Craig and Betsey's First 25,000 Miles

Traveling through the Badlands National Park.

Group of Boy Scouts we were traveling with.

Buffalo in Custer National Park.

Devils Tower side trip from our Black Hills trip.

Our camp spot at the Boy Scout Camp in the Black Hills.

View from the top of Harney Peak. The tallest spot in South Dakota.

Any trip to the Badlands is not complete without a stop at Wall Drug.

1st International Teardrop Gathering in Minden, NE.

Our campsite at the ITG.

We introduced the side tent at the ITG. It was (and continues to be) quite a hit!

FIRST 25,000 Miles
Craig & Betsey Edevold
2000 – 550 Special, Camp-Inn #000
2002 - 550 Ultra, Camp-Inn #002
Tow Vehicles: 1987 Ford Bronco, 1991 Buick Park Ave, 1992 Buick LaSabre
Approx. 133 Nights

Main Trips Camp-Inn #000:
Route 66 to Grand Canyon (4678 miles)
Visit Family, Northern Minnesota (928 Miles)

Main Trips Camp-Inn #002:
Florida (3168 miles)
Upper Peninsula of Michigan (948 miles)
New Hampshire 2002 (3124 miles)
Nauvoo, IL (676 miles)
St. Louis, PT Cruiser show (1137 Miles)
Black Hills, SD (1815 miles)
Utah (3356 miles)
2005 ITG (1383 miles)

+3987 miles in 17 shorter trips

See our “100 Nights” post for stories from our Grand Canyon, Northern Minnesota, Florida, U-P, New Hampshire, and St. Louis PT Crusier show trip as shown above.

Our Black Hills trip, we went with our son’s Boy Scout Troop. The parents slept in their motor homes and travel trailers and the boys stayed in tents. The Scout Troop had 14 Scouts and we had 9 adults. We camped at the Boy Scout Camp in the Black Hills. When we got to the camping spot, I had our Teardrop and kitchen canopy set up in about 10 minutes and then sat back and heckled our friends with their pop-ups and motorhomes who were still cranking up…cranking out…”Are you having fun yet?”

We spent 1 week sightseeing and hiking around the Black Hills. We saw Mount Rushmore (of course), Devil’s Tower, Harney Peak, Jewel Cave and Custer State Park. At Jewel Cave, we took a candlelight tour. Each person had a small tin can lantern with small holes for the light to shine out. We went in the original entrance where Jewel Cave was first discovered.

We hiked to the top of Harney Peak, the highest point in South Dakota (7244 ft). Growing up in Wisconsin, several of the boys had never climbed anything taller than a hill. While driving through Custer Park, a herd of a few hundred bison crossed the road just in front of our cars. It took about an hour to let them pass.

For most of the meals, the Scouts used our Teardrop kitchen. Since the kitchen was outdoors, everyone hung out at our trailer. It was amazing to see that that kitchen could easily serve 23 people.

In 2005, we attended the first International Teardrop Gathering (ITG) in Minden, Nebraska. Minden NE is home to Pioneer Village, a collection of Americana brought together by Harold Warp. He gathered cars, airplanes, art, and many other facets of American life, including a sod house and 11 other buildings.

It was a great trip and we were able to meet a lot of people that we knew from the Teardrop discussion boards and emails. We didn’t make it into the museum until Sunday afternoon. We spent so much time meeting and visiting with people that we didn’t have time to see the museum.

At the time of this posting, we have logged more than 80,000 miles in our Camp-Inns. The above post only highlights the first 25,000 miles.

 

Betsy,
Both of these posts were fun reads. I took the garbage to the garage this morning and just had to open our tear drop cabin and sit a bit to dream of spring. Pat