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

Pines and Needles - 2 August 2012

Leaving the White River campsite we headed back along  SH240 for one last trip along the scenic highway through the Badlands and on to Wall for another couple of 5c coffees.

Back on the I-90 the plains gave way to hills and valleys, the acres and acres of corn gave way to dozens and dozens of Harley Davidsons.  The guide book actuallly suggests avoiding this area in August because of the Annual Sturgis Motorcycle meet.

This year some 800,000 bikers (yes, that is the correct number of zeros) will congregate here for a series of events in and arround Sturgis. We have not got to Sturgis yet but for the last few days the number of Harleys en-route has been steadily increasing and today it was wall to wall Harleys.

Before long we had reached the environs of Rapid City which we skirted on a ring motorway and headed south through the pine forests of the Black Mountain National Forest for Custer State Park.

The rest of the day was basically spent wozzling along the scenic drive, stopping at every pull-off and scenic overlook as we made our way around the park looking at bison, burros and bikers on a simply bewildering array of beautifully presented Harley Davidsons.

There was the odd other make of super-bike, Victory, Can-am trkies, massive Triumphs, big BMWs and the very rare Japanese make, but 99% were Harleys and wherever we stopped the distinctive sound of the Harleys reverberated through the forest.

Along this fantastic drive there are very narrow tunnels carved out of the granite, switchbacks and  wooden trestle bridges where the road loops back over itself to cope with the terrain and our very first view of the Mt Rushmore faces.

Ultimately we got to the Cathederal Spires, the Littel Devils Peak and the Needle.  The rocks and views in Custer State Park are quite fantastic.

194 miles today, total trip 3176. States: South Dakota

Badlands - 1 August 2012

For a change, we were not awoken by rain or a thunderstorm, this morning it was a woodpecker; rat-tat-tatting away on a nearby tree that heralded the morning.  Since the temperature yesterday had peaked at 107F we decided that a walk in the cool of the morning would be preferable to in the baking daytime heat.

So, abandoning breakfast etc we set off to walk some trails in the Cedar Pass area.  The first one was 2.4km out and back walk to a spectacular view overlooking the White River valley. This walk included a climb up a steep slope aided by a "rope ladder" comprised of steel wire hawsers and sections of 150mm diameter logs as treads. It was much easier to ascend than descend.

The second walk was shorter, over a less well defined trail and equally but differently spectacular. While the first walk had been between peaks, the second walk was basically a plateau and the features and views were ravines.

With the sun rising (along with the temperature) we set off for the town of Wall, so named because of its proximity to the wall or escarpment that creates much of the Badlands scenery.  This drive took us through the rest of the scenic sections of SH 240 that is the main road through the Badlands National Park.

We needed to visit Wall for a number of reasons; fuel - the dashboard display told me I had 24 miles to empty when I parked on the petrol station forecourt - just a bit close for comfort in this hot and inhospitable terrain; breakfast for us (although it was nearly mid-day by now; and to visit Wall Drug for 5c coffee and free ice-water.

Wall Drug is advertised on billboards along the I-90 for the whole width of  South Dakota so there is no excuse for not being aware of its existence.  In 1936 a struggling drugstore owner's wife came up with the idea of offering the motorists on the nearby SH 16 (on their way to see the newly unveiled sculptures on Mt Rushmore) free ice-water (not a lot of air-conditioned cars back then!) and they came in droves.

Some just took the free water, but many purchased ice creams and other goods and the store has flourished ever since.  The son took over and offered the 5c coffee but the place is really a huge emporium of tourist tat - the donuts, however, are fantastic! It is set up as a wild-west outpost with lots of cheesy stuff and heaps of historical memorabilia, all in all quite a pleasurable stopping point.

Having had the free ice-water and a couple of cups of 5c coffee, we duly purchased something else - the donuts - and then found a regular store for some milk for what was now brunch.

We headed back the way we had come, stopped off at the ranger station to watch the video, came out 20 minutes later into fearsome wind, blowing in the direction which would be straight into our tent which we had left with the front flap open because of the heat.  We made a dash back to the campground to find the poor old tent being severely battered by the breeze and fastened down every guy rope and fixing point that we typically do not use.

The camp owners assured us that the severe thunderstorm warning that they had been monitoring was over in an hour and that according to the weather radar, the storm had passed so we left the tent up and set off for the White River section of the park.

This turned out to be a wasted drive as there was nothing extra to see down there.  We returned by a different route in the hope of seeing bison but had to be content with Prairie Dogs and Bighorn sheep.

By now the scattered clouds had cleared and the sunshine was illuminating the landscape brilliantly so we slowly made our way back to camp through the park once more, had a quick dinner and then set out to capture some sunset shots to round off a good day in bad lands.

Great Plains - 31 July 2012

Leaving Jackson we headed back to the I-90 to continue our westward run across the Great Plains.  In my mind the Great Plains were a lot flatter than they are in real-life.  On the macro scale they are certainly flat and there are no hills to be seen anywhere except around the Missouri River, much like the change in topography that we noticed as we crossed the Mississippi River yesterday.

But, before we got to the Missouri there were miles and miles and miles of corn to drive past.  Later the "corndom"  was interspersed with sunflowers and cereal crops - most of which had been harvested so the fields were dotted with round bales of straw.

Our first stop for the morning, for our senior coffee, was the city of Sioux Falls and today, the falls were still there and a lovely park has been created around the falls by the city council.  A free "trolley" takes you to the city centre or you can simply stay on the trolley, enjoy the self-guided tour in the leaflet and return to the Falls Park, which is what we did.

Back on the Interstate there was corn and more corn.  Did I mention the corn?  And corn was the theme of the next break at Mitchell where we deviated to look at the Corn Palace.  First started in 1896 and rebuilt, enlarged and shifted a number of times, this civic space has been re-decorated with corn murals  nearly every year since.

The murals are made from 275,000 corn cobs of 12 different colours which are specially grown on a 100 acre farm nearby.  Supplementing the corn cobs is rye straw and highlights picked out in dark red/brown dock flowers.  It is pretty spectacular and even better, it is free.

The next feature of note was to "cross the wide Missouri" (break into song here), but before doing so we pulled off in the little town of Chamberlain  for a photo shoot.

We still had 150 miles to cover (past the corn fields) to our destination in the Badlands but fortunately we crossed another time zone and added an hour to our day so we arrived in plenty of time to have a first look at this utterly fantastic landscape, set up camp, have dinner and then drive back again for some sunset shots.

432 miles today, total trip 2752. States: Minnesota, South Dakota.