Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Wow, what a day. John was up at 4:15 a.m. and checked the temperature – 31F (-1C) - oh, oh the hose is still on! Out he went and the hose was frozen but fortunately he remembered that the tap next door had been dripping so he connected the hose there and managed to get the water running, then he had to put water into our holding tank as it was empty. Hopefully we relearned two lessons, one, take the hose off if it is near freezing when we go to bed, and two, make sure we always have water in the fresh water tank. Then it was back to bed for a couple of hours sleep before he had to get up to take the truck to Mr. Dodge for our 8 a.m. appointment.

He stayed until they had the differential apart and determined that both the bearings and gears have to be replaced – not what we really wanted to hear but he wasn’t really surprised. Now they have to order the gears from Denver and hopefully they will arrive tomorrow and the truck will be ready on Friday – HOPEFULLY I say! On a positive note they have given us a courtesy car so we aren’t without wheels and can at least do some sightseeing.

I got up and did a good cleaning then managed to get on the internet and get Monday & Tuesday’s blogs posted and was just finishing with my shower when John arrived home.

The day turned out nice despite the cold start, it was bright and sunny and I saw a high of 65F (18C) on the car thermometer – I started out on our road trip with a t-shirt and vest and soon shedded the vest!

We decided to do a scenic tour around the area – the Needles Highway, and then the Iron Mountain Highway back to Keystone, my what a beautiful drive. The roads were very narrow with many switchbacks and we went through 6 tunnels, the last three all had views of Mt. Rushmore as we came through – stunning. We also crossed a couple of pigtail bridges – so named because of their shape but I couldn’t get a picture of them so you will just have to take my word for it that they were different.

The Needles:











Scenic Views





























We saw one bison, a lot of little chipmunks and one mountain goat – mainly the rear end of the mountain goat! Unfortunately, the car windshield was really spotted so I had a difficult time taking pictures through the windshield.





The park people go through the park thinning out the trees and keeping the forest floor clean then put all the debris in slash piles. In the winter, when there is lots of snow, professional fire fighters come in and burn these slash piles. Man, are there ever a lot of slash piles throughout the forest, it would be something to see the burning.

Slash Piles



When John was at the Dodge dealer this morning a fellow told him that at this time of year you can sometimes hear the elk calling out near Deerfield, so on our way home we did a detour to Deerfield. Well, there were no elk or elk calling and the only animal life we saw were some cows and horses, a red squirrel, some little chipmunks and one dead deer along the side of the road – not very exciting but it was a pretty drive! Deerfield Lake was a pretty little lake and very quiet at this time of year, there was only one other vehicle in the picnic area when we stopped there and the campground was closed for the season.

Coming back into Hill City from our little side trip to Deerfield we stopped and walked through some of the shops but didn’t find anything we wanted to spend our money on. I thank John for stopping as shopping isn’t high on his list of things to do.

We have some plans for tomorrow so come back and see how our day unfolded.

Just a note - if you click on a picture it enlarges it for a better view.

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to another nice day tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Today was a pretty quiet, laid back day for us. I went up to the office this morning and paid until Friday, hopefully we can be on our way by then. The weather has still been quite cold and windy with some sun and lots of clouds.

Late this morning we thought we would take one of the scenic drives but the truck was noisy and John was nervous about it so we drove through to Custer State Park and then came home. On the way back we stopped and took pictures of Crazy Horse, another sculpture in process.



Here is the reason for the sculpture "Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear officially started Crazy Horse Memorial June 3, 1948. The Memorial's mission is to honor the culture, tradition and living heritage of North American Indians." The fee would be $20 to drive in & see it and quite a few people said it is not worth the admission fee so we took these pictures from the road.

Hopefully the truck will be fixed tomorrow and we can get some touring in as there are a couple of scenic drives we still want to do.

The internet was working this afternoon so I got Sunday and yesterday’s blogs posted, now I am having problems with it again so don’t know if this will get posted – always something to tick you off.

And Another Picture of Our Trailer



And so ends another great gift of a day.

Monday, September 21, 2009

We were up early this morning so we could call Mr. Dodge at 8 a.m. when he opened, the result being that he could see us at 2 p.m., why oh why was I up so early!!

The weather today was deplorable, we saw a high of about 60F (15C) when we were in Rapid City but the average temperature around the park and Mt. Rushmore was about 40F (4C) – brrrrr!! It was a weird day with some sun then sudden showers, but we had no real hard rain. When we left I had on a sweat shirt as well as my fleece jacket and didn’t remove the jacket until we got to Rapid City.

Our Site at Crooked Creek Resort



This morning we spent some time on the internet, which was working so-so (still that is better than tonight which is nothing at all!) so in my poor wisdom I thought I would wait and post yesterday and today at the same time tonight – doesn’t seem likely to happen at this point.

We left about 11 and went back to Mt. Rushmore as the ranger in the studio yesterday had said the faces change with the weather so we thought we would check out the monument in overcast conditions and she was right, the mood of the faces did look different.

A Mountain Goat On the Way to Mt. Rushmore



John at the Entrance to Mt. Rushmore



Avenue of Flags



Bust of Gutzon Borglum - Mt. Rushmore Sculptor



More of Mt. Rushmore







The Meaning of Mt. Rushmore



Yesterday we missed the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center (Lincoln was Gutzon’s son and also worked on the sculpture) so we visited it today. This centre contains information on the mountain carving, the presidents, the sculptor, the workers and a history of the US – very interesting. We also watched a video on the carving of Mt. Rushmore.

From Mt. Rushmore we went into Rapid City (about 40 km) for our appointment with the Dodge dealer. It appears that the bearings are gone in the differential so we have an appointment at 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning to have them replaced and are hoping that it is only the bearings and not the gears. It will be about $800 to replace the bearings and I don’t want to even think about what the gears would cost.

We made a stop at Wal Mart then returned home to think about getting dinner ready.

It is now bed time with no sign of internet so hopefully I will get today and yesterday’s blogs posted tomorrow.

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to tomorrow’s adventures.

Sunday, September 20/09

Today started out as a gorgeous day with the high temperature of around 24C (75F).

We headed out to see Mt. Rushmore and what an impressive site it is! I was here when I was 13 and of course the figures remain the same but the rest of the site certainly has changed. At that time I seem to recall that you just pulled off the road and there were some posts and wire you stood behind to see the monument (is that what you remember Art?). Now there is a huge parking area and it cost $10 to get in but that ticket is good until December (actually for a year from January to December). When you enter the site you go down the Avenue of Flags which is a walkway with all the state flags along it and then you come to the amphitheater which seats 2500 people and faces straight at Mt. Rushmore. Every evening they have a lighting event & ceremony so hopefully we will be able to catch that while we’re here.

Mt. Rushmore



(These are for Scott!)



There is a Presidential Trail that goes around the amphitheater from the Grand View Terrace to the base of the mountain and then either back to the terrace of the parking lot, and affords different views of Mt. Rushmore. We took the 11:00 Presidential Trail tour by one of the park rangers and it was very interesting, he stopped at different locations along the trail and told about each of the president’s lives and gave a demonstration of how long their noses etc. were.

At the end of the trail is the carver’s studio (Gutzman Borglum was the carver) and it is the same today as it was in the 30’s when Mt. Rushmore was being built. There is a huge window at one end, which looks directly up at Mt. Rushmore, and beside the window is a model of the 4 presidents, and this model was how he wanted them to appear on the mountain. In the studio there was a presentation by another park ranger on the men who worked on the carvings and the tools they used.

In the beginning the workers had to climb 759 steps to the top each day, then the same down at the end of the day; eventually they installed a tram to take the men and equipment up and down. The workers were suspended in bosom’s chairs off the face of the mountain to work and they used their feet to hold the pneumatic drills in place while drilling – amazingly there were no casualties during the construction. Basically, they drilled holes to place the dynamite in and all the blasting was done at 12 noon while the workers were having lunch and at 4 p.m. when they were through work, 90% of the sculpture was done by dynamite blasting.

Work was started in 1927 and stopped in 1941 with the death of Gutzman Borglum and his son was instrumental in getting legislation passed that no further work will ever be done on Mt. Rushmore. Altogether it took 6-1/2 years to do the carvings - work was done intermittently as money allowed.

A few points of interest:
- each face is 60’ tall
- each eye is 11’ wide
- Washington’s nose is 21’ feet long, all other noses are 20’ long
- Washington’s mouth is 18’ wide
- the carving of Mt. Rushmore involved removing large amounts of rock by drilling and blasting – Washington’s chin is 30’ behind the original mountain surface and parts of the Lincoln & Jefferson heads are 50’ behind the original surface, Roosevelt’s head finally took 75’ behind the original surface
- most of the sculpting was done using dynamite and the final surfaces were rendered as smooth as a sidewalk by a “bumping” process
- there is a small cave behind Washington which contains a titanium vault at the base of the entrance and preserves the history of America.

We also learned that the Black Hills got their name from the Indians because the Ponderosa Pines, that cover the hills, make them look black, and, if you smell a Ponderosa Pine it smells like vanilla, carmel or chocolate - I thought it smelled like carmel.

The Black Hills





Rock Formations





And A View of George Washington from a Lookout



After we left there we went into Keystone for lunch and our intent was to take one of the scenic drives after that but when we got going there was a really weird noise in the rear end of the truck so we just had lunch in Keystone then headed home. We stopped at Hill City to pick up a few groceries and just as we arrived back the rain started, the wind came up and the temperature dropped like a stone. Great!!!

I decided it would be a good time to do laundry so got that job done and by then it was time to think about dinner. John wanted to barbecue so he got absolutely soaked while doing the steaks, then just as he came in with dinner the rain stopped – figures!

Tomorrow we will be calling the Dodge dealer in Rapid City and try to get the truck in to see what the problem is so there probably won’t be much sightseeing done – we just hope it isn’t anything major wrong with the truck.

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to tomorrow’s adventures.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Today was a repeat of yesterday weather wise, sure hope it continues for a while.

We crossed the Missouri River today and there was an interesting Visitor’s Centre there with lots of information and artificats re the Lewis & Clark expedition exploring this area in the 1800’s.

The Missouri











Today was another day of miles & miles of farm land and we also drove through Dances With Wolves Country, overall a nice drive today of 622 km (386 miles). In checking the statistics we realized that South Dakota has roughly the same population as Hamilton/Wentworth – wow! The traffic was light and the roads were good – what more could we ask for.

Typical of Today's Scenery







We stopped at Wall Drug Store in Wall, SD – what a place!! The Wall Drug Store got its start during the Depression years by offering Free Ice Water to thirsty travelers and has expanded to a mega store today. (See www.walldrug.com). I vaguely remember it from the time I was there as a kid but I’m sure it has changed a lot in the intervening years. I bought a pair of moccasins and John got a $0.05 coffee and I got an ice cream cone – last of the big time spenders! I had on my Utah Rocks shirt and two people stopped me and talked about Utah and how great the canyons etc. are.







We are now at Crooked Creek Resort, Hill City SD and will be here for at least 4 nights. We hadn’t made reservations as we didn’t think it would be really busy at this time of year – wrong!! We got the last spot, which is actually quite neat as it is the Work Camper site, (obviously their term is done) and it has a deck as well as being the largest site in the park. The downside of the site was that John had to back in about 100’ while avoiding old tractors, trees and the deck. He did a fine job and we are now all settled in. A fellow took a video of John backing in – hope he was impressed with John’s expertise!

John just said we have traveled 1600 miles (2575 km) since we left Kincardine on Monday morning – wow!

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to tomorrow’s adventures.