Yellowstone - 6 August 2012

Not far from Cody we came across the historic Buffulo Bill dam which, when built, was the highest concrete arch dam in the world. Used to provide irrigation water and hydro-power, the power plant fell into disuse in the 20s and the dam has been, more recently, raised 25' with a new hydro plant built further down stream.

After a look around the visitor centre we followed the Shoshone River (which it dams) up along the beautifully scenic valley until we entered Yellowstone Park through the eastern entrance.

Unfortunately, not long after we entered, so did the rain and so our views as we drove around the shore of Yellowstone Lake were rather grey and dismal.  The main interest was in looking at the various stages of re-growth after the major 1988 fire and the not so large 2001 fire.

It appears that the park managment have learned much from these fires and completely changed their approach to forest fires, realising that they are a perfectly natural occurence, required to keep the entire ecosystem healthy and functioning well.

The rain had mainly stopped but the sun was still hiding when we walked around the West Thumb geothermal area, right on the lake shore.  This area provides a great selection of different coloured pools and the thermal activity extends into the lake as witnessed by a flock of ducks

that were all in one small area and which all simultaneously dived, leaving no trace on the surface that they even existed until some minutes later when they all simultaneously surfaced.  Clearly something below had triggered movement in a food source.

Continuing round the Great Loop we came to the Grant visitor centre, walked in, saw the prediction time for the next blow at Old Faithful and the drive time written on the wall, looked at our watches and promptly got back in the car for the run up to the geyser area.

There are massive carparks available and even a motorway style overbridge off-ramp to get cars in and out efficiently, it is an exceedingly popular place.  Interestingly, once out of the car there are signs to all sorts of things except the location of Old Faithful itself so we adopted the novel technique of following the crowd.

Although the average cycle is 93 minutes there is a +- variation of 10 minutes but nevertheles we were there in good time with 2000-3000 other watchers ringed 4 deep along the viewing boardwalk.  Four minutes late, Old Faithful put on its world-famous display which lasted for about four minutes.   Fortunately the sun also obliged with its world-famous display and so we had a fabuloous spectacle.

From here there is a 2.2km walk to the Morning Glory Pool through the geyser feild.  We were extremely fotrunate to see a number of geysers in full flow, one of which only plays every twelve hours.  Even a hardened Taupo boy had to admit that the show here is pretty impressive, which is not hard when they claim half of the geysers in the world in this park.

On the outbound walk we were treated to full displays by the Anemone, Fan, Mortar and Spiteful geysers and the return trip rewarded us with the Giant, Sawmill and Beehive geysers.  The Beehive is only every 12 hours and its display was just a few minutes after another cycle of Old Faithful which we could see from the same vantage point.

From Old Faithful's timing it was clear that we had spent three hours just in this area, walking a lot more briskly than any one else and there are many more delights to explore tomorrow but before then we had to slip over the border into Montana and out the western park access, to our camp at West Yellowstone.

177 miles today, total trip 3943. States Wyoming, Montana

Buffalo Bill territory - 5 August 2012

Back on the now familiar I-90 we ate up the miles through the undulating ranchlands of Wyoming heading west towards the Rockies. But before we got there we had to cross miles of dry dusty rolling hills and large flat barren areas broken only by the ribbons of green along the rivers and the  irrigated areas.

Sometimes the only sign of habitation, apart from the ribbon of the Interstate, was the scattered nodding-donkey oil pumps or other oil or gas well-head installations.

The Interstate swung north for quite a while before we left it and headed west again on Hwy 14 taking the scenic route over the Big Horn mountains, getting up to 8327ft before dropping down past the delightful Shell Falls and finally into Cody.

Cody was founded by William Cody or Buffalo Bill as he was known for his buffalo hunting prowess and which later became his stage name as he took his Wild West show touring America and the World (even played at Windsor Castle by Royal Command for Queen Victoria).

The town of Cody has a fabulous museum with one whole section dedicated to their famous founder.  This section of the five-building museum has just been re-opened after a refresh and is brilliantly done, as is the natural history section which could only be improved if they removed all the gratuitous nods to global warming and other nonsensical claims about extinction rates caused by humans.

If guns push your button there are 2700 to see in that section and the Western art area has many terrific paintings and sculptures. We certainly did not have time to do it justice before we had to make camp in time to be ready for the evening rodeo.

The rodeo was all we expected it would be, calf-roping, barrel racing, bull riding, bronco riding, rodeo clown - the whole ten yards.  The talent and skill of the riders was fantastic and one event even required one rider to lasso the rear ankles of a running calf, quite an amazing feat.  In the barrel racing one could see the obvious enjoyment of the horses after they rounded the last barrel and headed for the finish line.  A very enjoyable evening and I can honestly say that this is the best rodeo I have ever seen

316 miles today, total trip 3765. States South Dakota, Wyoming.

Close Encounters with bears and hogs in the Wild West - 4 August 2012

Just a short drive from camp was Bear Country USA and we knew that feeding time was around 8:30 so we were there, driving through the wildlife park to see the elks, reindeer, mountain lions, arctic wolves and timber wolves being fed.  But the stars of the show, not surprisingly, are the black bears.

The bears were not being fed, they were simply lying about in the sun or having a good old early morning scratch.  Having camped in bear country for the last week or so it was great to be able to see them close up in a non-threatening environment.

After driving though the enclosures you get to park and walk around a more zoo-like section where the stars were a very large grizzly bear playing with a ball in the pool and a bunch of baby bears frolicking and fighting in a pine tree.

When we could bear it no longer we drove into Rapid City to see the Chapel In The Hills, a Stave Church which is a replica of the Borgund Stavekirke in Norway. Nestled in amongst the pines it looked right at home.

Avoiding the I-90 we headed north to Sturgis where the 72nd Annual Sturgis Motor Cycle meet was getting into swing.   The prime week is apparently the first full week of August but already the entire main street was motorcycles only and block after block was parked bikes; a row on each kerb and two rows down the centre line with the side streets also wall-to-wall bikes, again 95% Harley Davidsons, or "Hogs"

The array of beautifully presented, sometimes heavily customised bikes was magnificent but equally captivating was people-watching as the Harley-riders are an interesting crowd.  I would love to know  how many millions of dollars of bikes and exhibitor displays were in this small town, and they were pouring from all sides, either on the road, in trailers, on the back of pickup-trucks or in the backs of super large RVs.

All day the roads were never free of bikes and every small town or settlement we passed through was chock full of bikes with everybody trying to make a buck out of vending something to the two and three-wheel clientele.

Dropping a little south we stopped at Deadwood, home of a TV series but made famous by the murder of Wild Bill Hickcock and the antics of Calamity Jane.  Sundance (as in the Sundance Kid)  is not far away and the area has so many names and associations with stories of the Wild West.

We looped south a bit further to make the run north up through the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, as always accompanied by the bikers, and then it was 'Westward Ho' again along the Belle Fourche river valley to our destination where we could have our close encounter with the Devil's Tower.  We had plenty of time to do the 2km circular walk around the rock and marvel at the parties of climbers ascending this amazing geological outcrop.

In homage to the lacation, the campground shows Close Encounters of the Thrid Kind every night but we elected to watch the sunset paint the rock orange instead

223 miles today, 3449 total trip. States: South Dakota, Wyoming.

Carved in stone - 3 August 2012

As the morning light is the best time to see Mt Rushmore so we motored the few miles to the mountain first thing. They operate a great con here for car parking. Top price is $11 for an annual car park pass which sounds like a terrific bargain until you find that it is for a calendar year - great if you buy in January and terrible if you buy at Christmas.

The other small problem is that it is the only pass available, so a day parking costs the same as a year! How many tourists return withing the same calendar year?

Nevertheless it is the only fee you have to pay to access the park and all the facilities and displays at the National Memorial so $5.50 each for admittance to a stunning historical site like this in the US is a good deal.

Seeing the faces "up-close" is quite awe inspiring. It is just as well that the mountain was carved when it was as there is no way the environmentalists would allow it these days. The eyes are amazingly clever and yet such a simple technique to bring life to the stone.

Having fully got our $5.50 worth we mossied on around some of the roads we travelled yesterday then cut through the middle of Custer State Park to visit the Crazy Horse monument; a work in progress rather than the not quite completed presidential monument.

This project is stunningly huge in scale and although only the head is completed it is still worth a visit. The visitor centre has heaps of information, artifacts, souvenirs and displays on American Indian life.

Mt Rushmore took 17 years to get to its current form before war stopped play in 1941. Crazy Horse began in 1948 and is still going with decades of work  yet to do. Mt Rushmore had a federally funded team of workers, Crazy Horse had one lone self-funded carver for many many  years working with old and decrepit equipment but is now funded by the visitor centre and some Indian Casino money so is making faster progress.

Being 3 miles from one and 9 from the other we had a decision to make as to which to return to for the evening light show.  We chose  the closest, Mt Rushmore and were treated to some entertaining trivia by a ranger followed by a stirring patriotic speech about Washington's "unborn millions" and the WWII US Japanese Regiment which I had never heard of and which served with distinction in Europe.

Then there was a film about the four presidents, the lighting of the monument, all very static - not a laser show as promised at Crazy horse, followed by singing the National Anthem and lowering of the flag and then all military personnel past or present were invited on stage and personally acknowledge for their part in defending freedom. It was all a bit 'maple-syrup' and I almost expected an "altar-call" to come forward and sign up or take the oath of allegiance.

50 miles today, total trip 3226. States, South Dakota