This is trip 15, in 2015! We arrived in Phoenix (AZ) on March 25th and traveled North and East, taking in Jerome, Mogollon Rim, Zuni (NM), El Morro, Farmington, Durango (CO), Ridgway, Black Canyon NP, Breckenridge and Golden. Moving North from there we have been to Fort Collins, Laramie (WY), Cheyenne, Fort Laramie, Chadron (NE), and on to Custer (SD) to explore The Black Hills, as far North as Devil's Tower (WY). From there we have driven East to Dreadwood,then on to pickup our mail in Box Elder before exploring The Badlands NP. We have been to the capital Pierre (SD Capital), before driving North up the Missouri to Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota. We have finished towing by driving via Fargo and Sauk Centre to Minneapolis, where we will clean and store the rig, ready for us when we return for Trip 16 in the Fall (DV). On this trip we have towed the trailer just over 2800 miles.
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Friday
Having now achieved our goal of getting licenses and ID we spent Friday on a visit to the Capitol building. In the morning we had to wait for the rain to stop, it had started at about 3.00 in the morning and poured until 10.00. The weather stations says we got more that 2 inches of rain. On the outside the Capitol building is a pretty grim grey, but on the inside it is a very pretty white colour, with lots of marble effect columns and mosaic tile flooring. We literally walked in and ran into a tour just starting, so we joined in. we found out that the mosaic tiling had a special blue tile, one for each of the workers there, who were asked to place them wherever they wished. Of the 66 workers only 49 tiles can be found, but it is kind of interesting to look for the tiles as you go round. The columns are scagliola, artificial marble constructed round a steel beam, I am sure we have seen these in other Capitol buildings, but can't remember where.
The building is quite small (it is a small state, population wise), so it didn't take long to get round it, but it was very interesting. After a coff/T at a local family restaurant we returned to the trailer.
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In the evening the weather started to clear and I was very pleased to get a pic (though somewhat poor, because of the evening light) of a Nighthawk fly catching over the lake.
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Thursday
Pierre is the capital city of South Dakota, as it was nice and sunny we decided that we would see the capitol tomorrow and just hang out today, Oh! and renew our driving license/ID card.
The grand building that is The Driving License Office Of Pierre is wonderfully described as "Down the alley behind the Burger King", which indeed it was!
I had checked the place out last night and also got a driving test manual, which I had read from cover to cover, for twenty minutes this morning.
We arrived and spoke to a very nice young girl, who enthusiastically guided us through our application, which required a visa, two address bills, proof of residence for one night, affidavit to say we would not live here, a completed form (in black ink only) and a twenty dollar cheque for each of us. The I had to take the eye test, which was more or less read some letters the size of a barn door, then go answer 25 questions. When I had completed that , yes OK, so I got one wrong, the dear young girl gave me my driving license, which will be valid until the end of September, but never mind, it is two year more recent that the last one.
That took us about an hour, so we were definitely ready for a Coff/T, so called in at the only coffee house in town, conveniently called Pier 347 (?), before relaxing for an hour in Walmart.
Though the weather had started fine and sunny, you could tell that the cloud was going to increase until it hit thunderstorm proportions, it was just a case of whether they would hit us or not. One did at about 5.00, but several others passed North and South of us. I have enjoyed watching them on the Wunderground.com radar, along with the storm tracks that have set off tornados a couple of hundred miles south of here in Kansas. Very interesting. So we will see what the weather brings tomorrow.
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Check the page out here
Today I have posted a blog onto the site dated Thursday 21st May, so it could have been missed.
It was a record of the snow storm we had in Custer and evening views of Stockade Lake
Tuesday
At the entrance to the Badlands lies Wall, a town which has not raison d'etre for it's existence except for the famous drug store - Wall Drug, so of course we had to stop there to investigate it.
It is a very nice story. Back in 1929 a pharmacist and his wife felt it right to open a drug store in Wall, even though it was a dying community. They gave themselves five years to make a go of it. No chance. In the summer of their last year the wife put a notice out on the highway to offer free ice water. Tourists visiting the places to the West stopped off for the free water and the rest is history. Unfortunately, in the inimitable style of the Americans the place now resembles the Main Street of Disneyland - all just gift shops.
Anyway it had to be done!
The Famous Wall Drug in Wall
From there we drove into the Badlands NP. This, we realised, is the last of the 'Big Desert Parks' that we shall see as we move East, not knowing if we will ever get back West again. So we were determined to enjoy it, which we did.
It is about a 25 mile drive through the park, with lots of stops for the overviews, so we made quite slow progress, in fact it took us most of the day to arrive at the Cedar Lodge Campground, where we were surprised to find that there was a walk in site available,with lovely views of The Badlands.
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In the evening I went for a run up into the rocky area, along Saddle and Castle Trail, which was fun. I got back in time to take a couple of sunset pics, though there wasn't a lot of sun in them.
The weather has now, finally, warmed up.
Wednesday
Although it is warm, the sun is still not shining through. I got up early to take some sunrise pics (5.30!), but it was mostly cloudy, still there were some bright spots.
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We planned to drive about 120 miles today to Pierre, however a lot of the road was on I90, with its speed limit of 80 m.p.h. so we took some time to visit the Fossil Trail, which, rather disappointingly was a boardwalk with just information about fossils, no actual fossils in the rocks there. Still it gave us a last look at The Badlands.
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I even managed to take a video of the drive from the Fossil Trail to the Campground, which, while not as boring as the train passing by at Fort Laramie, is probably only of interest if you want to see lots of rocks and hear our idle banter in the van.
The weather took a hand again: Since sunrise we were watching a large rain cloud on the Wunderground.com radar, which was sitting to the East of us for several hours as we packed up left the campground, that was OK, except as we left it started to move North East, so as we hit the I90 and moved east it crossed us and we were in rain. We drove through and out the other side, just in time to turn North to Pierre and catch it as it continued North East. We drove through it again and reached the Farm Lake SP at Pierre, just in time for the rain cloud to catch up with us. So still not much luck with the weather, but at least it is now warm.
The campground here is very nice though and we are looking forward to better weather.
Our mailbox is in Box Elder, so since we had to pass close we decided to pick up our mail direct. There being no suitable campground nearby we stayed in the car park of Celebas, a sports outfitters. This is the first time we have stayed on a car park. It was really quite easy and we felt quite safe. Dropping the trailer meant that we could pop out to Golden Corral for a meal and then spend some time in Walmart. Came out to pouring rain.
Tuesday morning we were up and away early to pick up our mail at Americas Mailbox, before driving on to The Badlands of South Dakota.
Forgot to put card in camera, so this is a street view cheat pic of Americas Mailbox
Sunday
Oh what a disappointment!
We approached Deadwood with visions of the Deadwood Stage and Calamity Jame, sunny skies and lots of happy dancing people.
It turns out that when when the mines closed down at the turn of the century Deadwood died. Around the eighties some astute person somehow got the State to legalise gambling in Deadwood, because that is what had made it famous, along with gold, drinking and prostitution, so like almost every other town west of Boston. This enabled Dreadwood to 'renovate' and 'restore' its old buildings and turn them into casinos, so now the City Center looks like a disney theme area.
Arriving here yesterday we did not feel comfortable at all, though we did have a very nice steak in the Legends Restaurant in the newly re-opened Franklin Hotel. The theme park environment was extended by having Main street as a no parking area, almost a pedestrian precinct, which made the public car parks a nightmare.
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Today was raining, all day, though we did go back to Dreadwood it was still very miserable with loads of small casinos and 'kiss me quick' establishments.
We made a detour up the hill to the cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried, however a combination of pouring rain and charging (albeit only a dollar) to go into the cemetery made Sally see red when, having taken our money, she could not actually access their graves. So by the time she had finished with the dear lady in the box office we were able to leave with our two dollars firmly back in our pocket.
So we spent this afternoon doing the laundry and watching the trickling stream that runs through the campsite turn into a raging torrent.
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Friday
We rose at a leisurely pace today, knowing that the only thing we had to do all day was to go and take close look at the Devil's Tower. I guess we were savouring that for as long as possible. Once we were up and had breakfast we went out of the to the Trading Post to buy a coff/T, which was truly awful.
We drove up the roadway to Visitor Center, which runs quite close to the DT. Having sampled all the information available there we then took the path that goes right round the base of the DT. This was the highlight of the day, seeing the DT up close, looking up at those columns, picking out the climbers, so small against the mass of the DT. We took the opportunity to call the kids, we got through to JP on Facetime and we had an exciting Facetime conversation as we showed him and his family the wonderful view, almost from the spot where Richard Dreyfuss slipped back down the rock face, of the DT. The we Facetimed Andy, who was slightly more busy making tea for the kids. Unfortunately we couldn't get hold of Helen, so they must have been busy elsewhere.
We then continued round the base of the DT. The track is 1.2 miles long and has an asphalt surface, so Sally was able to tackle it in her power chair, though there were some speed bumps, which I think were to help with drainage. rather than to reduce speed.
We watched a number of climbers, we saw about a dozen altogether, though I think there were probably some we did not see.
We constantly marvelled at this amazing phenomena as we travelled round it's base. By the time we had watched climbers, taken pics and talked to various people on the way round it actually took us about two hours to circle the Tower, but is was so impressive.
We drove back down to the campground, from which we could see the tower very clearly and relaxed in its memory.
That left one more activity, in the evening we watched Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, which only enhanced the magic of the place, as only Spielberg can do. After this I went out for a quick wander, only to see lights way up on the top of the DT. Even though it was nearly nine o clock in the evening and dark there were still climbers up there. So I can at least say that I saw the lights in the sky over Devil's Tower.
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