North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon

Whew, way behind schedule here. Let's see if we can squeeze a bunch of updates into one:

1. Our one stop in North Dakota was a great one;  Medora. This was a cute little town tucked right up against Theodore Roosevelt National Park - South Unit. The North Unit is about an hour north and we did spend a day there. Highlights were:
• A dusty campground, mainly because they had suffered a flood from the Little Missouri Scenic River, which runs right along its border.
• A short bike ride into the town, which has a distinctive Western flare to it and several nice, western-styled restaurants.
• The Medora Musical: a romping, family oriented, musical featuring lots of western themes and music and a fiddler who can really play "Orange Blossom Special" like nobodies business.
2. In Montana, we stopped in Billings and spent one of our few free overnights in a Cabela's parking lot. Then we made our way to Butte, which was having a Folk Festival weekend. We also stayed there free in a city park, which they had made available to festival goers. The weather was great, the music was even greater, and it all took place in the historic "Uptown" portion of the city, right under the huge mining operation. Our last morning there we toured one of the older mines in the area before heading for...
3. Idaho. Here we stayed in Arco, the first city in the world to be lit by atomic power back in the 50s, when they were trying to see if there were practical peace-time uses for splitting the atom. This is close to Craters of the Moon National Monument, which is a 12,000 year old volcanic area, where vegetation is still trying to get a foothold. We also found a monument in the town to nuclear submarines and had a great time talking with one of the locals who was able to show us a lot of memorabilia which was of particular interest to Geoff.
4. Oregon was one of the main reasons from coming this way. We attended "The Rally" put on by Camping World and Good Sam and featuring about 25,000 camping units. We boon-docked and found our new batterie,s which we put in last winter, to be really up to the task. We had wonderful weather (again), some great entertainment, and even met a couple from our FMCA "Chai" Chapter, who were there drumming up some touring business. It was great to spend an evening with them. After the rally, we went up to the Mt Hood area and spent several days touring there, seeing the Columbia River Gorge and the Timberline Lodge on the side of Mt Hood. It was still cold enough at 6000 ft for there still to be skiing in progress.

Our next stop is Seattle, Washington, where Ellyn has some friends from her college days.