5/28 Iron Mountain Road and Mt. Rushmore

Woke to clear, blue skies this morning, clouded up this afternoon and we had a few sprinkles, but nothing to get excited about.

Since the weather was so good, we decided to give the Iron Mountain Road a try. This is a road that goes through the mountains, on the way from Custer State Park to Mt Rushmore. It winds its way up through the mountain passes, and then at one point, it loops around and goes under itself! Good thing I don’t get motion sickness as bad as I did when I was a kid! It is really a beautiful drive. We came to a pull off and noticed that a truck had stopped in the road, going the opposite direction. So, we pulled over (where it was safe) and went to see what they were looking at. About 10’ down from the road was a mountain goat! First one we had seen!!

He appeared to be a young male, and I’m guessing here because his horns were not very big. He stood there the whole time, while we took pictures, so I don’t think he was very bothered by us. Phil was even kicking the guard rail to make him look up into the camera. It was a real treat!

Just towards the end of the drive, we went through another one of those tunnels in the rock, and as we came out of the tunnel, and framed by the tunnel itself, were the faces of Mt Rushmore! Of course, neither of the guys had their cameras out to snap the picture!! Just up the road though was an overlook, so we stopped and the guys took lots of pictures.

A short drive later, we stopped in Keystone for a late lunch. Phil had Buffalo Ribs, he said they were good, but tough.

Then we headed for Mt Rushmore. This is an awesome experience, and even though we had all been there before, we were still inspired!

Clouds had been building all day, and it finally started raining while we were there, so we left.

Today was the last day of our stay here and we had an awesome time! It is so much more fun to stay in one place long enough to really see the sights!

5/25 Crazy Horse Memorial

We had an absolutely amazing day! We drove just a few miles down the road to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial. I really expected this to take no more than a couple of hours, but we were there nearly all day! There is so much to see there!

The story of the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, was inspirational all by itself. He was born in 1908 in Boston of Polish descent and orphaned a year later. He grew up in foster homes and was completely self taught and never took a formal lesson in are, sculpture, architecture or engineering. After winning first prize at the 1939 World’s Fair, Korczak was invited by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear to the Black Hills to carve Crazy Horse.

Korczak arrived in the Black Hills on May 3, 1947 to accept the invitation and started work on Crazy Horse in 1948. A strong believer in the free enterprise system, he felt Crazy Horse should be built by the interested public and not the tax payer. Twice he turned down offers of federal funding. He also knew that the project was larger than any one person’s lifetime and left detailed plans to be used with his scale models to continue the project. Korczak died October 20, 1982. Since his death, his wife Ruth, and seven of their ten children continue working in concert with the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.

The first thing we did was to take the bus trip out to the base of the construction site. This was very interesting and we had a pretty good view of the carving. On the way back to the complex the bus driver mentioned that for a donation of $125.00 each we could go up to the top and see the ‘face’ up close. Well, that sounded like a lot of money to us, but after much discussion, we decided to make the investment and take the trip to the top. Our guide, Tom, drove us up to the top via the construction road. From the back entrance, it didn’t seem that high up. Since it is Saturday, the construction crews weren’t working, but we were issued hard hats anyway. The last thing that Tom said as we started to walk out on the platform was to not look back until he said to. Of course, that is what we wanted to do, but we waited, then when we were about 40’ out, he said we could turn around.

The impact of seeing the face of Crazy Horse that close was priceless! We were all speechless. The detail in the face, you can’t see from the complex or even at the base of the mountain. Up close, you see the detail in the eyes, eyebrows and the lips, the expression on the face. Breathtaking!! The platform we walked out on is what will eventually be Crazy Horse’s arm, and they are supposed to start working on that this year. Who knows if the Crazy Horse Memorial will be finished in our lifetime, but I do believe that it will be finished, and when it is, it will be there for all time, for generations to come, in memory of our Native American Ancestors.

 

Korczak and his wife Ruth with the working, to scale, model of 

Crazy Horse

5/24 Wind Cave

Wind Cave National Park

Friday, May 24, 2013

Woke to a beautiful sunny day, for a change! So, we took advantage of it and headed out to see some of the sites. We back tracked on the roads we came in on.  Our first stop was to the Wind Cave National Park, and we were just in time to take the tour of the cave.

Wind Cave is so named because the guy who discovered it put his head up to the hole of the cave, where he had heard wind blowing. When he did so, the wind coming from the cave was so strong, it blew his hat off. At another time when he was showing the opening to some friends, the cave sucked his hat into the hole. The Ranger today said this is caused by barometric pressure. The cave was formed by the winds that rush through it, not water, as most caves are.

The descent into the cave is 300 steps and at times we had to turn sideways through the passages. There are no stalactites or stalagmites because there is no water. The cave is known for Boxwork, which is made of thin blades of

calcite that project from cave walls and ceilings, forming a honeycomb pattern, or boxes. The tour of the cave is ½ mile and takes about 1-1/4 hours. At one point they turned out the lights and I swear, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Fortunately, our exit from the cave was by elevator! I don’t think I could have climbed back up the 300 steps.

Wind Cave National Park is more than just the caves. Currently, the park includes over 28,000 acres and is home to Bison, Pronghorn, Elk, Prairie Dogs and numerous birds. These animals are wild and allowed to graze freely, which means they are sometimes on the road, and they have the right of way! On our way south this morning, we pulled into one of the pull offs as a herd of Bison was crossing the road ahead of us. Several people were standing on the sign platform watching these huge animals as they crossed the highway. Three of them headed for the platform and looked everyone over, then one came forward towards the crowd and stopped again, staring. This was a bull, they can get up to 2000 pounds and stand about 5 feet tall at the shoulders, oh, and they can run about 35 miles per hour. People quickly returned to their cars, in no mood to argue. For all of their size and bulk, they are kind of mangy looking right now as they are losing their winter coats. It is also calving time and there are several babies in the herd. They are so cute!!

The other animal out in abundance today were the Prairie Dogs. They are really a rodent and they make a mess out of the pastures with all of their holes, but they are so fun to watch! I believe a moderate population would be in the thousands!

5/22/13 Fort Robinson, NE

Today was a travel day, but there was one more stop we wanted to make before we left the area. Twenty miles to the west of Chadron is Fort Robinson State Park. What we were particularly interested in was the Trailside Museum of Natural History. This is another museum sponsored by the University of Nebraska. The main display is the skeletal remains of two giant mammoths lying as they have since the Ice Age—tragically locked together in combat. These mammoths were about the same age and size, both with one full tusk and a shorter one that was presumed to have been broken off in a previous struggle. The longer tusks were locked together and around each other’s heads. They eventually died of starvation where they fell. The remains of these mammoths were found not too far from the Toadstool grounds where we were yesterday.

Fort Robinson State Park has had an interesting history. Built to protect the first settlers in the area from the Indians, it was an Army Calvary unit. Chief Crazy Horse was captured by the Calvary, and returned to the fort, where he was later stabbed and died while resisting his guards. The Buffalo Soldiers were assigned here for a time during the Indian Wars and at one time the Fort housed over 13,000 Lakota Indians. The fort was also used as a breeding center for the Army’s Calvary horses, the veterinary hospital is open to visitor’s, as are the stables. During WWII over 3000 German POW’s were interned at the Fort, along with several hundred military guards, interpreters and other camp personnel. Camp Robinson remains one of the country’s best preserved prisoner of war camp sites.

After a quick bite to eat, we hit the road, travelling north on Highway 385 into South Dakota. As soon as we crossed into SD, we started to climb in altitude, the rolling hills of north west Nebraska started getting higher peaks and we began to see Antelope grazing in the pastures. We passed through the quaint town of Hot Springs, SD (which we hope to explore more in the next week). We passed through Wind Cave National Park where Buffalo herds have free roaming rights, in fact two of the very large animals crossed the road right in front of us. The landscape is quickly becoming the rugged rocky formations the area is famous for. By the time we reached our campground, Custer’s Crazy Horse Campground, we had reached an altitude of about 5500’. The campground, which is in the town of Custer, will be our headquarters during our exploration of this area for the next week.

5/21/13 Toadstool Park, NE

More rain and wind today, but we went out anyway because it is our last day here and we didn’t want to spend it inside.
 We headed west, just past Crawford, Nebraska is a unique place called Toadstool Geologic Park. Early French fur traders called this landscape “terres mauvais,” or badlands. When we saw the badlands in South Dakota a few years ago, I could envision the bad guys hiding out there, well; we got the same feeling today walking through the toadstools.  
The Toadstools are sandstone slabs perched upon eroding clay pedestals. The erosion has been caused by years of the unrelenting forces of wind and water. It had rained yesterday causing the dry clay riverbeds to become slick and muddy, making walking tricky. Added to trying to keep our balance through these slimy clay tracks was a constant cold wind, blowing at 30mph with gusts up to at least 40mph. It was strong enough to have to lean into, then it would suddenly quit, but you are still leaning, so then you are waving arms trying to counter balance. I’m sure that had there been anyone watching, they would have been rolling through the slime laughing at this old lady (who has zero balance on a smooth flat surface!) climbing over the rocks, around narrow ledges, down through the gullies and slipping and sliding through the muck of wet clay!! 
There is a commercial on TV where a couple is wandering around a rocky dessert landscape looking for their car, the car is just over the ridge, but they can’t find it. I was reminded of that when we took the one mile trail through the Toadstools. Without the trail markers, we could have easily gotten lost!
 Nearby the Toadstools is an area where ancient hunters ran Buffalo herds off a cliff in order to kill the huge beasts. They would then work their way to the bottom of the cliff and butcher the beasts in order to haul the meat and hides back to the villages, leaving the bones behind. This area has become known as the killing fields and is now protected by the park systems. Just our luck, the area was closed until May 26, just 5 days from now!!
So, we returned home, tired and muddy and wind burned, but it was a great day!

  Toadstools, 

Toadstools, heavy rock on top of clay

 

We called this one witch kissing dolphin - 

This next one is of Nita and I sitting on a natural bench during the hike.  You can see how bundled up we were against the wind and rain.

 John at one of the narrow passages we had to go through:

more toadstools

5/20/13 Chadron, NE

Started raining yesterday afternoon, shortly after we got here, and it hasn’t quit yet! We are having strong gusts of wind, but not the continuously strong winds we have been having during the past week.

We are currently watching the news about the Moore, OK tornado. The damage is unbelievable and our hearts go out to everyone there! They said there is a possibility the winds in that tornado were as high as 317 miles per hour, and here I have been complaining about the strong gusts we have been having. We have been very lucky and it just goes to show that the grass is NOT always greener on the other side of the fence!

Today we visited the Museum of the Fur Trade, here in Chadron. This is an amazing museum and we did not expect to find something like this in a small town in northwest Nebraska. This museum houses artifacts from the history of the fur trade, when it began, where the hunters came from and where they hunted. Also included was the effect of the trade on the Indian Tribes and their involvement in the trade.

This museum has a huge collection of rifles, including who they were made by and when, most of these rifles were the ones approved for trade with the Indians, but some were the rifles used by the trappers themselves. 

One of the cool things we saw was a drawing by a "Randolph Kurz " from Switzerland. 

one more Niobrara River pic

5/17/13 Niobrara River Pictures

5/17/13 Niobrara River, Nebraska

Woke to a bright sunny day with temps promised to be in the high 80’s. Sounded like a good day to go for a float on the Niobrara River. This is a National Scenic River, located outside of Valentine. We found a canoe rental place that was open, seems we are a little ahead of the season around here. Anyway, they dropped us off with our canoes at the Fort Niobrara launch site, which is at mile 4 of the river. We launched at 12:40pm for what was supposed to be a 3 hour float.  The "float" was really more like playing dodge ball with the rocks and the current pushing us from side to side in the river.  It wasn't long before we knew we were in for a long day.

We stopped at a spot called Berry Falls for a stretch break, this is at mile 12.4 on the river, so we have paddled 8.4 miles at this point (as the river flows and not counting all the back and forth treks). This break lasted about 30 minutes.  It was a pleasant stop except for the biting flies that were enjoying their lunch (us!) too!
At mile 16 on the river we stopped at Smith Falls, this is a state park and we were told that this is a must see. The falls are about a quarter mile from the river, and well worth the stop. The Smith Falls drops 63 feet over the sandstone cliff and you can walk right up to the bottom of the falls and stand under it if you want, we didn’t want to so we just enjoyed its beauty from a ‘dryer’ distance.
A few miles downriver from Smith Falls we started to notice that to the west of us the clouds were building and the wind was picking up, which only caused us to zig zag back and forth even more! There are also more rapid areas and sandbar islands, which require decisions to be made…right or left around the islands; usually we went whichever way the wind thought we should, much easier than fighting it. By mile 17 we are hearing thunder and the sky to the west of us (the river runs east) is getting darker by the minute.

So, now we are paddling harder, we need to get out of the water before this storm hits. At last we see the last bridge and the landing where we are suppose to be picked up. So, we head for the landing and immediately notice that this is not going to be like the landings we have made previously, all of the gravel has been washed away from the spot where we are suppose to go.
Phil and Nita got to the landing first.  Here is her account of what happened:
" We hit and bounce off, trying desperately to dig our paddles into the bottom so we can stop the canoe and not over shoot the landing. What happened next is a blur, neither of us could make the paddles hold, the canoe was rocking wildly, I remember falling backwards and then the canoe tipped and started to roll. The current was strong; I was trying to dig my feet into the bottom and save our stuff at the same time. Phil managed somehow to grab the canoe and stop it from taking off downstream, yelling at me to grab the side of the canoe as I was in danger of being pulled downstream myself. John and Fran had landed at this point, safe and dry, John had jumped out of their canoe to help and Fran was yelling for help from the driver in the parking lot who was waiting for us. By this time my legs didn’t want to work, I couldn’t get up, finally had to roll onto my knees and was able to get my feet under me and stand up, John helped me out of the water. Luckily I had a bathing suit under my shorts, so I was able to take them off and sort of air dry a little while the guys helped the driver load the canoes. Everything that wasn’t in a sealed baggie was soaked; fortunately things like my cell phone and the camera were in baggies and were still dry."
John and Phil then walked down river to retrieve a couple items that floated away.  During the walk John, walking a little behind Phil, spotted a 6 foot snake that looked suspiciously like a rattler.  He stood quietly until the snake decided he didn't like the look of John either and slithered away.

Our day wasn’t done, within 30 minutes of arriving back at the rigs; the storm that had been threatening all afternoon hit us with a vengeance! We have had storm after storm all night, with extremely strong winds and lots of lightning and thunder. It’s still going and the radar shows more on the way. We are so tired and worn out though that I don’t think we will have any trouble sleeping tonight.

5/14/13 Made it to Lincoln

We made it Lincoln on Sunday (5/12) and are enjoying being with Nita and Phil again.  We have done a little touring and went to a cool roller skating museum (John and I met roller skating).  We are staying here until Thursday and then we will start our trek to Calgary.

5/11 Have mirror, will travel

The arm never moved, so the shop drilled it out.  All was repaired and we were on the road around 11am.  Got further than we thought we would although there was a terrible headwind that made driving tough for John.  Only got 6 miles to the gallon due to the wind.  Paid $3.71 for diesel.  About 300 miles to go to get to Lincoln.  Should get there tomorrow

5/10 7pm   Here we are at the repair shop, all alone.... (the camper next to us is empty).  7pm and arm is still stuck

5/10/13pm On the way to Calgary

Well, it sounded like such a good idea at the time......  Turns out we were driving right through Elkhart, and decided, "Hey, why don't we just pick up the part and get it installed...."  Contacted the manufacturer and they had the part waiting for us.  I had also identified a repair facility that was rated "excellent" by other Alfa owners.  Turns out the repair facility was just down the road from the manufacturer.  All went very smoothly.  Picked up the part (head of the mirror, $288) and headed to the repair facility.  They started working on it right away.  And that is where we ran into trouble.....  The guy let the wires fall into the supporting arm.  That meant the arm now has to come off to retrieve them.  The arm is stuck so fast that two mechanics could not release it.  The solution was for us to spend the night at their facility and John keep squirting the joint with WD 40 in hopes that it will be free by morning.  This place is not usually open on the weekend, but they are coming in special just for us.  Keep your finger's crossed that it frees up!!

Travel log 5/10/13

 5/9/13  This is the first day of our 12 month trip. Going up to Calgary, Ca for the summer and then down to Arizona/California for the winter. We woke up to pouring rain, opened pantry to get can of cat food and jar of olives fell out and hit the marble floor. Spent next half hour picking up glass and olives. Are we having fun yet?

5/10/13  Yesterday started with a bang and ended with one.  Going through the last toll booth of the day we just nicked the booth on the passenger side and knocked off the mirror.  Why do they make those darn things so narrow.  :-(   Good thing John can fix anything.  A piece of PVC pipe, a glue gun and duck tape and we are just about good as new!  Still got in 450 miles, only 900 more until our first stop in Lincoln, NE.  We are meeting up with Nita and Phil and will travel together to Calgary.  Can't wait to see them!