Typist: Bethany
I woke from a pretty bad nights sleep (each itch any of us had in the tent meant the light went on and a tick search occurred) to lovely woodland bird songs and a perky collie hovering over me attempting to give me some morning kisses, but he had a tick hanging from his lip. Yuck. Fortunately, our topical tick medicine was doing it's job and this tick was not engorged but almost dead. Day 2 ended with ticks, and day 3 began with ticks. This is a tough region to travel through with three long haired dogs. Needless to say, we did more grooming. Wilhelm also had an attached but dying tick on him. We did enjoy Buffalo River State Park in Minnesota a bit more before leaving the campground. We thoroughly shook and wiped every piece of bedding, avoided the grassland trails and we left way, way later than planned. I was definitely inspired to push on, though, because when filling up the gas tank I realized that we were over half way through our journey East. The West sure is big!
I woke from a pretty bad nights sleep (each itch any of us had in the tent meant the light went on and a tick search occurred) to lovely woodland bird songs and a perky collie hovering over me attempting to give me some morning kisses, but he had a tick hanging from his lip. Yuck. Fortunately, our topical tick medicine was doing it's job and this tick was not engorged but almost dead. Day 2 ended with ticks, and day 3 began with ticks. This is a tough region to travel through with three long haired dogs. Needless to say, we did more grooming. Wilhelm also had an attached but dying tick on him. We did enjoy Buffalo River State Park in Minnesota a bit more before leaving the campground. We thoroughly shook and wiped every piece of bedding, avoided the grassland trails and we left way, way later than planned. I was definitely inspired to push on, though, because when filling up the gas tank I realized that we were over half way through our journey East. The West sure is big!
Our campsite overlooking the Buffalo River in Minnesota
Buffalo River sand
When there's sand, there's digging
And rolling
Crossing the Buffalo River on our morning hike
Day four drive from Buffalo River State Park, Minnesota to Kegonsa State Park, Wisconsin: 502 miles
The rest of the day was just driving. I had a creepy-crawly free nap at a rest stop and the dogs were SO incredibly good, patient and quiet, I wanted to scream at times (like while stuck in Minneapolis rush hour traffic) but the dogs constant good attitudes and amazing resilience helped me hold it together. I also considered abandoning our schedule and using the buffer day I had allowed us for arrival on time in New York but Jason and I both agreed it would be best for the dogs to press on and arrive in the Eastern U.S. as scheduled. We pulled into our campsite in Wisconsin way later than we would have liked and way after dark. The only fun thing that happened day four, after leaving Buffalo River State Park was this:
A fellow pet area explorer at a rest stop in Wisconsin
What matters is that we did make it to our campsite in Wisconsin and we are all happy to be here. And the best part of all is that we Cascadian Nomads will be having many more fun adventures together, ticks and traffic or not!
We truly enjoyed hiking along the Buffalo River in Minnesota
Please forgive any & all rough spots in this post as it has been done on mobile from the road! We will be reading and enjoying your comments but, due to being on the road, it will be difficult for us to respond right away. Thanks for understanding and for coming along on this great adventure.
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