We're Off to See the Wizard!!--Sightseeing in Minnesota and North Dakota

Oh, yeah!!  There is lots of sightseeing to do in Minnesota and North Dakota!!  After wrapping up our canoe trip in the Boundary Waters, we set out for home with a lot of stops at various points of interest.

We kicked things off with a visit to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  Here's a shot of Buckskin Lily standing on the porch of Judy Garland's childhood home:

Those of  you who know me well will understand the significance of this trip for me.  Here I am on the landing of Judy's house (where she and her sisters practiced their act):

And here I am playing the piano in the living room:

Here I am with the carriage pulled by the horse of a different color in the Wizard of Oz movie:

Why is Abraham Lincoln standing off to the right you ask?  Well...before this carriage was used in movies, it was originally made for Abraham Lincoln during his presidency.  It appeared in lots of other movies besides the Wizard of Oz...

OK, OK...enough with the Oz & Judy Garland memorabilia!  I know everyone isn't as interested in it as I am, but maybe just ONE more...

Alright!!  Moving on...after visiting Judy's house, we went to visit Paul Bunyan & Babe the blue ox in Bemidji:

Then a little later as we were driving down the road, we saw him again!  This Paul was pretty hairy, but he did let me sit in his hand.  I thought that was pretty nice of him.

In North Dakota, we went to see Ft. Mandan where Lewis & Clark spent their first winter on their expedition for President Jefferson.  Here is a full-view of the Fort (reconstructed near the original site):

And here's a closer up view of the fort's inner courtyard:

And what would my blog be without a picture of ME???  Here I am standing next to the cannon:

Near the fort, we visited the Lewis & Clark Discovery Center.  Noah found some awesome buffalo targets out in front:

And I found myself a new dog.  This is Lewis & Clark's dog, Seaman.  I wanted to take him home, but Noah wouldn't let me.

And inside, I got suited up to join the Corps of Discovery (not!)...

As we wended our way back to Wyoming, we made a stop at Devil's Tower.  We've been in Wyoming for 5 years now & this is was our first visit.  Devil's Tower is located in northeast Wyoming and was the U.S.'s first national monument.  We arrived in the late afternoon, which was a great time for photos:

And again, what would this blog be without more pictures of ME???  Here I am in front of Devil's Tower...paying homage to my Korean friends with my pose:

There's a prairie dog village near Devil's Tower, and while many people think prairie dogs are pests, I think they're cute.  I spent quite some time trying to get some good photos, but they make very poor photographic subjects.  Here are a couple of the most decent shots I was able to capture:

And this little guy (or girl) was very busy digging a new hole:

After Devil's Tower, we reluctantly headed for home.  We were having a great time on our vacation, but we had to get back home to compete in the Wyoming State Championships (which I reported on in the previous post).

Oh, yeah...one thing I forgot to include:  in Bemidji, we spotted a pair of Canada geese and a whole gaggle of goslings.  I tried to get a good photo, but mama wouldn't let me get too close.  Here they are:

Well...that's it for now, but like I said...keep checking back often.  It's going to be an exciting summer.  Still to come are the Yellowstone Valley Buffalo Stampede in Billings, MT;  the Montana State Championships; Oregon; L.A.; a cruise to Hawaii; and of course, Shirley Shot's RV adventure from CA to WY.  Hope everyone's summer is fun & adventure-packed.  I'll be talking to you soon. 

I'm going to end with this picture again, it's just too cool.  Until we meet again!!

Buckskin Lily, Buckskin Lily, Buckskin Lily & Buckskin Lily

2012 Wyoming State Championships

Well, I took 1st place in my shooting category:  Ladies' Traditional.  BUT...the State Championship eluded me once again.  I took 3rd this year, and it wasn't a tight contest.  Oh, well...maybe next year!

However, I did have a great time at the awards banquet.  My friend Jim & I played cowboy music for a crowd of 150 or so.  Here are a couple of shots of Cimarron in action (taken by Noah Regrets):

(No...I don't think Noah was taking his job as band photographer very seriously!)

Anyway, hope you're all having a great summer.  Talk to you all soon!

Love,
Buckskin Lily

Buckskin & Noah in The Boundary Waters...

Buckskin and Noah headed to Ely, Minnesota on May 24th for 5 days & 4 nights of canoeing in the Boundary Waters. 

The weather was a mixed bag over the 5 days--everything from torrential downpours, 20 m.p.h. winds, thunder and lightening, to beautiful sunshine.  Here's a shot from the canoe on day 1. This is what we got most of the day. It was cloudy, overcast, rainy and very windy. 

And here's a picture taken from camp on day 2. What a difference a day makes! 

So...we fell into a pattern of paddling every day from about 9 until 3.  Then we'd find a nice campsite, set up camp, and relax.

Here's Noah at our night 1 camp...packing up and getting ready to head out for the day.

And me washing my face...gotta look pretty when you're out in the wilderness!

Here's Noah cooking up dinner on night 2.  No!  It's not fish...it's potatoes & corn.  We didn't catch any fish & we were trying to eat up the heaviest food items to lighten the packs for the portages.  Noah did all the cooking, since he knew how to work the bunsen burner...

I was in charge of the campfires...I've always enjoyed building fires...just ask my mom!

Here's the little girls' room...very fancy!

Camp life was pretty relaxing....here I am on night 4 kicking back after dinner.  Note the excellent lounge chair...complete with hand-carved cup holder!  Oh, yeah...you probably noticed my fashionable headgear...there were a few mosquitos flying around. 

This trip was a bit different than the river canoeing we've done in the past.  We had to do several portages:  taking everything out of the canoe & carrying it along a trail.  We did about 15 in all.  We were getting pretty good at it, too, by the end of the trip.

Here I am carrying some of the gear...including a very heavy Duluth pack on day 4.

And here's Noah with the canoe on his shoulders.  It was a light-weight Kevlar canoe...but still!  I'm glad I didn't have to port it!

This is the end point of one of the portages where we'd put the canoe back in the water, re-load it & head back out onto the next lake.

We saw some cool wildlife.  My favorite were the loons:

This is my best loon photo.  The crazy guys were mating, so there was a LOT of screeching, warbling and splashing at night.

I also spotted my first wild turtle:

This was the best shot I could get of him before he jumped into the water and swam away.

We also had a red squirrel at one camp & a mini-bear at another.  These guys were NOT afraid of people in the slightest.  I think they would have eaten out of my hand if I'd offered them something.  Here's the mini-bear (the squirrel wouldn't pose for me!):

On the good days, the scenery was quite stunning:

We did have one really tough day/night.  We had a 20 m.p.h. headwind, the light Kevlar canoe was blowing all over the place, it was raining hard & we got lost!!  By the time we were able to find a campsite, we were so exhausted, we couldn't paddle another stroke, but the site was burned out, rocky & devoid of trees.  We decided to make the best of it & tied a tarp to a couple of dead trees to make a rain cover.  We got it up just in time, because it started raining on us again.  Here's Noah in the shelter:

We tried to wait for it to stop raining to put up the tent, but it never happened, so we put it up in the rain & crawled inside to wait things out.  I didn't get any more photos that day because it never stopped raining & we never came back out of the tent.  The next day was much better, however & our last day was the best of all.

This is me getting ready to pack up on the last morning.  It was a beautiful, calm day...the perfect way to finish our trip to the Boundary Waters!!

Oh, yeah...I almost forgot:  here's a shot of the rapids where we almost died!!

That's another exciting story...I'll tell you all about it next time I see you.  Hope you enjoyed reading about our little adventure.

Look for more here soon...it's going to be a VERY exciting summer.  Until then, I'm...

Yours truly,

(Wet) Buckskin Lily