Bismarck we turned south towards South Dakota.  South Dakota and the other Midwestern states have had way too much rain, so the landscape with filled with new ponds and lakes, and beautiful skies.

Driving through the beautiful countryside of South Dakota, we tried and tried to get a great picture of the beautiful male pheasants that we could see along the grassy roadsides.  But every time we would stop, they would take off, running with their tails and heads high in the air, directly away from us.  Some even hunched down under the grass and scurried along, until they popped cheerful a good distance away,  seeming to say ‘ha-ha, catch me if you can”.  Beautiful birds!  Here’s not a picture of a pheasant – gone!

We stopped to view the falls at Sioux Falls which were impressive (when we were here in 2006, there was a drought and the falls weren’t), and then moved on into Nebraska. 

We stopped at our favorite museum in Camberlain, SD, at the St. Joseph Indian School, where this sculpture greets the students.

Through South Dakota into Nebraska along the Missouri River we drove, where we found a beautiful campground at Ponca State Park, which had a wonderful nature and river discovery center.  The state parks are finally open – May has arrived.  This sculpture was at Ponca State Park.

Tuesday’s drive brought us to into Sioux City, Iowa, along the Missouri River, and further south to a campground just north of Kansas City, Mo.   We will sneak over to Kansas so that Carole can mark that state off her list (both of us now have all of the lower 48 and Vera has Alaska too).

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Here are some strange sculptures we have seen along the way.

Some of  you have asked about the puppies.  Missy and Maggie are both wellk, but a bit bored we think. They often ride along up front, sleeping between the two front seats (on top of the maps and papers and snack bags)  What a life!