July 22nd Wind Cave National Park

After breakfast I packed up a picnic lunch and we headed out to Wind Cave National Park which was a scenic 21 mile journey from our base camp in Custer State Park. Along the way we saw lots of pronghorn and prairie dogs within Custer SP and once we crossed into Wind Cave NP we were delighted to see the large bison herd that is maintained there. Wind Cave was discovered by settlers in 1881 (American Indians knew about long before that) and became the 7th national park in 1903. The park is "free" with the exception of cave tours which were priced between $7.00 to $23.00 per person depending on the tour you select. Holders of Senior or Access National Passes receive a 50% discount on tour prices but those of us with the standard yearly National Park Pass do not receive a discount. Leon and I selected the "Fairgrounds Tour" and after a brief wait we lined up with 28 other tourists to ride the elevators down into the cavern. As we began our tour we discovered that Wind Cave is very different than the caves we've visited back east. The caves at home are damp, or down right wet with rivers and lakes within them. Wind Cave is dry, stays at constant 53 degrees and doesn't have any animals or insects that live in it due to the lack of water. The cave is currently listed as the 4th longest in the world and it is a maze structure with multi-levels that all fit within one square mile of land. The most amazing feature of this cave is it's unusual and abundant formation called boxwork. It is nearly square in nature and resembles cubby holes you'd find in a post office. Our tour explored portions of both the upper and middle levels where we saw lots of boxwork and some popcorn and frostwork formations. The tour was strenuous with 450 stairs along it's route with one flight of 90 steps up! The cave has not been modified for tourists, meaning it's passage ways have not been enlarged or the pathways made level so there was a lot of bending and ducking that needed to be done which I though really added to the enjoyment of the tour. The tour lasted a short 1 1/2 hours, we could have loved to stay down in the cavern for many more to continue to explore. It was fascinating! After our cave tour we took the time to view the exhibits which covered the formation of the cave, it's human history, it's becoming a national park and the prairie land above the cave which supports a variety of wildlife. I stamped my National Park Passport with the Wind Cave stamp and we then headed out to the park's lovely picnic area for lunch where we watched deer grazing as we ate our sandwiches. Back in Custer State Park we stopped at the State Game Lodge to enjoy a couple of adult beverages and we laughed and talked with the bartenders. We told them of our plan to head to Sturgis before motorcycle week started and they both recommended we skip it. They said the SP wasn't anything special and that the crowds of bikers were already beginning to grow. They warned us it gets pretty rough there and we may not enjoy it. In it's place they recommended we detour to Glacier National Park before we headed into Yellowstone, so that became our new plan and we were both pretty excited by it. After dinner back at camp we attended an evening ranger program within the campground about the history of Custer State Park and then retired as the next day we had reservations for a tour at Jewel Cave National Monument.

If you are ever in the Black Hills of South Dakota Wind Cave is a must see!

July 21st Custer State Park

We pulled out of Horsethief Lake campground early in the morning and headed towards Custer State Park. After a brief stop in the town of Custer where we connected to the Internet to pay some bills we arrived at Center Lake Campground around 11:00am to find we had a large variety of sites to choose from. We selected a long, level site without much tree cover in loop A and set up camp for the next three days. We've learned over the past few weeks that tree cover really reduces the effectiveness of our solar panels so when we dry camp we try to select a site that has full sun. Lucky for us the weather has been cooler than normal at each of the places we've boondocked so being in full sun hasn't cause the inside of the trailer to over heat. In the afternoon we drove the Wildlife Loop Road where we viewed lots of mule deer, pronghorn (antelope) and prairie dogs. We were surprised that we didn't see any bighorn sheep or buffalo so we stopped at one of the park's visitor centers to inquire about the "position" of the bison and the ranger directed us to head over to the Iron Mountain Road loop as this was the last reported sighting of the herd. As soon as we pulled onto Iron Mountain Road the buffalo were everywhere! We laughed as we watched park rangers in a SUV with a large guard attached to the front of the vehicle herd a group of bison down the road. The rangers were trying to get the bison to move off the road in an effort to relieve the long traffic jam but they were not successful. We enjoyed slowly driving by these great beasts as they passed within inches of the sides of our truck and they could not have cared less about the lines of vehicles they needed to navigate around. I guess they are pretty use to cars and of course they have the right of way within the park. After we passed the buffalo herd we stopped at the State Game Lodge which is one of the parks historic lodges. The State Game Lodge served as the "Summer White House" for President Calvin Coolidge in 1927 and was also visited by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for a few days in 1953. It is a beautiful stone and wood lodge surrounded by ponderosa pines and was well worth the stop. We enjoyed an adult beverage in the lodge's newly restored lounge before heading back to camp to prepare dinner. After dinner we walked the campground and then retired early as we were heading to Wind Cave National Park the next day.

July 20th Mount Rushmore National Monument

We enjoyed a leisurely morning at camp and then packed up a picnic lunch and headed the few miles to Mount Rushmore National Monument. Entrance to the monument is "free" but there is a $10.00 per vehicle parking charge (which means to me that the monument is not free) and National Park Passes are not accepted for parking charges. As we pulled into the park I commented to Leon that I thought the heads would look larger than they did. Even though they are around 60' high the parking lot / monument area are about 800' down the side of the hill from the sculptures so they didn't appear very large to me. Getting into the park was a flipping zoo, we could not believe how many folks were visiting on the same day as us! After parking our TV in the very narrow spaces in the parking garage we went up to the monument to take in the museum, sculpture studio and to walk the pathways which provided good vintage points in which to view the 4 presidents represented in the carvings. We both agreed this monument was very well done with an avenue of flags which represented each of the fifty states with a fantastic view of the sculptures right above them. We spent a couple of hours here, taking in two ranger talks and enjoying the pathways. It would have been better if there were less folks there but this is peak season so the crowds are to be expected. Before leaving the park we purchased a couple of soft serve ice cream cones that were gigantic! We were so full from the ice cream that we didn't even eat our picnic lunch.

As we had lots of daylight left we decided to check out Center Lake campground in Custer Lake State Park to see how many sites would be being vacated the next day so that we could determine if we should attempt to get into this campground or head south a bit to stay in the national park campground at Wind Cave. As we were turning into Custer State Park we experienced an amazing event, their own version of a traffic jam! There were bison (buffalo) everywhere! In the middle of the street, on the sides of the road, just everywhere! There was one huge bull that must not have liked the sound of our diesel engine that "yelled" at Leon! Leon yelled back and the bison yelled at him again before crossing right in front of our TV. Very cool and amazing!! After checking out the campground (lots of sites would be available the next morning) we traveled on Iron Mountain Road through the park which took us through tight tunnels drilled right through the rock hills which were designed to frame the presidential heads on Mount Rushmore. Truly breathtaking! Next we took Needles Highway (in Custer State Park) which was even more scenic than the Iron Mountain Road loop and brought us through rock tunnels so narrow we needed to pull the mirrors in on our TV. We were both very impressed and glad that we had decided to stay in Custer for 3 nights. After we got back to camp we enjoyed dinner and began to pack up as we wanted to insure we secured a campsite in Custer the next morning.

July 19th Travel to the Black Hills of South Dakota

We left Badlands National Park in the morning and heading west on Route 90 towards Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We stopped briefly at the famous Wall Drug 80 FT Dinosaur off of exit 110 for a Airstream photo opportunity and were disappointed that we could not get our TV and trailer close enough to the statue for a good shot (see photo, our rig next to the Dinosaur, on the right hand side). Our travel goal for the day was Horsethief Lake campground which is managed by the U.S. Forestry Department. This is a "first come, first serve" campground just a few miles from the entrance to Mount Rushmore National Memorial so we were concerned it could fill up if we didn't get there early enough in the day. After a brief stop in Rapid City for supplies (Walmart Supercenter) it was an easy and scenic run into the Black Hills so we pulled into the campground shortly after noon. Good luck was with us as there were 6 open sites for us to select from. We choice site #19 which was one of the largest sites in the park and was fairly level. After setting up camp we gathered our week's worth of laundry and went the few miles to Keystone, SD which had the closest public laundromat to our campground. Keystone is a tourist town with lots of fake saloons, pizza shops, mini golf courses and tacky shops so we just did our laundry and headed back to camp where we enjoyed a beautiful walk around the lake on well maintained paths before making dinner and retiring early.

Note to our Airstreaming friends: Horsethief Lake campground does not have hookups, showers or a dump station. RV size limit is posted at 25' but we saw a few there that were larger. There are very few sites available that would hold more than 25' though. Nightly fee was $23.00 which at first we were shocked at, it was the highest price we've paid for a site for the trip so far. But then I checked out the KOA which was just down the street (where the campsites were tightly packed together) and the overnight fees started at $57.00 before discount. The KOA has full hookups but that is a wicked big price difference! Of course the pricing is all about location, location, location - being so close to Mount Rushmore.

Blog posts will be delayed, we are in a Verizon "dead zone"

Hello everyone!

Our blog updates will be posted in a few days, after we leave the Black Hills / Custer State Park area of South Dakota. Lack of quality cell / internet service is causing the delay. Please check back on Thursday or Friday, all updates should be posted then.

July 17th & 18th Badlands National Park and Minuteman Missile NHS

July 17th: After a restful night in Cabeba's RV parking lot we readied the trailer and then took advantage of their free RV dump station before hitting the road. We made a quick stop at the famous Corn Palace where we viewed new murals being added to the outside of the building and the permanent murals inside. After an easy 5 hour tow westbound on Route 90 we arrived at Badlands National Park. After purchasing our park pass we headed in and we were amazed by the unusual rock formations which seemed to change color as the sun went in and out behind clouds. As we did not have reservations for a campsite our first destination was Cedar Pass Campground to inquire about available sites. Lucky for us lots of folks had pulled out that morning so we had a large choice of slots. We selected a site that overlooked a wall of sculpted spires and set up camp for the next two nights. Cedar Pass Campground is near the visitor center and is part of the National Park. It does not have hookups, but has nice bath houses and a RV dump station. The price was right too: $10.00 per night with a $1.00 fee to dump and fill domestic water tanks. This campground rarely fills up, mainly because the temperature at the park at this time of year is normally around 100 degrees and there isn't any shade. We were fortunate that the park was having odd weather at the time of our visit. It was in the mid 70s during the day and in the 50s at night making it very pleasant!

After setting up camp we headed over to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center to view the award winning video that outlines the geology and history of the park and to wander through the excellent exhibits which cover geology, fossils, wildlife and park history. We also took some time to talk to a ranger to find out what programs the park offered that day and from them we selected to take a guided prairie walk and to attend a night sky program. The prairie walk was very informative and one of it's highlights was being shown a recently discovered fossil! Very cool. As there was a few hours before the night sky program we went back to our trailer to have some dinner and enjoy the sun setting over the buttes and spires. It was truly beautiful, the colors of rock formations changed before our eyes as the sun slipped down in the west. Just before 9:00pm we headed up to the campgrounds amphitheater to the night sky program. It was outstanding! It was done in two parts. The first part being a slide show about what there is to see in the night sky and the second part was a star party where we viewed distance galaxies, stars and the milky way. The sky is still very dark in the Badlands (not too much light pollution) so the milky way seems to stretch out forever and it looked like rolling storm clouds. It was fantastic! We finally left the program and headed back to our trailer at 12:45am tired but excited by everything we had seen and done that day.

July 18th: We slept in a bit as we had been up wicked late the night before. After breakfast I packed up a picnic lunch as Leon picked up the trailer and then we headed out to drive the park's loop road (it really isn't a loop though). We drove through a combination of prairies, peaks, gullies and buttes with the colors of the rocks changing with the light. We stopped at most scenic overlooks to admire the scenery and to scan the area for wildlife. We saw mule deer, a wild goat and lots of cute prairie dogs! At one of our stops we enjoyed a fossil talk with a park volunteer. As the Badlands were once under a shallow inland sea many fossils have been found (and are still being found) within the park boundaries. In the mid afternoon we exited Badlands NP and headed to Minuteman Missile NHS. It was fascinating! We were able to look down into the missile silo and see a deactivated Minuteman Missile. Using our cell phones we were able to hear the history of the missile program, why South Dakota was selected as a major missile site, the present state of our missile program and it's future. We stopped briefly at the Minuteman Missile NHS Visitor Center so I could get my passport stamp canceled and then we headed back to camp to enjoy dinner, another beautiful sunset and a second night sky program.

Spectacular is the word that sums up Badlands National Park. GO THERE!

July 15th & 16th Two bum numbing days of towing

Two long days in transit to South Dakota are behind us now and boy are our bums sore from sitting in the TV (tow vehicle for you non Airstreamers). We left Jackson Center and the Airstream factory before 8:00am on July 15th and pushed into Indiana where we encountered some of the worst roads we've ever driven on. Route 70 is grooved concrete with expansion joints every 10 or so feet so our TV and rig bounced to the loud whine of the tires as they passed over the grooves. When we stopped for fuel (our first stop of the trip because of our extended fuel tank with automatic fuel transfer - we carry 101 gallons of diesel on board between the two tanks in our truck) we checked to see how things were riding in the trailer and found one of the mattresses halfway off it's bed, the microwave door unlatched and open, cabinet doors open and their contents spread all over the floor of the camper. What a mess! Also Indiana didn't seem as pretty as Ohio because we took the highway route to increase the miles we could cover each day. We'll need to put it on our list of states to visit in the future, maybe in a few years the roads will be better! Anyway, we continued our travels into Illinois with the hope of visiting the Caterpillar factory in East Peoria. We stopped at the Illinois Welcome Center when we entered the state to inquire about tour times and were told that the Cat factory was shut down for scheduled vacation time and the tours were not running. You should have seen Leon's face, you would have thought someone told him Christmas was canceled this year. As we approached East Peoria Leon pointed out the Cat factory and we both noticed it seemed pretty active for being on holiday. It's parking lots were filled with cars and we could see equipment being moved around on the property. We didn't stop because we didn't have any details about the tours (Leon looked wicked grumpy). As time went on we made the decision to find overnight parking somewhere around Davenport, Iowa. So as Leon drove I used my mobile phone broadband access to search for spots using www.parkfreeovernight.com and www.freecampgrounds.com and found a Walmart Super Center, a Flying J and a Welcome Center as options. Well, we checked out Walmart and received permission from the assistant manager to stay overnight but Leon wasn't loving the lot as we could not find a level enough spot. So we moved on to the Flying J which I did not love because our TV and rig were a bit too big for the RV slots they provided, meaning the nose of our truck would be sticking into the driveway where the big rigs enter the rest stop. We moved on to the Welcome Center and finally found a slot that was acceptable to both of us. We parked, made up some dinner and then retired for the evening because we wanted to be on the road about 7:00am.

July 16th we pulled out of the Welcome Center at 6:30am after both having had a crappy night's sleep due to the number of big rigs that came in and out of the rest area overnight. We decided to shoot up to Minnesota to catch Route 90 which would bring us into South Dakota. Frankly, as pretty as the farms and fields are we were growing weary of them and were hoping for a change of scenery though it was not to be, it's amazing how much corn and soy beans are being grown here in America's heartland. As we were traveling on Route 380 in Iowa heading north towards the border I spied a faded, peeling sign that proclaimed the worlds largest frying pan attraction was just at the next exit. I was tempted, but I didn't give Leon enough warning so we could not pull off the highway safely. Oh well, I'm sure it's better in my mind than in person. But I'll tell you I cannot get the little ditty from the movie "Michael" out of my head after seeing that sign; The lead actress singing "I was sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere" which was after they got a flat caused by the angel Michael because he wanted to see the darn worlds largest frying pan. As we approached the border with Minnesota we passed through an amazing wind farm which was located on both sides of the highway. There must have been 100 wind turbines spinning in the breeze! Very impressive and beautiful. After we entered Minnesota we decided to have our lunch stop at the Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth. What a hoot! The well kept park is behind a rundown and defunct gas station but the giant did seem to mind. After lunch we traveled another easy, pleasant 3 1/2 hours to Mitchell, SD for overnight parking at Cabelas.