July 12, 2015 Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Welcome to our 200th travel blog post!!

We left Shoshone National Forest and made the steep climb over the Togwotee Pass, crossing the Continental Divide westward. Our excitement grew as our first glimpse of the Grand Tetons came into view. We passed a large 24,700 acre national elk refuge where 7,500 elk live. Each spring Boy Scouts gather up antlers in the refuge which are then sold at an auction in Jackson. Half of the proceeds go to the Boy Scouts and the other half is used by the town to provide food for the elk during the long cold winter.

Our destination was Jackson, Wyoming. It was known as Jackson Hole until the modern zip code system forced the name be changed to Jackson. Our campground was located outside of Jackson in Wilson. There are not many campgrounds in the Jackson Hole area and most are located outside of town and ridiculously high priced. The campsites are very close together, reminding us of why we love to camp in state and national parks and forests.

Jackson Hole gets its name from fur trapper Davey Jackson, one of many fur trappers and mountain men who inhabited the area in the 1800’s. The town itself was established in 1894.

Occasionally tourists come to Jackson Hole and want to know where the “hole” is. There is no hole, it is called Jackson Hole because it is located in a valley bordered by mountain ranges. The town is actually forty eight miles long and eight to fifteen miles wide with the Snake River meandering through the town. Since 97% of the surrounding Teton County is public land, real estate and housing costs there are very high. The main industry is tourism, with two thirds occurring during the summer season and one third during the winter ski season.

Jackson Hole has a lot of businesses crammed into a small area. Traffic is heavy and you have to be very careful not to hit one of the many tourists flooding the streets and sidewalks.

One place of interest was Jackson Square, a park where they have an entryway of elk antlers at each of the four corners. People were enjoying the cool shade and a band of some sort was playing one day when we drove by.

While in Jackson Hole we wanted to go whitewater rafting on the Snake River. The rafting company picked us up at our campground at 6:15 AM and it was 44 degrees. Remember, this is July in Wyoming! We joined a high school math teacher, her husband from Fort Worth, Texas and two families from San Jose, California then boarded a bus down to the river. Everyone was very friendly and we certainly did have a great time getting to know them. The first eight miles of the trip was a calm, scenic float down the Snake River where we saw several bald eagles and ospreys. We then got out of the raft and stretched our legs and had a snack. The next eight miles of the trip was the exciting whitewater part of the trip as we traveled through many rapids. The first rapid sent two huge waves of ice cold water over the raft, soaking all of us. My teeth were chattering! There were many more times when the freezing water washed over us. After the trip they provided us with a bagged lunch which we enjoyed while continuing to visit with our new friends before the bus trip back to the campground. We had a great time! The only thing that would have made it better would have been temperatures about twenty degrees warmer. Of course they had a company who takes pictures as you go through one of the larger rapids. The pictures are pricey but we did splurge and purchase two.

I would like to end on a personal note. While in Jackson Hole I received word of the passing of my Uncle Arnold. He was like a father to me and his two sons are like my brothers. Arnold married my mother’s sister the year I was born, so I have known him my entire life. We had planned to see him in April 2016 when we pass through Virginia, but God had a better plan for him. One of the hard things about the full time Rving lifestyle is we are not nearby our family and friends. It was very hard for me to miss his funeral, but I know I did not have to be present at his funeral for him to know how much he meant to me and how much I love him. -Diane

July 10, 2015 Thermopolis, Wyoming

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We stopped in Thermopolis because of the hot springs located there which are advertised as the largest mineral hot springs in the world. The name Thermopolis comes from the Greek words for hot and cities. Located at the foot of Owl Creek Mountain and beside the Big Horn River it was once part of the Wind River Indian Reservation. The town was founded in 1897 and attracted outlaws such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Today it has a population of around 3,200 and tourists who come for the healing powers of the hot springs.

Hot Springs State Park was purchased from the Arapaho and Shoshone tribes in 1876 for $60,000 as part of a treaty with the provision it remain accessible free of charge to the public. Native Americans believe the mineral water has therapeutic powers. Today the park and public bath house are free of charge and it is the most visited state park in Wyoming.
The mineral rich hot water creates colorful geological formations which has occurred over millions of years forming beautiful rainbow terraces. The hot springs are naturally colored and formed by mineral deposits. They look like waterfalls and form a 125 degree F lake. The Big Spring in the park has more than 3.6 million gallons of 127 degree F water flow over colorful terraces every day. The water contains at least 27 different minerals. Most of the water is thought to come underground from the Owl Creek Mountains through the Big Spring. Rain enters porous rock layers, moves slowly downward and is forced to the surface through crevices in the rock. The heat and chemicals in the water come from the rock through which it passes and from gases that rise from deeply buried volcanic rocks. Some geologists think the underground formation that supplies the spring is the same that provides Yellowstone National Park its famous hot waters.

From the Big Spring the water flows into cooling ponds and runs into swimming pools, jacuzzis and the Big Horn River. The State Bath House water is 104 degrees F and they have an employee check the water temperature often. You are limited to 20 minutes in the water. The pools are filled with 100% mineral water; no chemicals or municipal water is used. There is an indoor and an outdoor pool and they are both cleaned every 48 hours. I could not get past the strong sulfur smell of the water and was happy to wait while Bill enjoyed the water. It took a couple showers to get the sulphur smell out of his skin!

There is a very small bison herd of around eleven buffalo in the park. We drove around trying to see them but they were hiding.

We stayed one night in Thermopolis and drove towards Jackson Hole. We drove through the Wind River Indian Reservation through beautiful Wind River Canyon with 2,500 foot walls of rock. There are informative signs along the route describing the geologic history of over a billion years of geology.

Along the way we continued to enjoy the views of the Wind River Canyon as we followed the Wind River to where it flows into the Big Horn River. When early explorers came across the river from opposite directions they each named the river. One named it Wind River and the other named it Big Horn River. The river changes names just south of Thermopolis.

We stayed overnight in Riverton at the Wind River Casino. They allow free overnight parking in their parking lot and even have a few electric (15 AMP) hookups which we were lucky to use. We went inside the casino and both signed up for a players card which gave us each $10.00 to use at the slot machines. We had fun playing the machines and ended up winning $8.00 between us. We had dinner at one of the restaurants in the casino. We were amazed at how quiet the parking lot was and woke the next morning refreshed and ready to hit the road.

Our next overnight stop was at a national forest campground in Shoshone National Forest. On our route we saw ranches and homes built right up against the canyon walls. We had a nice campsite in the forest with electric only. For the first time in quite awhile we had absolutely no cell phone service which usually would not have been a problem but we had a family member we needed to check on. We enjoyed camping in the forest and smelling the pine trees. It has been awhile since we had camped in the forest. The next day we will finish our drive to Jackson Hole.

July 8, 2015 Buffalo Bill Center – Cody WY

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Cody has a wonderful museum called the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. It is actually five museums all under one roof on over seven acres. You could easily spend an entire day there seeing the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, the Plains Indian Museum, and the Whitney Western Art Museum.

North African Miquelet Jezail given to Jefferson in 1805 This gift influenced the inclusion of the lyrics “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine’s Hymn

Bill loved visiting the Cody Firearms Museum which has one of the largest firearms collections in the world. They had firearms on loan from the Smithsonian as well. They had firearms Bill had never seen. I especially enjoyed seeing a musket once owned by Thomas Jefferson as well as a gun owned by Annie Oakley and several former U.S. Presidents. I loved seeing the guns used on the TV set by Ben Cartwright and his sons on Bonanza as well as the Lone Ranger. Some interesting people in the development of firearms:

Oliver F. Winchester was a successful shirt manufacturer established Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1866
John M. Browning (1855 – 1926)
- was the most ingenious and prolific arms designer America has produced
- his designs were manufactured under patent assignment by noted firms like Winchester, Colt and Remington
- from 1884 to 1901 he worked for Winchester and sold all his patents to them
- he designed the Colt Model 1911, “Army .45”

We also spent a lot of time in the Buffalo Bill Museum which had many exhibits about the life of Buffalo Bill, including movie footage of one of his Wild West shows. He took his Wild West shows to England and Europe, once performing for Queen Victoria.

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is often called the Smithsonian of the West and we could see why!

Crazy Horse

Sacagawea

We really enjoyed our short time in Cody. There were things we didn’t have time to see and added Cody to our list of places we would like to return to someday.

July 6, 2015 Cody, Wyoming

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We left Buffalo and traveled to Buffalo Bill State Park just outside of Cody. This is a nice state park and since we booked early we were able to get one of the few sites with electric and water hookup. We drove through three tunnels to get to the park which is located near the Buffalo Bill Dam.

We stopped by the Buffalo Bill Dam Visitors Center. Construction of the dam took place from 1905 to 1910. During the construction period several contractors went broke due to bad weather and floods hindering the work. Laborers refused to work for $2.50 for a ten hour day. When the U.S. Fidelity and Guaranty Co. took over the project in 1906 the workers demanded and received $3.00 for an eight hour day. The original dam cost $929,658. At that time it was the tallest dam in the world. Subsequent projects for major canals, roads, bridges, buildings and land inundated by the reservoir waters cost $3.3 million. Through the years it has helped turn the arid high plains of the Big Horn Basin into one of Wyoming’s most fertile farming regions, irrigating over 93,000 acres.

In 1946 the name of the dam was changed from Shoshone to Buffalo Bill. In 1993 a $132 million dollar project which took seven years was completed. This raised the dam by 25 feet and added about 50% to the amount of water stored in the reservoir. With this addition came opportunities for more hydro-electricity generation, recreational activities such as boating and fishing.

Another day we made the short drive to the small town of Powell to see the Heart Mountain WWII Japanese American Confinement Site. Six weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which led to the forced removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. They were forced to leave everything behind except what they could carry in one suitcase. By August, the War Relocation Authority had constructed ten camps in remote, isolated locations. A total of 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated behind barbed wire. The Heart Mountain Relocation Center was one of those camps. From 1942 to 1945, a total of 14,025 people lived at Heart Mountain Relocation Center making it Wyoming’s third largest city. It was a city surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers and armed guards. Of the people kept there, seventy percent were American citizens having been born in the United States with thirty percent being born in Japan. These people had done nothing wrong, it was merely “guilt by association”. With most of the people being from California, they were not used to the cold, snowy Wyoming winters. In the summer it was hot and dusty with dust and dirt blowing in through cracks in the walls and under the doors. Besides leaving friends, jobs and possessions behind, the food was poor and they lived in uninsulated barracks with seven people to a room with no privacy. The bathrooms and showers were just large rooms. Later the Heart Mountain Relocation Center included a hospital, two grade schools and one high school, post office, fire and police systems, a judicial system, a newspaper printed in Cody, and a sewage treatment system. They developed a successful agricultural program to provide fresh food and had recreational programs including Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

From 1942 to 1945, five hundred and fifty six babies were born, 148 people died, and 800 men and women served in the Armed Forces. Their allegiance to the United States was tested by placing them in their own infantry which ended up being one of the most decorated infantry of the war. Eight five protesters refused to serve the draft order. Sixty three were charged with resisting the draft and were sent to federal penitentiaries. They felt like they were merely trading one prison for another.

The Heart Mountain Relocation Center officially closed on November 10, 1945. They received a train ticket and $25 to begin their new lives. Some manages to rebuild their lives while others struggled and never recovered. In 1988, the federal government apologized calling it a result of wartime hysteria, racial prejudice and failure in political leadership.

Today the Heart Mountain Relocation Center has a museum with exhibits, photographs and oral histories of former residents. The barracks are all gone and a boiler house chimney on the hill is all that is left of the once 150 bed hospital. On the hill overlooking the museum is a memorial listing the names of the men and women from Heart Mountain who served in the U.S. military during WWII.

We really enjoyed our short time in Cody. There were things we didn’t have time to see and added Cody to our list of places we would like to return to someday.

July 1, 2015 Buffalo, Wyoming

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We left Sundance and drove 135 miles to Buffalo, Wyoming. The drive was rather boring, just an endless straight road with open plains and the occasional herds of cattle and some horses. I will say the horses in this part of the country are beautiful, looking very much like the horses used by Indians in the old western movies and TV shows.

We arrived in Buffalo for our stay at a private campground. The temperature was pretty hot and they had some nice shady spots. Unfortunately in order to get our Dish satellite antenna to work we had to park in the section without a bit of shade.

The park provided internet and therefore we spent time researching and making reservations for November, December and January. We were shocked and somewhat dismayed to learn many Florida RV parks have a three month minimum stay and most of the popular state parks were already booked! Since we want to move around Florida during the winter, the three month minimum stay will not work for us. Foiled by those snowbirds yet again!

While in Buffalo we made the 90 minute drive north into Montana to visit the Little Bighorn National Monument. It was here in the valley of the Bighorn River that George Custer’s 7th Cavalry Regiment of 600 men met with a gigantic Indian village including several thousand Lakota, Arapaho and Northern Cheyenne braves. Custer divided the regiment into four battalions, keeping a force of 215 under his own command in June, 1876.

The 1.2 square mile site has a Visitors Center with Ranger talks throughout the day, a large memorial, a memorial to Native Americans and a drive around the battlefield with overlooks and descriptive signs. On the battlefield are approximately 263 white markers showing where human remains were found. Custer’s marker showing where he died is easy to locate due to its special black markings. Custer’s brother also died near him. In the park are two cemeteries. At the large memorial on Last Stand Hill is buried the remains of those who were found in shallow graves. The remains were buried together under the memorial. I asked the ranger why the remains were disturbed and not buried where they were found and he said at that time:

they did not have the proper equipment to bury that many bodies in deep graves
Custer was buried 18 inches deep
in many cases only partial remains were found
many wounded solders needed to be transported ASAP to a hospital 500 miles away

The Native American memorial was completed in 2013. The memorial is in the shape of a circle, which is considered sacred, and is open to ceremonial events. The inside walls display the names of many who fought here and the words of some. A “Spirit Warrior” sculpture is prominently displayed. Throughout the battlefield are several red granite markers to mark the location of fallen Indian warriors. The first red granite marker was placed on Memorial Day, 1999. The red granite was chosen by Native Americans. It was hard to locate the remains of Native Americans because they were removed from the battlefield by the Indians.

Also located in the park is a national cemetery established in 1879, which looks much like Arlington National Cemetery though much much smaller. Veterans of all wars can be buried there but at this time the cemetery is at its limit. Any man who fought at Little Bighorn and could be positively identified is denoted with a US flag next to the white marker.

Marcus Reno was second in command under Custer and survived the battle

Custer was buried at this location but his body was later moved to West Point. Custer is a controversial figure. He was said to have bravely fought against Confederate troops during the Civil War, supposedly having eleven horses shot out from under him. Some would say he was only following government orders in his various interactions with Native Americans. Others would call him vicious, boastful and arrogant.

Bill and I readily admit we are biased when it comes to battles between the settlers and the Native Americans. While we do not agree with everything the ranger said in his talk about the Battle of Little Bighorn, we cannot deny he did an excellent job in his presentation. We learned more about the U.S. invasion of Indian territories. The government was under pressure from people who wanted western expansion. The discovery of gold only intensified this push. As more settlers moved west the Native Americans saw more of their land being taken away with no regard to their way of life. The American government, feeling it was cheaper to feed the Indians rather than fight them, initiated peace treaties with them which they then turned around and broke. The 1868 Laramie peace treaty designated a large area of eastern Wyoming as a permanent Indian reservation and the government promised to protect them. The treaty was broken in 1874 as thousands of gold seekers rushed the territory. The government tried unsuccessfully to keep them out. The government then tried to buy the Black Hills from the Indians but they refused to sell. The Indians left the reservation and resumed raids on settlers and travelers. In January, 1876 the government then ordered free Plains Indians, who are labeled “hostiles” to return to the small reservations. When the Indians did not comply, the army was called in to enforce the order.

While this was Custer’s Last Stand, it was also the last stand for the Native Americans. A huge public outcry over Custer’s defeat led to such events as the Battle of Wounded Knee and the Indians relocation on reservations. At the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Indians may have won the battle but they lost their land, their culture, their way of life. They won the battle but lost the war.

June 24, 2015 Sundance, Wyoming

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After twelve days we left South Dakota and headed to Wyoming. We enjoyed our time in South Dakota but sure experienced some scary weather there. On our next to the last night in South Dakota we were hit with another frightening thunderstorm with winds over 45 mph, lightning, heavy rain and even more hail than we had in the Badlands.

We arrived in Sundance and checked into a nice campground. Wyoming is the least populous state in the country with approximately 544,270 residents spread out over more than 97,000 square miles. It is nicknamed “The Cowboy State” because of the estimated 11,000 farms and ranches. The Black Hills are 90% in South Dakota but this small area of northeast Wyoming, including Sundance, in part of The Black Hills. Our main reason for stopping in Sundance was to visit Devils Tower National Monument. This granite formation rises 1,267 feet from the prairie and has hundreds of parallel cracks making it one of the finest traditional rock climbing areas in North America. The site is sacred to the Lakota and other tribes. Legend has it that the rock rose up just in time to save seven young Indian girls from a bear and the rock rose higher and higher out of reach of the bear. The marks on the tower were caused by the bear’s claws. The girls were pushed up into the sky where they became seven stars (the Pleiades constellation).

The Devils Tower was proclaimed the first national monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Devils Tower is best remembered as the one of the sites in the 1978 Spielberg movie, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. I had never seen the movie and as luck would have it the campground office had it for rent so we watched it before going to see Devils Tower.

We walked the Tower Trail that circles the tower where you can see rockfalls of gigantic columns that have fallen. Devils Tower is 1,000 feet in diameter at the bottom and 275 feet at the top. It was formed 40 million years ago when a column of molten lava pushed through the limestone. As the rock cooled, it fractured into vertical columns. The limestone eventually eroded away revealing the towering formation seen today. It is a wonderful example of erosion.

After leaving Devils Tower we drove to Aladdin, population 15. Yes, you read that right. Population 15. The town is currently for sale if you want a town.

Sundance, population 1,182 is the largest town in the area. In 1879, Albert Hoge, a Prussian born immigrant staked his claim and named the town Sundance in honor of the “sun dance” performed by the Native Americans. Perhaps what Sundance is best known for is the Sundance Kid, friend of Butch Cassity. The Sundance Kid, born Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, got his start as an outlaw when he stole a horse, gun and saddle. He spent the next eighteen months in the Sundance jail, earning him his name. Outside the former jail is a statue of the Sundance Kid lounging in his cell. Not many towns have a statue of a horse thief and notorious bandit as the focal point of their town!

We drove to Belle Fourche (pronounced “Bell Foosh”) which is located in southwest South Dakota and therefore a closer drive from Sundance than from the Badlands. We came here because there is a Center of the Nation Monument in the shape of a compass rose carved out of South Dakota granite. We were the only ones there at this 21 foot in diameter monument surrounded by the flags of all 50 states. We love geographical places like this even though the real geographic center is located twenty miles north of Belle Fourche on private property. This is the geographic center of the United States if you include Alaska and Hawaii. It was interesting to read that when Alaska was admitted to the union the geographic center shifted 439 miles northwest and when Hawaii was added it shifted 6 miles west-southwest. Along with the monument was a nice visitors center and an original 1876 log cabin from the gold rush days. The cabin was hosted by an elderly gentleman, a Korean War Veteran, and since we were the only ones there he had plenty of time for us. We certainly enjoyed spending time talking with him about the area and we found a geocache behind the cabin.

While we were in Sundance the ARRL (American Radio Relay League) was having their annual Field Day. For 24 hours amateur radio operators contact as many other amateur radio operators around the world. It is a popular contest and challenge among amateur radio enthusiasts. An AARL group was getting together in the small town of Upton about thirty miles from Sundance so Bill drove over and spent some time with them. He had a great time talking with fellow amateur radio enthusiasts!

On our last day in Sundance we drove the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway which took us briefly back into South Dakota. We stopped at two waterfalls, the only waterfalls we saw in South Dakota. The Spearhead Falls was especially beautiful and had a cool refreshing mist blowing on us from the falls. The sign said Spearhead Canyon was older than the Grand Canyon.

We drove through Deadwood, a western town much like Tombstone, Virginia City or any other tourist attraction with fake gunfights and plenty of places to spend money. Wild Bill Hickok was killed here in Saloon #10 and is buried in a cemetery nearby.

Before heading back over the border into Wyoming we drove through Sturgis, famous for one of the largest annual motorcycle events held in the world. Motorcycle enthusiasts from around the world come here in August. This year will be the 75th anniversary. We heard the tiny town makes 90% of their income for the year during that one week in August! The streets were relatively quiet and we could only imagine what the town is like during that week in August!

June 20, 2015 Badlands NP, South Dakota

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We left the Mount Rushmore Black Hills area and traveled to Badlands National Park for two nights of dry camping in the park. What a beautiful view of the grasslands we had from our front door with a buffalo as our camp host. He was there the entire time, grazing and paying no attention to everyone camping. Badlands National Park is made up of 244,000 acres with the largest expanse of protected prairie ecosystem in the National Park system.

The Lakota Indians called the area “land bad” and French fur trappers referred to the area as “bad land to cross.”. While It is an area of peaks and valleys, wide prairies and wide extremes of weather and appears formidable, much of the land is level, fertile and covered with grasses. The land was homesteaded years ago with many ranchers’ descendants still living on the land with ranches of cattle and sheep. The livestock feed on the native grasses and wheat is often grown.

This area was once sea level and volcanic activity pushed up the ocean floor leaving marshy plains. For approximately 30 million years layers of mud, sand and gravel were deposited. Prehistoric animals roaming the area died and were buried beneath the river sediments. The area is known today as being a rich source of fossils. About one to four million years ago erosion began to outpace the deposits, leaving colorful spires and formations. The movie at the visitors center said the formations are eroding at the rate of an inch a year!

The earliest people were mammoth hunters who came to the area over 11,000 years ago followed by nomadic tribes. By the mid 18th century the Lakota (Sioux) were present and used horses from the Spaniards. French fur trappers were the first Europeans followed by soldiers, miners, farmers and homesteaders. After 40 years of struggle culminating in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 the Lakota were confined to reservations.

Our first night a storm came up. We first noticed the lightning while taking an evening walk. As the night went on the lightning increased to an explosion of light, a constant light show we had never seen the likes of. Our weather system clocked wind gusts of 50 mph followed by rain and hail and we were really rocked in the RV. The most frightening thing was we were in the middle of nowhere with no place to go for shelter. We could not follow the storm’s progress on TV or radio like we did in Denver. We both have weather alerts on our phones and both phones were going crazy. We watched the intense center of the storm pass fifteen miles north of our campground by using a radar weather app.

There is nothing quite like having your phone saying you are in a life threatening situation and should seek shelter and having no place to go! The next day a worker at the visitors center told us it was one of the worst storms he had seen and there had been tornado clouds above us. Some other tourists told us two hours to our south there were several semi trucks turned on their sides by the wind.

The view out our front door with our Buffalo host far right

The next day we drove the Badlands Loop Road, marveling at the scenery before us. The area reminded us somewhat of the Painted Desert in Arizona but not as colorful. The views and rock formations were magnificent. We saw bison, mule deer, a coyote and many prairie dogs. There is a very nice visitors center with a movie and exhibits about the area.

We were relieved not to have another bad storm during the evening but we were awakened during the night by a thunderstorm with heavy rain. Thankfully it did not include wind and hail.

We left the campground early the next morning since we had a couple places to visit near the small town of Wall.

The first was the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. During the Cold War the Ellsworth Air Force Base located nearby was one of the key facilities whose mission was to install the launch facilities in the 1960s, maintain and launch the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). Two of the ICBM sites have been preserved. Launch Control Facility “Delta One” has a guided tour which requires a free ticket and “Delta Nine” missile silo has a self guided tour. The guided tour can only accommodate 72 people a day and the tickets are usually all given out before 8:00 AM each morning. We toured the excellent visitors center with very informative displays and then drove to the site of the self guided tour. Under the STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in 1991, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. began to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear arms. Both countries agreed to preserved one missile to preserve the history and significance of the Cold War. The missile is there without the warhead and the door is welded half open. There are no longer any missile silos in South Dakota.

We stopped for lunch at Wall Drug, a huge tourist trap located in Wall, SD where everything under the sun with a western theme is sold. I did get some cute pictures of Bill!

We ended the day with a stop at the “Wounded Knee: The Museum”. This Museum documented in detail through exhibits and photos the events leading to the massacre, the capture by the 7th Calvary, the massacre of 300 Lakota men, women and children on December 29, 1890, and its aftereffects. It was heartbreaking. The actual site of the massacre is located several hours away near the Nebraska and South Dakota border.

After leaving Wall we drove an hour to Black Hawk outside of Rapid City for a two night stay so we could get the oil changed and tires rotated on the RV.

June 16, 2015 Rapid City and Custer S.P. South Dakota

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While staying at Mount Rushmore we drove to Rapid City, population 70,000, the second largest city in South Dakota. The town was founded in 1876 by a group of prospectors who had come to the Black Hills in search of gold and named the town after a spring fed creek which passes through it. We took a 90 minute trolley ride tour which included a visit to Dinosaur Park on a hill overlooking the city. The park has seven life size concrete dinosaur replicas as well as a spectacular view of Rapid City.

Rapid City is known as the “City of Presidents” because of its proximity to Mount Rushmore but also because of a public art project that resulted in 43 life size bronze presidential statues of all past presidents which are located on street corners downtown. Using a map to guide us we enjoyed finding the statues. The figures are displayed in different poses and tries to emphasize a unique part of their personality such as Ronald Reagan wearing a cowboy hat. Rapid City was another small western town we have enjoyed on our travels this year.

Another day we wanted to drive back to Custer State Park to continue exploring the rest of the park. At 71,000 acres, it is one of the nation’s largest state parks. We drove towards the park on the Needles Highway through pine and spruce forests with meadows surrounded by rugged granite mountains. The road gets its name from the many needle like granite formations along the highway. The roadway was planned by former South Dakota governor Peter Norbeck who marked the entire course on foot and horseback. With the aid of 150,000 pounds of dynamite, construction was completed in 1922. We passed through three very narrow tunnels.

The State Game Lodge in Custer State Park was the summer White House for President Calvin Coolidge and was visited by Dwight Eisenhower. A really neat time to visit the park would be the last Friday in September when they do the bison roundup. Some of these bison are auctioned off in November with the money going towards operating costs of the park.

Next we drove to Wind Cave National Park. We had driven through a small section of the park on our way to Mount Rushmore and we wanted to continue to explore more of the park and stop by the Visitors Center.

Wind Cave National Park was established in 1903 and is the eighth national park created. It was the first national park set aside to protect a cave. Wind Cave is one of the world’s longest and most complex caves. Currently there are over 143 miles of twisting passageways under only 1.2 square miles of surface area. Close your eyes and visualize what a maze of tunnels that creates deep below the surface of the land! Portions of Wind Cave are believed to be over 300 million years old, making it one of the oldest caves in the world. Barometric wind studies estimate that only five percent of the total cave has been discovered.

Wind Cave is considered sacred and culturally significant to Native Americans who roamed the area for centuries. You could say it was rediscovered in 1881 by Tom and Jesse Bingham when they heard whistling noises coming from the small entrance to the cave.

We enjoyed touring the Visitors Center where they had a movie and many interesting exhibits about the cave.

As we drove around the park we continued to see buffalo and a lot of prairie dogs. We stopped to watch them and take pictures as they played a game with us of now you see us, now you don’t. The prairie dogs live in large social groups called towns. The round mound of dirt that surrounds the prairie dog hole keeps rain water from running into the burrow and serves as an observation post to watch for danger.

Tomorrow we leave Mount Rushmore for the Badlands of South Dakota.

June 12, 2015 Mount Rushmore NP, South Dakota

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Bill and I had both waited a long time to see Mount Rushmore so the next morning we eagerly made the drive to Mount Rushmore National Park. While there is no charge to get in, you have to pay $11 to park with the money going to pay for the large parking garage built to accommodate all the tourists. No federal money was used to pay for the garage. The parking pass is good for a year. We were told that the garage will be paid off in 2016 and the trustees will give the garage to the park service.

Mount Rushmore is an amazing place with an Information Center, Visitors Center, three bookstores, a gift shop, sculptor’s studio, two theaters with movies, nature trails and an amphitheater. A Grand View Terrace to view Mount Rushmore is at the end of the Avenue of Flags where flags from all fifty states are displayed. We enjoyed the exhibits and movie and spent time just looking at the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. We had lunch at the cafe there and Bill tried the buffalo chili which he said was good.

Between 1927 and 1941, sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved the memorial with the help of over 400 workers. When Borglum died his son Lincoln Borglum supervised the completion. Work stopped in October, 1941 near the beginning of World War II. It was interesting to read that Gutzon Borglum wanted to build a special place to share important pieces of American history so he planned to build a large room which would be carved into the vertical wall of the canyon behind the faces. This room would be called the Hall of Records and would store important documents like the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Work on the Hall of Records began in 1938 but the U.S. government would not approve funding for the addition and workers were only able to carve a doorway and small hallway before Congress stopped the Hall of Records project.

After leaving Mount Rushmore we drove through part of Black Hills National Forest and Custer State Park along the Iron Mountain Road and the Wildlife Loop Road where we encountered “pigtail curves”. Back in Denver we were excited to see buffalo in the distance behind a fence. Little did we know we would see herds of buffalo here. We saw a lot of buffalo and calves. The buffalo were right by the side of the road and a couple times we had to stop and wait while they crossed the road. The buffalo were shedding their winter coats so they looked especially scruffy.

Today the park is home to as many as 1,450 head of North American bison, also known as buffalo. There were once millions of bison, but by 1900 fewer than 1,000 bison remained on the entire continent. Peter Norbeck, known as the “Father of Custer State Park”, decided to take action to preserve the bison. In 1914 the park purchased thirty-six bison which grew to 2,500 by the 1940’s. The bison numbers are great enough today to have a roundup each year and some of the bison are auctioned off.

We came across prairie dogs chattering as they popped up from their holes in the ground, deer and a lazy burro.

Later that evening we returned to the Mount Rushmore Amphitheater for the Evening Lighting Ceremony. After watching a patriotic movie the faces on Mount Rushmore were lighted, we sang the National Anthem and the flag was then lowered. They invited all past and current members of the military service to come down to the stage. The stage was full and each person was asked to give their name and rank. Several of them participated in the folding of the flag.

Some facts about Mount Rushmore:

Each face is 60 feet tall. Each eye is 11 feet wide.
Washington’s nose is 21 feet long. All the other noses are 20 feet long.
Washington’s mouth is 18 feet wide.
Washington’s head is as tall as a six story building.
Total cost was $989,992.32
Main tool was dynamite and the drill was the jackhammer.
The rock is Harney Peak Granite.

June 10, 2015 Cheyenne, Wyoming & Wind Cave NP, South Dakota

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We left Denver and continued to head toward South Dakota. Cheyenne, Wyoming was a convenient place for a stopover on the way. We stayed two nights which gave us a full day to explore Wyoming’s state capitol.

Having just been to Denver, Colorado’s state capitol, we were really struck by the difference. Downtown Cheyenne was quiet with little traffic and few people milling around. Finding a parking place or slowing down to take pictures was not a problem. It looked like any small western city. We noticed several statues of eight foot tall boots located around the city. Our favorite boot was one with the capitol painted on it. The boots were created for a fundraiser for the Cheyenne Depot Museum in 2004. Nineteen boots were painted and decorated by local artists and auctioned off. We enjoyed finding them as we toured the town.

We had planned on taking the route through Lusk, Wyoming to cross over into South Dakota. All the rain and flooding changed our plans. The major bridge in Lusk had been washed out and roads were closed with flash flood warnings still in effect so we took a route across the plains of Nebraska. We crossed mile after mile of farmland and open plains. As we neared the South Dakota line we began to see some interesting rock formations in Nebraska and the weather deteriorated with rain and fog quickly moving in making visibility poor. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the South Dakota welcome sign because of the rain and fog. Rats!! It was a nice one with a picture of Mount Rushmore.

Once in South Dakota we traveled through a part of Wind Cave National Park. We stopped along the side of the road to look at some buffalo right by the car. Some were busy drinking from a small mud puddle. With the windows open we could hear them slurping and snorting as they drank.

After a long seven and a half hour drive we arrived at a campground in Hill City, about fifteen minutes from Mount Rushmore. We stayed at a nice private campground and enjoyed watching the birds who often gathered at the bird feeder outside our door.

Some facts about Cheyenne:

With a population of 62,400, it is still the most populous city in Wyoming.
It is named for the Cheyenne nation, one of the Great Plains Tribes.
It began in 1867 during the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad and as a headquarters for cavalry troops protecting pioneers and railroad workers. Originally called Fort Russell and later renamed F. E. Warren Air Force Base, it is one of the nation’s oldest continually active installations.
Back in the mid 19th century it was overrun with gamblers, cowboys and speculators, earning it the name “Hell on Wheels”. By 1869 it had been cleaned up and became the capitol in 1890 when Wyoming became the 44th state.
Nellie Tayloe Ross, the first woman governor in the country is from Cheyenne.
Wild Bill Hickok and sportscaster Curt Gowdy are from Cheyenne. We were unable to get a reservation at Curt Gowdy State Park because it was full.

Through the Eyes of the Selphs

Bill and Diane's travel notes and pictures

July 12, 2015 Jackson Hole, Wyoming

July 10, 2015 Thermopolis, Wyoming

July 8, 2015 Buffalo Bill Center – Cody WY

July 6, 2015 Cody, Wyoming

July 1, 2015 Buffalo, Wyoming

June 24, 2015 Sundance, Wyoming

June 20, 2015 Badlands NP, South Dakota

June 16, 2015 Rapid City and Custer S.P. South Dakota

June 12, 2015 Mount Rushmore NP, South Dakota

June 10, 2015 Cheyenne, Wyoming & Wind Cave NP, South Dakota