Amanda and I survived the three weeks on the road. We had lots of fun too. We visited the fraternity brothers in Grand Forks, North Dakota then toured around Northern Minnesota before circling back to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota for the 10,000 Lakes Music Festival. It was about what we excepted, maybe not what we had hoped but definitely fun by any standard. It was fun visiting with Dr. Peter Read and all my other friends. There was some pretty good music and we met lots of unique people.
After the festival we drove across the plains of South Dakota. Stopping in Murdo, South Dakota where I was impressed by the claim that it had the original General Lee car from the Dukes of Hazard show. That is until I mentioned this to my brother and he pointed out that they probably used hundreds of cars in the making of the shows, so getting a used one was probably not all that hard. That made it a little less impressive but the fond memories of Murdo shall live on! We stopped in Wall, South Dakota to visit Wall Drug where we drank the free ice water and marvel at how many people can be attracted by the signs along every Midwest highway. We drove to Mt Rushmore and drove past Crazy Horse and went into Jewel Cave before making it to Devil’s Tower just before dark. Then we took the long way to Yellowstone going south through Thermopolis and along Hwy 26. Lars and Kristen met us and we drove around and checked out all the neat geysers and natural wonders of Yellowstone. We saw lots of Buffalos too!
After camping at Yellowstone for two nights we drove to Billings, Montana where Lars raced his motorcycles in the Billings Hillclimb. He made it over once on the bike he built from scratch using a street bike engine in a modified dirt bike frame. But on his last run his bike tumbled down the hill a ways and got a little dinged up. But not unfixable. Then we hightailed it back to Portland returning home on August first.
Now it’s the end of August. Amanda has returned home to Buffalo, New York where she just started her last year of University. I have been working at the wreath shop office some and selling tie dye some at the Gresham Farmers Market. I am headed this weekend up to the Gorge in Washington to see the Dave Matthews Band and try to sell the rest of my inventory and cash in. Or at the least to have a really good time.
“I don’t need to fight to prove I’m right. I don’t need to be forgiven! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yea!” -The Who
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