We cooled off, in the Gladiator 1970s RV, from a rather sticky, humid 100mile drive to Marsall, as Andy prepared yesterday's random dinner. A mix of ramon noodles, black and corn salsa, butterbeans, and canned corn filled my stomach. This smorgsboard would have been the perfect high protein diet we needed had we were biking, however, yesteday, we nixed the bikes for a couple of days to join up with Andy's dad, Bill, and dog, Buddy. He's taking a similar path, tracing some of the Lewis and Clarks trail, and we decided to join him to catch up on time, enjoy the company, and explore a little of our journeys together.

As a side note: Andy and I had discussed weeks ago, as Andy had to now get back to school, if biking or the story about sustainability was more important. Though I wanted to ride across the country completely on bike, I favored getting the story instead, as did he. So yesterday, getting into the RV, was the first day of clearly taking action to make sure we can get to the west in time, while documenting the sustainable story that thankfully, and much to my surprise proliferates in the nation. However, I can't say I particularly enjoyed the RV sleep, as it was an exhaustive evening of killing mosquitoes(see previous videos for loathing), getting bit in mouth(see Andy's pics for a great picture of my lip-I've found a natural way for botox), and getting overheated as I had to wrap blankets all over my body so there would be no way for the little pests to touch any part of my body. My face, body, legs were all covered, so naturally I sweat the whole evening. Though the evening was less then desirable, we've had a pleasant day riding and checking out the sights from Pipestone State Park. This an area were the Sioux Indians mined pipestone for their ceremonial pipes. It's a beautiful, tranquil place, with a nature walk, carvers cutting the stone into figurines like the picture above details, and a refreshing falls. We walked around for a bit, and absorbed the words at the interpretive center. Here's a couple of flower pictures from our walk.

Though the below is a little hard to read and fuzzy, it did make me stop and reflect about our relationship with nature when we are or aren't in it. This was also in Pipestone.