This is our final US edition of Notes from the Road. After 10 weeks, 8,000 miles, 14 states, 9 national parks, 12 viewings of Space Jams, approximately 100 hours listening to The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian, 13 hotels, 5 campsites, 6 cabins, 2 houses, 2 off-season ski resorts, a tent cabin and a YMCA, we are finally saying goodbye to the good ol’ USA, testing out the boys’ UK passports and heading to Scotland via Iceland.
Sadly, I have to report that we never did see a Delaware license plate 🙁
However, we have a bit of a resurgence of things we nearly hit while driving! We will go out big on this one – Wisconsin redeemed us with tons of near road-kill. We saw the following animals while driving to my aunt’s cabin in rural Wisconsin:
1 – TEN deer. Most weren’t in real danger of being run over, but a few were actually right on the side of the road and two ran across the road in front of us.
2 – Four ducklings – C actually had to swerve into the other lane to avoid the group of 4 ducklings walking across the road (why did the duckling cross the road…?)
3 – A black bear – C claims to have spotted a large black thing crossing the road in the distance in front of us. Apparently there are lots of black bears in the area, so despite the sighting not being confirmed by anyone else in the car, we are going to say it likely really was a bear.
4 – Two fishers – we spotted two strange black weasel-like animals crossing the road in front of us. We weren’t sure what they were, but after googling it, and asking my cousin, something of an expert on Wisconsin wildlife (every family should have one!), we believe they were fishers. hey – its my blog, so it is what I say it is 😉
a fisher – a member of the weasel family
5 – Wild turkeys – a few crossed the road in front of the van in front of us. Close enough to count, right? Yep. My blog, my rules.
We also saw a doe and two fawns on the long driveway of our Airbnb at the lake in Minnesota.
And our final animal sighting was a fox dashing across the road in front of our car in northern (like WAY Northern – just south of the Canadian border) Minnesota.
Also, on our way from Wyoming towards Minnesota, we stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. We didn’t stay long. We did a hike, toured his old log cabin (which was moved and renovated, so I’m not sure he would recognize it), took a hike, spotted some feral horses and a bison, and hiked on the Ridgeline Trail. It was a nice stop.
Goodbye from the US – I’m sure we will have more exotic animals to report nearly hitting on the other side of the pond!
