Free Ranging - Day 6 Final Destination

We left Rapid City, SD around 9:30 in the morning and headed to Mount Rushmore.  The drive was beautiful and cool.  The road was winding as well, but the beauty was worth it.  There were several one car tunnels with u-turns which was fun.

After Mount Rushmore we headed to Deadwood, SD.  

What we thought was going to be a short driving day ended another 10 hour day.  We were pretty exhausted by the time we made our final stop on Billings, MT.

Grangeman & Doodles at the Montana border. Montana was the final state Grangeman needed to reach every state west of the Mississippi.

We arrived around 8:00 Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, we walked to the Yellowstone River from my cousins house in Billings, it's about 2 blocks away. Doodles found some cool rocks for his collection.

We went to lunch at Pug Mahone in Billings, the home on the big pork chop sandwich that was on Diners Drive-Ins & Dives.  Huge portions or food there and reasonable priced.

After lunch we went and visited my parents house in Lockwood, MT.

Tomorrow Grangeman is going fishing Thursday & Friday while Doodles and I go antique shopping.

Will share more adventures as time allows.  Lots of relatives to visit here.

M & S

Uptown Grange Free Ranging

Free Ranging Day 5 - Up The Missouri River

HaPpy 4th of July!!

We love America so much that we decided to go through 7 states of it today!!

Left Ponca City, OK at 5:00 am, just outside of the city we noticed fog.  Ponca City is maybe 20 miles from the Kansas border.

The fog was much thicker in Kansas especially just at daybreak.  And hung on a good portion of the morning, even into Missouri.

Was overcast all the way until Minnesota where we got little bits of sunshine into South Dakota.  When we were at least half way through South Dakota it actually got up to 96°.  Got a little bit of rain just before hitting Rapid City.  There was a wrong turn made, so rather than going to Luverne, MN we ended up in Worthington, MN...about a 60 miles detour.

This was at least a 14 hour day...a long long day.  Now we are off to one of Grangeman's high school friends house for dinner.  At least we can sleep in tomorrow a bit before getting our day started!

Grangeman: Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota...so far....only one more to go for him and he'll have all the states west of the Mississippi.

Doodles & I checked off Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota & South Dakota on our places that we've now been.  We've already been to Montana, although Doodles doesn't remember.

M & S
Uptown Grange - Free Ranging

Free Ranging Day 4 - Newkirk & Pawhuska, OK

Today was the day we went to the cemetery in Newkirk, OK to see the grave marker for Grangeman's paternal grand parents.  Lots of different types of grave markers here, there are about 5,000 resting souls here.  His grand parents were spread at sea, this is where they are from so it was decided to put a marker up here.  

After we went to see the grave markers, we decided to explore a little around Ponca City.  I did some research because I knew Ree Drummond - The Pioneer Woman lived in Oklahoma.  Well, she lives about an hour away from Ponca City in Pawhuska, OK, so we went on an adventure to see if we could find her place and the mercantile store they are opening in Pawhuska.

I didn't have any expectations in finding their actual place.  But, we struck gold! We found the ranch, and took a picture of their ranch sign.

Just as we were leaving we saw her maroon truck pulling up and turning down the road under the sign, what were the odds of that happening, and it was coming from the direction we had just come from.  We couldn't believe it.  We don't know if it was her, but it was her truck.  We were beside ourselves with excitement.  Doodles wanted us to turn around and ask her if her could meet Charlie, but we let him know we shouldn't intrude. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

We continued on to Pawhuska to find the merchantile store, found it after passing it a few times and I'm not kidding we saw Marlboro Man's truck exiting from behind the building and turn in the direction we were going to be heading on the way back to the hotel.

Doodles again really tried to convince us to stop by, but again, you can't just do that....right?!?

Tomorrow we leave Ponca City for our next adventure.  We are driving up to Luverne, MN along the Midwest states borders.  The route we are taking will allow us to hit, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and our goal on the fourth of July is Rapid City, SD.  We will visit Mount Rushmore and try to hit Crazy Horse as well.

Stay tuned.

M & S
Uptown Grange - Free Ranging