South Dakota and Wyoming

On our way to Spearfish in South Dakota we drove through the North East corner of Wyoming and saw signs for Devil’s Tower, not realizing that this was the ‘backdrop’ for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” until we were reminded and looked it up on the internet, obviously we had to take a drive there once we were hooked up in Chris Campground, our home for 2 weeks.

After a day of relaxing and settling in we took a drive up Spearfish Canyon to see if we could find the waterfalls in the canyon, the first was really easy – Bridal Falls, the second, Roughlock Falls, took us a little off road however both were really spectacular – nowhere near the Niagara scale, but still wonderful to see and no hiking this time. We circled back through Deadwood, which is so commercialized we didn’t even stop and a little town called Lead, the locals pronounce ‘Leed’, maybe they don’t like guns and the history of the area.

Bridal Veil Falls in Spearfish Canyon

Connie and Rusty at Roughlock Falls

Roughlock Water Falls

A few days later we took a trip to Rapid City and down to Bear Country USA Wildlife Park, a park that you can drive through among the animals – just keep your windows closed, they even let Rusty stay in the car. So we drove through areas with Reindeer, Bears, Sheep, Elk and Mountain Lions among others, all in their own enclosures, safe from each other.

Reindeer in Bear Country

An Elk taking a snack in Bear Country

Big Horn Sheep in Bear Country

Mountain Lion relaxing in the sun

Bear taking a cooling dip

Give way to the bears in Bear Country

We had stopped at a Jimmy Johns gourmet sandwich store on the way so sat in the car and had lunch, Rusty had a snack too. Back through Rapid City and Sturgis to the camp ground, we we’re so lucky to miss the Sturgis Bike Rally – this year was the 75^th annual get together for bikers – they were expecting 1.3 million attendees a week or so after we were leaving. Back in Spearfish we saw dozens of Chevy Corvettes – they were having a rally – they were everywhere, the hotel parking lots were full of them.

A few days later we planned a tour around the Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore – a full day, about 200 miles round trip over some really interesting roads, especially Iron Mountain Road.

Crazy Horse Memorial is quite amazing, a sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, was invited by Henry Standing Bear, an Oglala Lakota Chief, to create a memorial remembering all North American Indians. Korczak was also involved in the creation of Mount Rushmore. The memorial was started in 1947 with the first blasting in 1948, as yet there are no projected completion dates.

A statue of Crazy Horse

The Crazy Horse Memorial

Crazy Horse Memorial – the plan

Horse statue and the Crazy Horse Memorial

On to Custer State Park and the herds of Bison, apparently herds totalling over 1,450 roam these grasslands. We drove for quite a while and saw one sole, lonely male, thinking this is a big scam, where are all these buffalo/bison, we soon found the herd – in really close proximity – just across the road from us and on both sides of the road, truly an amazing sight when you realize these animals used to roam in the tens of thousands across these areas.

Prong Horn Deer in Custer State Park

Bison family group

Part of the 1,450 head herd of Bison

A huge Bison in Custer State Park

We decided to take the Iron Mountain Road to Mount Rushmore, supposedly a really ‘interesting’ windy road – it was all of that and a whole lot more. There are 3 tunnels carved through the rock that you need to drive through, nice twisty roads that also have switchbacks and roads that loop under or over the one you just travelled on – fun!!! And when you come out of one of these tunnels and you are presented with Mount Rushmore in the distance – quite breath-taking and glorious. There isn’t a whole lot you can say about Mount Rushmore except that it is monumental and historic, and a once in a life time chance to gaze at this magnificent sculpture.

Tunnel 1 on Iron Mountain Road

Waiting for Tunnel 2 on Iron Mountain

Waiting to go through Tunnel 3 on Iron Mountain

Our first glimpse of Mount Rushmore

Overhead in the Iron Mountain Road

Iron Mountain Road Loop

Mount Rushmore National Monument

Not a lot else happened in South Dakota so back to Wyoming and Devils Tower. We decided to take a different route back through Wyoming than the one we took to South Dakota from Montana and ended up in a small town called Sundance. That’s where we came across a bronze statue depicting Sundance Kid of the ‘Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy’ and the Wild Bunch fame. The story goes that Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was arrested and jailed for 18 months for stealing a horse and gun from a ranch in Sundance and adopted the Sundance Kid name while he was in jail, hence the bronze in Sundance Town Centre.

Sundance Kid in Sundance

We left Sundance and headed for the tower, we saw glimpses of the tower when we were still miles away – a huge rock seeming to push out of the surrounding earth, amazing even from a distance, and then we were at the base of it – HUGE towering strange looking rock rising nearly 1,300 feet – it was declared a National Monument in 1906 by President Roosevelt.

Devils Tower from the entrance to the park

Finally – the two of us on one picture

The tower from inside the park

Next on to Nebraska and Iowa.

We’ve covered a lot of the USA in the last few weeks, the last entry here was Washington State, and so I thought it time we covered a few states at a time.

Idaho was a one week stop at the Coeur d’Alene RV Park in Post Falls. This is where we found out that Spokane is pronounced Spo-Can and not as we thought Spo-Cane, and Coeur d’Alene is Kor-d-lain, no French accents here. The city has a great park for walking Rusty each morning and evening, and very scenic views of the small dam and river at the edge of the park. Also came across some of the local wildlife – a Groundhog also known as a Woodchuck – how much wood can a woodchuck chuck etc.

This was pretty much a relaxing week – getting ready for some more hills to climb in ’Arvey (AKA Junior) – Montana was beckoning.

We really need to find a way to include sound bites – Willy Nelson’s rendition of ‘On the road again’ would be playing right now. We thought the I-90 between Coeur d’Alene and Butte Montana was a real challenge with all the steep up and down grades; we had yet to realize that we had more to come after Butte crossing the Great Divide. Butte was often called ‘The Richest Hill on Earth’ due to the abundance of copper in the area needed when the new-fangled electricity became ‘fashionable’ in the late 19^th century. We stayed at the Fairmont RV Park – right in the middle of nowhere, at a mile high. We took a trip to the Lost Creek State Park and hiked to the waterfall, to us at a mile high climbing a steep path for about 200 yards is hiking. Why it is was called Lost Creek we have no idea, we found it quite easily.

Another week goes by and we’re on the road again, now I have an ear worm of Willy Nelson singing. Time to make the great ascent to cross the Great Divide at Homestake Pass – 6,329 feet – engine screaming and Rusty running for cover, he doesn’t like Junior when it’s really noisy at 4,500 revs. Finally we reach the crest – OK, now we need to get down the other side. Did you ever climb a tree when you were a kid and it was quite easy until you look down and wonder how you’re going to get down – safely, same kind of feeling at the top of Homestake Pass. After a few white knuckle curves and downgrades we made it, just in time to climb another hill – that was the same for the whole trip that day. We arrived at the Billings Village RV Park after a very stressful 5 hour drive, the wine that evening was a welcome sight.

One trip we took was to Crow Agency and the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument; I never realized that it was such a spread out running battle between the 7^th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the Sioux and Cheyenne under Sitting Bull – 2 days of fighting in June 1876. There are stones to mark where people from both sides fell. The interesting fact to me was that the battle did not end on Last Stand Hill – AKA Custer’s Last Stand, according to some accounts the fight ended in a ravine below the hill known today as Deep Ravine.

As always we looked for, and found a really nice park this one alongside the Yellowstone River for our daily drags with Rusty. Rusty was getting a little shaggy so we took advantage of the 3 hours he was being trimmed to walk around a small zoo in Billings and eat at a nice Mexican restaurant, our time was soon up and we were ‘back on the leash’.

We left Portland Oregon and crossed into Washington State on the I-5 Bridge over the Columbia River, a really magnificent river and bridge.

Our home for the next 2 weeks was the Blue Sky RV Park near Issaquah just 20 miles east of Seattle, a small park nestled in the pine forests. The only issue we had with this park, apart from the cramped sites, was their rules regarding dogs. Dogs were not to be walked on the lawns or grass, the only area they provided was a short trail covered in large wood chippings which was difficult to walk on.

In a way this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we found the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy organization dedicated to converting old railway lines to biking/walking/hiking trails. One of these is the Preston to Snoqualmie trail just a mile away, we walked this trail twice a day, morning and evening – really peaceful and relaxing.

On the way back one evening we even came across some of the local wildlife – a black bear raiding a trash bin. After taking a picture (through the open window) I drove up the hill to the house and told the owner. He just got into his car, drove down the hill and blasted his horn to scare it away. On the way back to the site I saw a woman walking her small dog and stopped to warn her about the bear. All she did was pick up her dog with a “they are a nuisance” went back down the road – towards where I’d seen the bear, just a nuisance – with big sharp claws and teeth. We now know why one of the other dog walkers on the trail wore a bell around her neck, we did wonder if she had a can of pepper spray in her purse.

We made a couple of trips into Seattle to tour Pike Place Farmers Market and see the Space Needle and Puget Sound.

We had lunch at the Maximilien Restaurant above the market, a pretentious place with great views of the sound. Connie had mussels I had a Croque-Madame – a little overdone, but I ate it. We had no idea that Seattle was the San Francisco of the North West with all its hills in the city center, also traffic was crazy, even on a Sunday. We had toyed with the idea of going up into Canada (in the car not with Junior) but after taking over an hour just to get to I-5 we decided to give it a miss.

We took a few trips around the area, Lake Sammamish was a nice drive with a stop at a really great park, the lake is about 7 miles long and surrounded by banks of houses.

A trip to Snoqualmie Falls produced the most spectacular views of the falls and the surrounding area. Of course we had to pay a visit to the Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive In in Issaquah, old style diner with a 6 foot tall gumball machine. On the way back from one trip Connie managed to get our only picture of Mount Rainier.