The Black Hills of South Dakota

We brought some hot weather with us to Rapid City and The Black Hills. The first few days here are predicted to be 90-100 degrees. This is way off the chart for normal June weather in South Dakota. However, it is also predicted to be clear and sunny and that is very good for taking pictures. This is good. There are lots of outdoor things we want to do here and we will have 5 days to do them.

The first day took us to the number one sight-seeing location in the region, Mount Rushmore. Ellyn and I have been here before a long time ago with our sons. It looks like they have added a lot to the visitor’s center area since our last visit. Of course the monument itself has not changed but it is still as impressive as we remember it.

Our traveling companions had not been here before so it was great seeing it through their eyes for the first time again. The story of the carving is still an amazing one.

From here we moved on to another, possibly more ambitious mountain carving project, Crazy Horse. This was started in the 1940s by a single man and is now worked on by his children and others, a total of about 15 people. It is probably an order of magnitude larger than Mount Rushmore and work has been going on for more than seven decades on it. But it is a lofty goal and it has a lot of backing. The visitor’s center was quite impressive and there is a lot more than just the monument planned for the site.

Our second day of touring in The Black Hills took us to Custer State Park. This park has a remarkably varied landscape. The most spectacular part was the Needles Highway. This is not a road for big rigs but toads only. The “needles” are the many rock spires which stand up all over and you drive through some very narrow tunnels and some very sharp switch-backs.

We also saw a lot of wildlife in the park. There is a whole “Wildlife Loop” where the Buffalo roam and the Deer and the Antelope play, as well as chipmunks, burros, prairie dogs, and marmots.

We still have the old mining areas around Lead and Deadwood to explorer, but I will leave those for the next post.

The Badlands

Our first National Park visit was in South Dakota; The Badlands. It is quite something to come upon after all of the very flat, open farm land. Suddenly you see the peaks and valleys of the Badlands. We can imagine how it got its name when the going suddenly got very rough. Getting across this in a covered wagon would have been difficult.

On the way to the park, we found that there was going to be a ranger talk at the site of one of the Minute Man missile silos which used to pepper the western half of South Dakota, as well as other parts of the middle of the US. Although this one had long since been shutdown, there are still many in use throughout the country. The missile was long gone from this one and they had a glass cover over the silo so you could look in at the mock-up missile. The ranger was very informative since he was once stationed at this very silo so he knew all of the inner workings.

Then we went on to Badlands National Park. We guess we had not this when we came through here before because there was no entry in our National Parks Passport. It is some quite interesting landscape. It is also interesting in that it is surrounded by flat farm land on all sides. The pictures tell the rest of the story.

Making Strides

We have been “haulin’” for a couple of days, at least for us. 480 miles in one 11 1/2 hour day and 433 miles in 10 1/2 hours the next day to get from Joliet, Illinois to Wall, South Dakota. But we wanted to get here quickly because we want to have most of a day to travel through Badlands National Parks before we move on to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills. Also, being in Wall to have our dinner at Wall Drug is pretty special. It has been nearly 23 years since we were here last with our sons during our Summer of ‘93 trip around the country. That was a wonderful trip and we hope our kids remember it as fondly as we do.

From here, it was a short trip, for us, to Rapid City, SD, and a longer stay at Rushmore Shadows Resort. We will be here for 6 days and will see a lot of the Black Hills including Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, Crazy Horse, Deadwood and Lead. It should be fun but hopefully also relaxing.

Westward Ho!

We have left the Northeast in our rearview mirrors and taken the Great Rolling Yellowstone Caravan a couple of states further west. From Ohio, we traveled to Shipshewana, Indiana. Ellyn and I were here two years ago on our Lake Michigan Circle Tour. We loved the gigantic Flea Market and Auction they have in town and it was supposed to be even bigger over Memorial Day weekend. We wanted our friends to see it as well, so we dropped in for four days. It was fun. Our friends seemed to be really interested in the Amish and what drives them to follow the lifestyle. We went to the Menno-Hof Center and got the whole story on the formation of the Amish and Mennonite religions. The center is an immersive multi-media experience and shows the whole history of the Christian religion and how it lead up to the Anabaptist movement where the Mennonite and then the Amish sects evolved. Ellyn and I had not visited there on our last trip.

The flea market was packed on Monday, Memorial Day, but less so on Tuesday and Wednesday, which is when the auctions are held. Ellyn and our friends went back for the auction on Tuesday but Geoff did some more mundane things around the RV. However, we always got together for meals and enjoyed a few of the local restaurants, which are very deep in “comfort food”. We also spent some time driving through the country side following the Heritage Trail, a CD with information on the area. We followed it until we got into Nappanee, IN, where the Newmar Corporation builds RVs like the Dutch Star we own. Ellyn and I had done the tour of their build facility in 2009 when we had first started our adventures, but we wanted to see it again now that it is probably a little more busy and we wanted our friends to see it too.

We were right about it being more busy. Instead of the 4-5 rigs a week they were building back then, now they are doing 7-8 a day. It is quite an impressive process and it really makes us happy we own one, since the process is really high is quality. If we could win the lottery, we would definitely buy a new one, although not a too glitzy one. Some of them seem to have too many lights, chrome and mirrors. However, four TVs might be OK.

On the way out of Indiana, we stopped off at the RV/MH Hall of Fame and Museum. They have a lot of old RVs in that place, and all in immaculate condition. It was a fun stop, although we did have a bit of trouble finding it, as our GPS tried to navigate us in over a gravel road. No thanks in the RV.

After Indiana, we headed to Chicago, another place we have visited before but there is always something to see that is new. Plus, our friends have family in the area that they wanted to touch base with as we passed through. We stayed at the Hollywood Hotel and Casino Campground, somewhere we have been twice before while visiting Chicago. Our good friends Ken and Martha live here as well, although they have been on the road for a long Winter and will be just getting back into town when we are on our way out.

We took an Architectural Cruise on the river through Chicago and learned a lot about the buildings along the river. They range in age from the 1920s to just a few years ago, and even some new ones still going up. It was fun although it was sunny and very warm. Each time we would go under one of the many bridges, the shade felt good.

Our next day around Chicago was not as nice weather but we had planned mostly indoor things for this day anyway. Our first stop was breakfast with one of Ellyn’s sewing friends, Martha. Waffles and pancakes. Yum!

Our next stop was at a B’hai Temple. It was beautiful and we got an introduction to the B’hai religion.

Next, our friends went to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Ellyn and I borrowed their car and went to visit with another of Ellyn’s sewing friends, Carole. We had stayed at her house two years ago when we were traveling through to Michigan.

Our last day was more laid back. We hung around the rig and did some relaxing. Ellyn worked on some of her sewing and Geoff looked ahead for possible fuel stops along our route. The next few days will be pushing through to The Black Hills of South Dakota. We would like to be there fairly early in two days so we will try to put a lot of miles behind us tomorrow and the next day. Westward, Ho!