Trying to Leave

It is now July 26 and time to leave Custer State Park after 5 lovely days and head to Montana via Deadwood, Sturgis and Battle of Little Big Horn.  Well, that was the plan, anyway.

We left Custer and drove onthe Needles Highway which we were told was quite a wonderful drive.  Little did we know it was SPECTACULAR.  The Eye of the Needle is just that. And the road to get to it wass like nothing we had ever driven through.  Not a tunnel, but a crack in the rocks that cars wedge through.  It then opens onto a pull off full of cars and people standing in the road waiting for a car to drive through so they can take the photo to give the road a bit of perspective..  Even the road after that strange part was exciting as we had to go through a very small tunnelI jumped out of the car and held up traffic while I ran ahead through the tunnel for this shot.

Next on to Deadwood, which everyone told us was quite hokey and ful of casinos.  But it did have Moriah Cemetery and the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. 

Then on to Sturgis, where in a week will take place the 50,000 person motorcylce rally.  And this is where our plans drastically changed.  Pulling out of the supermarket parking lot and driving off we were told by a biker that we had a flat tire on Celeste.  We pulled into a large parking lot and sure enough, our new tire was destroyed.  David tried to lift Celeste by putting her littl foot down, but there was too much weight on that side.  As David was trying different methods to raise her up, along came two cowboys...and a forklift.  They scooped up our little Celeste, David put on the spare tire and off we tried to go.

However, we were stopped several times by folks driving by to point out that Celeste was listing to the right.  We decided to buy a new tire in Sturgis so that we woud have two of the same and correct the list, so we thought.  However, the only tires available were in Rapid City (which the locals call Rapid).  So, off we went to the Bargain Barn, where, upon removal of the spare, we found that the Leaf Spring had broken in half, causing the tire to catch on the frame on shred.  So...now were were looking at repairs on Monday morning. since we had to have two new springs built for us. 

As David and I were talking to each other about where to stay and how to camp, one of the workers offered to let us tcamp in the pwork area in front of teh garage, and he gave us the keys to the shop so we could use the bathroom and left the electricity on so we could plug Celeste in overnight.  (Later that evening, on the way back to Camp Bargain Barn, I feared that the store was alarmed and he had forgotten to give us the code.  I called and he assured me that they had no alarm.)  Funny thing is, he had us park directly under the night security light. 

So, we set up camp, went off to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and then to see the Dark Knight, our existential comic book experience.  We went to that movie because the guy in the convenience store told me it was better than Lord of the Rings.  (For those of you who have seen No Country For Old Men, please think of that movie when seeing Dark Knight...Ellen as movie critic). Just to add to the escitiement, there was an extreme storm warning for Rapid City that evening.  it seems that every evening in SD there has ben stormy weather.  This time with major winds. 

Sunday its back to those bad-lands which we missed before and to Bear Butte (which I call bare butt) state park for a long, long day and even longer night at Camp Bargain Tire.

Caves, Springs and a Mike-less Evening

Custer, Wind Cave Hot Springs

Custer is a cute little town at the edge of Custer State Park where we spent an evening listening to the strangest outdoor show called The Magic Banjo, all about a banjo that conjures up folks from the past.  Well, the banjo player wasn’t great, the 1881 folks were quite corny and the whole thing was delightful.

The next day we took a tour of Wind Cave, a limestone cave with over 129 miles(and counting) of tunnels.  Since it is a dry cave, created from standing water dissolving the limestone, not dripping through there were none of the usual cave formations.  No stalagtites or mites, but boxwood (which look like lace or honeycombs) and popcorn.  And the entrance was a small opening no bigger than the ranger’s hat.  This caused wind to pour out as the pressure between the inside and outside changed.  Hence the name of the cave.  Luckily, there was a man-made entrance that we could walk through and an elevator that we could ride back up to the surface after our 200 feet descent.

Wind Cave National park is also the location of the re-instatement of the buffalo herds.  After all but 300 buffalo were killed by the end of the 19^th century, our government, in its wisdom, decided to import buffalo from the Bronx Zoo and Yellowstone to put them all back.  Is there logic to this?  Well, they are now doing so well that the park is now exporting them back to various zoos.  What is going on?  They are, however, all over the place, roads, hillsides and meadows.  In addition, the place is crawling with prairie dogs and their towns and prong horned antelopes that were also introduced to the park years ago.  In addition to rattle snakes, this is quite the wildlife place.

We had lunch in the town of Hot Springs.  We then spent part of the afternoon looking for the heat.  We found a luke-warm river, which after some questioning, realized was as good as it was going to get.  Apparently, according to the local music store owner from Connecticut, there is a hot springs in a stream, and a cold spring in another stream that combine to make this warm river.  Hence the name of the town, Hot Spring.  Go figure.

The rest of the day was spent with me holding my cell phone in various places in the car while David drove all over creation looking for reception.  Quite exciting, only to be matched by the 15 minutes we spent at a lovely lake beach before lightning and thunder drove us to Celeste where we sat out a hailstorm and rain.  This was actually very exciting since it was the first rain since May 19.

The next day we went on one of the best hikes we have taken through a prairie in CusterState Park.  Great hike because everything was green, not red and dusty, a good length and crossing a brook at three points.  Quite lovely.

Then into a great lake for a swim, back to our camp for a quick change and then back into Hot Springs for dinner and an open mike evening at a coffee bar.  Dinner was great:  Indian taco from me(I have been looking for one) which i fry bread with taco stuff on top; and a buffalo steak for David to fulfill his bison craving.  Then to the open mike evening.  However, it was an open "mike-less" evening.  Two guitar players alternating sets with the 5 year old daughter of one of them who told jokes.  Except that we couldn't hear anything since there was no microphone!  Pretty strange.  So, back home we went through another of the famous Black Hill storms.

My Opinion: A Shame and Disgrace

The day afterRushmore we decided to take a very long drive to visit Wounded Knee and the Badlands.

MY OPINION:

I have to interject an editorial here about Wounded Knee.  As we always do, we research the site we are visiting in the AAA book and on a map and on the GPS.  Neither our GPS nor AAA had ANY reference to Wounded Knee, nor did anyone we spoke to have any information about it.  We eventually found it on the map and started our trip.  Not once did we see a sign or any indication that it existed.  We drove onto the Pine Ridge Reservation and things looked even bleaker.  Miles of empty road with an occasional trailer parked in a field.  Finally we came upon a small pine bough covered lean-to off to the side of the road with a hand lettered sign “Visitor Information” and a rather ragged billboard with the history of Wounded Knee Massacre.  We spoke with the Lakota woman manning the information booth who showed us a homemade history and told us her story.  She was raising two grandchildren, having sent two of her own children successful away from the res. as adults. Although there were schools on the reservation, there were no stores or churches and she was earning money by manning the information booth and selling trinkets.  She pointed out her trailer with an outside and no running water. She showed us the hillside where the mass grave had been dug for the massacred Indians, and a memorial stone put up by the son of one of the murdered Indians.  The path to the grave was unpaved and the graveyard was decrepit. 

Isn’t this part of our history?  Do we only record our successes?  Aren’t our disgraces part of our history too?  Aren’t the Indians part of our history?

The next day we heard on the radio that the county in South Dakota that encompasses the Pine Ridge Reservation is the third poorest in the country.  What gives?

BACK TO OUR TRIP

After we spent the morning at Wounded Knee we attempted to go to the Badlands, but missed it.  Despite the GPS and David the surveyor, we lost thousands of acres of Badlands), had a terrible fight (unrelated to the loss) and stormed on home.  However, we did see this fine dinasour in a field, all by himself.

 

The Big Faces

Black Hills

On to the Big Faces!  We were quite confident that we could find a campsite in Custer State Park, near Mt. Rushmore, since there were many different campgrounds to choose from.  So, on the way, we stopped for breakfast at a great restaurant, called Crazy Woman Café, in an adorable little town (pop. 350) called Ten Sleep.  The name came from the fact that it took the Indians ten nights (sleeps) to get there from their winter campground.  I bought a t-shirt there and when I wore it for the first time, I got many, many comments because the name is so catchy.

Then we made another detour to Devil’s Tower, the iconic monolith of Wyoming where they filmed Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  There was also a huge prairie dog colony that we visited. We took a short hike part way around the base, and then off to South Dakota. However, when we got to Custer State Park at about 5:30 pm, much to our surprise, there were not sites to be had.  However, taking a lesson from the folks from New York that we met at Sinks Canyon, we stopped in at the first campgrounds, and lo and behold…a site had just opened up.  Lucky us!  Not the greatest campsite, it being in an open field right by the road.  But…we met a lovely couple we had lived in Juneau, Alaska for 25 years and had a nice evening with them, learning many useful tips on life in Alaska.

Our first full day we visited Mt. Rushmore but were stopped in our tracks for a while by the buffalo that kept crossing the road.  Apparently this state park has the largest herd of buffalo in the country.  At one point two males started crossing the street in front of us.  It was quite cute until they stopped and one smacked the other with his horns.  Then the second one had to hit back and I started saying to David, “Back up.  Back up now.”  Since one was almost as big as the car, he did until the boys calmed down and ran up the hill on the other side of the road.

 

Mt. Rushmore was quite a spectacle. It included the mountain carvings, the sculpture studio, a long paved and stepped walkway with many views of the carvings, several videos and a kind of pathetic nod to Indians which consisted of a few teepees and artifacts.  The place was packed and it certainly lived up to our expectations.  It was a great tribute to Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and T. Roosevelt as well as a tribute to our country.

The this photo is the model from which Gutzon Borglum worked to create the mountain sculpture.

This was in great contrast to the Crazy Horse memorial that we next visited, which seemed more like a tribute to the sculpture Korczak Ziolkowski. The only visible sign of a sculpture was the face of Crazy Horse.   Missing his hair, the rest of his body and the horse. this is what the mountain should look like.  It seems that old K refused to take any government money so the project has been poking along for 50 years so far.  There was very little mention of Indians and the carved plaque that will eventually (not in my lifetime) be on the sculpture was a quote from K.  Great Indian dance demonstrations, however.

 

Soaking up the Heat

Thermopolis and Medicine Lodge

The Ranger at Sinks Canyon told us that if we liked his park, we would love medicine Lodge State Park, and since it was in the direction we were going, we took off.  We stopped along the way to visit Thermopolis, the site of a wonderful 104 degree hot springs. The high school had this bizarre mascot outside (not me…the big cat).  Although there was a major water park complex at the site, there was also a state run pool which was free through an agreement with the Indians.  The rules said that you could only stay in for 20 minutes, and they were not kidding.  It was very hot.  But they had SHOWERS in the bath house, and since we were once again dry camping, they hit the spot. This is a photo of the seeps above the pool.

 

Then it was on to Medicine Lodge.  The only problem was, we could not find it listed in our AAA book, nor could the GPS identify it.  After getting a little lost, we came upon a tiny sign that pointed to an archeological site, and that turned out to be it.  A little disappointing since the petroglyphs were minimal, and not at all up to Utah standards.  The highlight of the stay was the appearance of another Chalet camper in the next site.  We looked so cute next to one another. The park had some great views, like this one of Ship Rock. 

Sinking and Rising in Wyoming

Sinks Canyon State Park

One of the real appeals of traveling for over three months is the ability to change plans.  We had originally discounted the idea of traveling to South Dakota to see the big faces, but realized that we did, indeed have the time to include them in our trip. So, no we are heading through Wyoming, across the state, to SD.

We found a state park that seemed like a good place to stay the night…and ended up staying two! Sinks Canyon was wonderful  First of all, the geography.  It seems that the Popo Agie (pronounced poposhoe) River which is quite a fast flowing narrow river, flows into a limestone cavern and mysteriously disappears.  That is the Sink.  Then, it mysteriously appears two hours later and ½ mile down the road into a wide pool filled with trout.   That is called the Rise.  Then the bed narrows and it once again becomes a noisy, quick flowing river. Our campsite was right on the river above the Sink.  It was so noisy that the first night, half awake, I wanted to tell David to turn off the fan because it was making too much noise.  And to make matters even better, when we walked the few feet from Celeste to the river after setting up, I found 12 cans of Corona beer just waiting for us, cooling in the pools.  Then, the state ranger told us when we went to the Visitor’s Center, that he would DELIVER firewood to us that evening. David took this photo our campsite from across the river.

Our full day at Sinks we had a beautiful hike through a sagebrush meadow, then through town and onto the Wind River Indian Reservation to visit a cemetery that contained Sacagawea’s grave and the grave of Chief Wasachkie.  There is some controversy about the location of Sacagawea’s grave, whether it was in Wyoming, or South Dakota. Either way, we were able to find the monument, but not the grave, even though there was a plaque directing us to the site. The cemetery was a bit unkempt but quite colorful since all the graveshad plastic flowers on them.

That evening we had a campfire and shared our beer with another camping couple from New York. Great fun.

Salt, Salt, Salt

Salt Lake City

Our main goal after leaving Canyonlands was to find a campsite with a SHOWER.  So we called two friends that we met in Telluride and found out that there were two state campgrounds about an hour outside of Salt Lake.  We chose Utah lake State park in Provo, home of Brigham Young University. Showers were great and the laundromat in Provo was quite fine:  had free wi-fi and very hot dryers.  As you can see, it does not take much to make us happy.

Our campsite was a bit scruffy and by marsh weeds bordering the lake.  I was in Celeste when David called me out to help identify a weird throbbing, humming sound.  I thought it was some kind of pump, but then looked up in the sky.  Hovering over the peak of Celeste was a BALL of gnats numbering in the thousands.  There were so many that we could hear them loud and clear.  Needless to say, we both jumped into Celeste for the rest of the evening. That was quite a good thing, because soon the mosquitoes started to drill themselves into our screens and fling themselves against the skylight.  Right then we decided that first thing in the morning we would leave that place.

We loaded up early and aimed for East Canyon State Park, hoping that even though it was also on a lake that we would fare better  with the bugs.  On the way there we stopped at the Kennicott Copper Mine, the largest open pit mine in the world.   It is one of the few man-made objects the astronauts could see from space!  It was huge and because it was a working mine, we were able to watch the giant trucks trundle along with their loads of ore.

The campgrounds was great, even though there was a huge, double site next to us with about 20 people, who had their site lit up with floodlights when we returned late that evening.  Actually we got locked out of the campgrounds which closed at 10 pm and had to leave our car at the gate and walk to our site.

We spent the day driving in a huge, very long loop first to Promontory Point to see the golden spike, where the transcontinental railroad joined east and west.  That included a demonstration of the two recreated steam engines that actually met on the day the railroad joined.

Near

Near there was a giant company that made rocket guidance systems.  Out in the middle of nowhere!

Then it was off on a very long haul to the Bonneville Salt Flats.  I was driving, for only the second time on the trip, and wouldn’t you know it, we almost had an accident.  Not my fault.  On a completely empty road, a young woman who probably hadn’t seen a car on that road in her lifetime, pulled out across a railroad crossing, causing me to swerve to avoid hitting her.  I have all the luck.  Then we drove on a road through the salt flats.  I kept saying to David that I was experiencing a heat mirage because the road, which was shimmering ahead of me, seemed to disappear.  Well…it did.  All of a sudden, the road ended and we were driving on salt!!  I could not get it through my head that we were not on a lake of thin ice, about to fall through at any moment.  Quite weird.  But David got to drive on the speedway, which was no more that tire tracks on the salt and he was quite happy.

Back to Wendover for dinner.  This happened to be in Nevada, so, of course, we had dinner in one of the casino’s there.  No gambling.  Las Vegas cured me of that.

The next day we reserved for the Mormon experience.  No disrespect to any Mormon readers, but the experience was surreal.  First of all, Salt Lake City is the only capitol we have ever been in with such a religious presence.  All the streets are numbered in relationship to Temple Square where the Tabernacle and Temple are located and which is the only attraction in the city.  As soon as we arrived, we went looking for the organ recital scheduled for noon.  Smiling missionaries, either young, foreign women, (sisters) or older American men (elders) immediately surrounded us, offering help.  Most pleasant, but a bit spooky.  The organ recital, in the Tabernacle, was magnificent , full of great, swelling organ music from a 13,500 pipe organ complete with changing colored lights in the background.

Next, we took a tour of Temple Square led by two young missionaries, one from Australia and one from Spain, which included many murals of bible scenes filled with European looking biblical figures and a visit to the meditation room complete with a 10 foot statue of Jesus and a recording exhorting us to following his teachings.  Whoa.  Everyone was so pleasant, scrubbed and shiny and all were clutching the book of Mormon.  Nobody tried to convert us; no one interrogated us as to our religious beliefs; everyone seemed genuinely pleased that we were there…and it was spooky.

Later that night we went to the giant Convention Center on Temple Square, a 21,000 seat auditorium, where we listened to the Tabernacle choir rehearse.  So impressive.

In between the tour and the rehearsal, we visited with our friends who we had met in Telluride, and had a picnic dinner in a lovely park.  Again, the people part of this trip has been so much fun and visiting new friends was a treat.

 

Are We Having fun yet?

Canyonland

I insisted that we leave Ken’s Lake in Moab very very early to get to Canyonlands since we wanted to stay in the park and we were shut out of Arches.  So, much to David’s dismay, we were on the road by 7:30 am and got to the almost empty Canyonland’s campgrounds by 10 am. 

Canyonlands is unique among all the Utah national parks in that it is quite rough.  Most of the roads are unpaved; all the toilets are pits; and there is no water anywhere, even in the visitors’ centers.  The park has three non-contiguous areas, the most visited of which is Island in the Sky where we started out. After setting up our dry camp (once more no showers…9 days and counting) we did our typical drive through the park and see the sights trip.

HOWEVER…this was the drive to end all drives.  The White Rim Road, attained through the Shafer Trail is the 2 day trip around the canyons.  We thought we would just do a little bit and be back happily for dinner.  The Shafer Trail is a cow path going at least 1000 feet down the mountain into the canyon below.  We were on hairpin turns that looked like Z’s with high cliffs on one side, sheer drops on the other, and gravel, dirt and big boulders beneath our tires.  I had a death grip on the handle of the door, and later David told me that his hands were clamped to the steering wheel.  Even he, who loves rough and tumble rides, thought this was a bit too much.  I think we could have died!  Once we got to the bottom of the Trail onto the White Rim Road, even though the dirt, gravel and boulders were still there, the cliffs had flattened out.

We went to Musselman’s Arch which was a lovely surprise because we (that is David) could walk right across the top of it.  Then, rather than risk the Z turns and cliffs going back up the mountain, we took the safer, but longer dirt, gravel and boulder road BACK to Moab where we started out so early that morning.

Along the way we saw signs for Dinosaur Footprint.  Of course we had to stop and read the sign.  We were directed to go back onto the road to the “viewing tube” which would help us spot the footprint.  We follow directions and went back to the road, driving back and forth several times, until our eagle eyes saw, way in the weeds, a little pipe on a stand.  Over the rocks and weeds we went; eyes to the tube…and by God, there on the cliff above us, on a fallen rock were two, three-toed footprints.  Looked dinosaur like to us!

Then, quite unexpectedly, we came upon panel after panel of petroglyphs lining the side of the road on one side and the Colorado River on the other.  Quite cool.

Back in Moab we filled our water bottles and then headed back to Canyonlands. Having had our fill of sitting in the car we took a hike to Uplift Dome which, depending on the theory, was either the site of a meteor hit or a salt dome that had pushed up the rock above it.  Either way, it was a huge crater filled with jagged, green-gray rock.  Quite eerie.

We were both quite happy to get back to our campsite, even though by that time our car was unrecognizable in its new red coating of sand and dust.

Originally we had decided to stay two days, but heard about great petroglyphys far into the park in the most remote section of the most remote section.  Canyonlands is divided into three sections and the Maze is the most remote and primitive and the petroglphys are in an even remot-er section.  Since this is the desert and the walk was about 6.5 miles round trip, we decided to get to the trailhead the night before, hike early the next morning, stay overnight and leave the following morning.

Once again we were on dirt, gravel and boulder filled roads, this time forcing poor Celeste to follow along.  She was a bit shaken up and so was I since the ride lasted for three hours (37 miles), ending at our camping spot…a parking lot with a pit toilet at the edge of a canyon. The view from the site was magnificent, even if it was just a parking lot.

BATHROOM ADVENTURE #2

Since we were the only folks at this luxury site, we felt safe in peeing in the open.  For the last pee of the night, I stepped outside and looked into the sky…to see cloud formations that looked like the Dementors in Harry Potter.  Who could pee looking at that?  Not me…so I popped back inside and waited for David to tell me when they had gone.  Then I boldly stepped outside, armed only with a flashlight and pulled down my pants. Oh my lord.  Four bright green eyes were staring at me!  I shined the flashlight on them, thinking to scare them off, and they bounced closer.  Pants still around my ankles I flew into the trailer.  Grabbing David, I went back out, put my back to Celeste’s wheel and tried again.  Out came the green eyes once more, but at that point even they could not hold me back.  The next day we found out that what we had seen were kit fox pups and we ended up looking forward to seeing them again.

THE HIKE FROM HELL

Early the next morning, armed with food, hats, bug spray, 6 litres of water, flashlight, matches and aspirin we were off.  Down slick rocks and sand for 700 feet, then through a sand bottomed canyon for a couple of miles to 4 widely spaced panels of incredible petroglyphs, some as old as 8000 years.  This being a primitive trail, we were following widely spaced rock cairns, as well as the canyon bottom.

All seemed quite exciting and fine until the ascent.  The switch backs over the sand in 95 degrees heat was bad enough.  But then, when we entered the rock area, David looked at me and said, “That wasn’t too bad.”  What was terrible was that we still had 30 minutes to go up another 400 feet over rock.  At one point, David found a tiny, tiny pathetic shrub with tiny leaves that we dove under and hunched up eking out the “shade” for a few minutes.  By that time our water, even though still plentiful, was about 85 degrees and more suitable for washing than drinking.

However, we did manage to return to Celeste and passed out for hours.  When we woke, our sheets were brown with the accumulated sand and our only goal was to reach a campground the next day with SHOWERS!