Denver, Colorado, was a reminder of how the USA gun laws
allow so many acts of violence. This is the Colorado State
capitol building. We arrived to take a tour and
saw the building was inundated with media.
An armed man had entered the building apparently intending
to assassinate the governor and was apprehended and shot
dead by security. Lucky we didn't arrive an hour earlier.
Our luck in getting to the State Capitol Building was caused by this place, the Colorado History Museum, which was so good that we stayed there a couple of hours longer than intended, before goingto the State Capitol!!!!!!!!!!
The Colorado Rocky Mountains had us singing like John Denver as we hiked(!) along the mountain paths at about 10,000 feet altitude. You were lucky not to hear that.
We made many new friends along the way and met some old ones too. these guys were at the Bedrock RV Park in the Black Hills of Dakota. A day before we arrived here they had a storm with hailstones the size of golf balls. It seems our luck is holding.
Chief Crazy Horse was accidentally bayonetted in the back while parleying with US soldiers under a flag of truce. After the Mt Rushmore monument to 4 US presidents was completed, the Indian nations decided to build a memorial too. Building started more than 50 years ago. The face of this monument is larger than the total size of the 4 president heads. This model shows what the mountain will look like when complete and under the models arm you can see the part of the mountain carved to date. Probably another 50-100 years before complete!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Mt Rushmore monument was remarkable but the crowds and the American sense of pride in their heritage was even more memorable.
Our luck ran out when El Van's fuel pump failed to handle the record temperatures in the Black Hills and we broke down and waited 3 hours in 100F heat for the tow tuck to take us back to Hill City for 3 days rest waiting for the overworked mechanic to get us back on the road.
While waiting for the car we found a great "Happy Days" style diner and rode a steam engine built in 1885, spent some time lazing around the pool and caught up on the blog.
The Mississippi River was enormous and later we arrived in Minneapolis where Drew had his first game of bridge since leaving Caloundra. Four days later the Minneapolis bridge over the Mississipi River collapsed with the loss of at least 6 lives and several people still missing.
In the national parks it is illegal to feed the wildlife but they still like fast food like their countrymen.
Roger and Mary from the Alaskan cruise were fantastic hosts in Millwaukie. Together we toured the Brewers Ballpark, took a FREE tour of Millers Brewery with FREE BEER TODAY (unlike the Ettamogah pub at home which has free beer tomorrow) and the 3 Domes garden. Thanks for a great time, Roger and Mary.
In Chicago we took an interesting river cruise to check out the architecture, in the science museum saw a U boat captured by the US near the end of WW2 and ate at Gumpy's shrimp restaurant (based on Forrest Gump's shrimp restaurant chain) at Navy pier.
Camping near the banks of lake Erie we met Bob, a French horn player from Tennessee. Bob was playing at Lakeside, a gated community nearby, and gave us some tickets to see his symphony orchestra performing. The Lakeside Methodist community was a beautiful and fascinating place to visit. It's a summer vacation resort style village with everything you could ask for a holiday (if you don't drink, gamble or have any other unspeakable vices). The performance of the orchestra was superb and the whole Lakeside experience was definitely a highlight of our trip. Thanks Bob.
At Cleveland we planned to spend the day wandering around the Rock'n'roll hall of fame, but when we arrived we happened to park near the local ballpark and instead we bought some tickets from a scalper and went to see the Cleveland Indians beat the Texas Rangers. After a few beers and a great time at the ballpark, we made it to the hall of fame and spent about 2 hours, looking at the clothes, instruments and other paraphernalia of the rock'n'roll greats. the music was pretty good too.
