Black Hills and onto Glacier

9/5/2008 9:45 PM.


Well lets see, my last post was on Thursday morning (9/4/2008) describing the trip around the Badlands. After completing the post we struck out for the Black Hills (still in South Dakota, but many miles away). I'll talk about the Black Hills later. Right now I'll digress a few days.

For my van-mates, the trip out to South Dakota has been like a wildlife tour, lots of animals. I have even had two birds (so far) commit suicide against the front of the motor home, one breaking the hose connector for the window washer fluid.

The scenery so far, while driving from destination to destination, has been very nice. The other States I have already mentioned; many miles of fields. South Dakota at the beginning (from east to west) along I-90 had many of the same crops, corn and soy with a few wheat fields (though really big fields). Towards the middle of the South Dakota, the fields turned into mostly grass lands. Miles and miles of grass lands. At one point, the land was so flat that you had a 180 degree view of the sky, glad it was all blue at the time, could have been depressing. The western part of I-90 in SD becomes hilly with mountains in the not to far distance.

Our first camping destination, the Badlands/White River KOA in Interior, is just outside the Badlands National Park (we had to drive through the Park to get to the camp grounds or kamp as KOA puts it) and is right in the middle of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. The camp ground area is clean and the bathrooms were kept up rather nicely. Just a short 5 miles from the Park, it was easy to get up early to watch the sunrise.

On that first morning, we went to an area that featured cliffs and the observation areas gave us a good perspective of that part of the park, but unfortunately not the sunrise. Oh well! However, we were rewarded when we looked down the hill we were on and saw about five deer that sauntered into the area. The group had two yearlings which ran around and played. After watching them for a while and loosing track of them, we began our decent. We found them again as we stepped into a small clearing. We took some pictures and left as quietly as we could. I guess it was the mother deer, but it watched us the entire time not moving and we were no more than about 20 feet away from it.

The Badlands NP is absolutely beautiful, but I'm sure you'll hear that about each of the Parks and Monuments we go to. If you ever get a chance to go to the Badlands NP, I would recommend at the minimum one full day, perhaps two.

The next day we took off for the Black Hills. We left early (around 6:30 AM) hoping to get to Mt. Rushmore before the crowds and not very late in the morning. Our travels for the day took us along Rts 44, 16 (truck route), 16, 16a, 244 (to see Mt. Rushmore), back on 16a, 87 (called the Needles Highway - more about this road later), 16/385 (to Deadwood), 14a (to Sturgis), 90 (exiting at 131 and then back to the camp site). It was a very long day with us getting back late in the evening, causing us to get up late and then departing about 3 1/2 hours later then planned.


Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore. Unbelievable. The sheer size of the carvings is fantastic. George Washington's mouth is 19 ft across and the nose is 22 ft long, just to give you some perspective of the size. I am providing a picture of this. There are so many perspective locations where you can view the monument it is hard to decide which picture to use, but I'll figure that out later.



After viewing the monument, we went on the section of 16a called the Iron Mountain Road. We came across several Long Horn Sheep (these are males, the others the other day were females). They were just resting.


Can you believe it, along route 16a they build tunnels that when you look through them they frame the Mt. Rushmore Monument; then they told the engineers to build a road to interlink the tunnels. Unbelievable! The road loops around doing a full circle and crossing over itself in a couple of places. We stopped at one of the tunnels and took a picture back through it to capture the Monument through the tunnel. (You'll have to wait for that picture later. )



While we are driving around we stop on the side of the road because here comes this hugh Bison. I get out, and take pictures, so does Carmen but she stays in the car because it is getting close. The bison comes to within 8 feet of the car, looks at us then keeps going. There is a tours bus behind us and they are patting a wild donkey. They (most are old duffers) are all out of the bus and just about 20 feet behind our car. That would have been a great picture, people flying through the air. Didn't happen, the bison did stop and look the group of people over and then continued. Here is a picture of him. I did get pictures of the wild donkeys, you should see them!


We got off 16a and headed along 87 heading north. As I mentioned above, the road is named the Needles Highway mostly because of the rock formations. This road also has two tunnels. One only 10' 4" wide. Now imagine a tour bus, which just happened to be in front of us, going through the tunnel. Well not so well, he got through (and as I understand this is a reoccurring event throughout the day by tour buses) but only after moving forwards and backwards, in the tunnel, to reposition the bus while inside navigating the tunnel. What a job! And yes, I got a picture of the bus from the back while it was half way through the tunnel. I though we were going to have to backtrack miles to go around. Glad that didn't happen. Stuck around because another bus was coming through after us and I want to get a picture from the front this time. Anyway, as I've said before, absolutely gorgeous scenery everywhere you look.

We continued up 385 and on to Deadwood. here are the dirt roads? The mud? (After all, there was a slight drizzle at the time.) The gun fighters? Well, the town was modernized after a fire. It doesn't look like the TV show, but I also didn't get my sneakers muddy either. Saw the Wild Bill Hickok reenactment. Damn, I didn't think he would get shot this time. I figured he was going to jump up just in time. Ha, that will never happen.

Oh yeah, put some money into a slot machine. Draw poker of course, quarter machine, put in a dollar (no I didn't have that much time, the car was at a parking meter) played the max bet and drew to a straight (16 for 4 ain't that bad). Took my money out, put four back in (my original bet) and cashed out another 8, then gave up. Did I mention that the town has many casinos? One is owned by Kevin Costner (or at least has many of his movie memorabilia). We left feeling sad about poor Wild Billy, but happy about the extra coinage in my pocket. It's like having my own "gold fever". Nah, not quite

We left Deadwood following 14a to Sturgis. You know where the big motorcycle rally is? Well, everyone is gone. Most of the stores were closed by 6:00 PM. We did manage to buy some t-shirts as gifts though (Jon don't read this part). We ate at the famous Knuckle Saloon (and Charlie I did not have the knuckle sandwich).

Anyway, by the time we got back from the Black Hills trip to the camp site it was well after 11:00 PM and we just went to bed. We also got up late and then left for Glacier NP about four hours behind schedule. Not so good when you have a very aggressive day. That is why I am sitting in a rest area instead of a camp ground posting this to the blog. I'll have to do that when I get there and hopefully get an Internet connection.

As we are traveling through Montana, the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. Hills, grasslands, horses, deer, antelope abound. Yes we are in the land where the deer and the antelope play! Sorry it's late and I couldn't help myself, but we are in cowboy country.

Since we started out almost 4 hours later then expected and with a few other delays, we are now stopped in Montana, unable to make our destination in a reasonable time. We currently reside at the rest stop along I-90 somewhere around mile marker 378 (I think). Tomorrow, we plan on getting up early and continuing to our next camping destination in West Glacier, Montana. I'll continue this when I have more battery time. See Ya later.


9/06/2006.
Well we made it to the camp site (another KOA) in West Glacier. We got in around 4:00 PM. Stopped more often then I expected and the drive took much longer than I expected also. Anyway, here we are all settled in and I'm writing this blog sipping on a Dr. (Jon you'll know what I mean). The trip today continued to be gorgeous although we did run into some rain.

For animals, we saw hawks, horses, cattle, sheep, bison (or buffalo as I still call them), wild donkeys, Big horn sheep, mountain goats, prairie dogs, turkey, regular goats, regular sheep, llama, coyote, deer, antelope, and rabbits over the past two days. I think that about covers it.

Drove by Flathead lake, very large, about 25 miles long. Mountains, vista, all of it is really very nice. Tomorrow we go to Glacier National Park, so I'll talk to you afterwards. Oh and I already bought the t-shirt.