Fields of Gold

We have been driving through South Dakota and North Wyoming ... the landscape is beautiful. South Dakota has miles of rolling hills and when the light is right they look like fields of gold. We have travelled around the States a lot over the years and seen quite a bit, each State can feel like a whole new country ... each State has its own unique landscape that can be quite breathtaking at times. We were taken by surprise by our drive through these two States. 

One of our early morning departure views as we we left our KOA to continue our drive to Yellow Stone Park. With these rolling hills and miles of flatlands the early morning sky looks spectacular. 

I nearly walked right past this beautiful wild flower ... the colour really grabbed me. I could not resist taking a photo ... growing wild in the grass paddocks. Sometimes I can miss what is right in front of me because I am too busy in my mind moving on to the next thing. I am glad I caught this moment.

Pete had said on several occasions that he wanted to see Bison ... so we took a diversion en route to stop at a Bison Park ... they are kind of intimidating up close. While standing here eyeballing these magnificent creatures I really felt like we were in an old Western movie waiting for Clint Eastwood to ride by on his horse.

Roxcy is a beautiful blend of bold and cautious ... this is a bold moment, skipping ahead of us with a complete sense of freedom and place. How would that be ... 

One of the great attractions of KOA is meeting friends and lots of playtime for Lars and Roxcy, they are great at playing ... hard! I am not sure what Mike and Chris will make of this photo ... probably not the kind of play they thought Lars would be doing.

We made a stop at the Minuteman Missile Visitors Centre ... in the late 60's and early 70's there were around a 1,000 missiles kept here, ready at a minutes notice to attack/defend their country, their peace and their freedom. There was a lot of info here on the 'Cold War' and the creation of the atomic and nuclear bombs. There was a section on drill procedure in case of an attack on the US. My memory of NZ in the 60's is so different ... I have no memory of safety drills in case of attack, or a bunker under our house. I do remember JFK's assassination, man walking on the moon, Vietnam, Woodstock ... and this kind of wall paper ... which I love!

We visited Mount Rushmore ... it was a hot day! We were here with the rest of the US who are on their summer vacation. Roxcy started to 'whine' about 30 minutes into our walk around the park. I used all my parental experience and compassion ... 'I know this is hot and tiring isn't it Roxcy' ... 'we won't be too long, lets enjoy the sights' ... then I moved into a more passive aggressive tone ... 'I am choosing to ignore you now Roxcy' ... then oppositional, 'the more you whine Roxcy the less I want to give you what you want'. By the time this photo was taken I was wanting to yell at her! Bad Grandma ... I hear you ... I thought I would be more evolved as a woman, Grandmother and human being ... it appears that I still have some ways to go.

The end activity of a long hot day ... swimming in the pool ... for hours.

Roxcy sleeps the way she lives ... with intention.

Yes it happened ... we broke down climbing a rather steep but study incline in North Wyoming about 90 miles out of Codie ... close to Yellow Stone Park. Our RV just stopped! We rang Mike ... google Mike ... he googled the problem and the solution. Looks like our fuel pump had heated up and stopped. We were able to pull over to the side of a rather busy road and we waited ... for about an hour. We had a couple of cars pull over to see if we needed any help. One guy said that his car had stopped as well, he 'just slapped it and it went' ... not sure that would have worked for us.