Sunday: Custer State Park and Mt. Rushmore

Today we started out driving the "Wildlife Loop" through Custer State Park. We saw the most bison so far:




The park has about 950 bison. When the babies arrive in June, that goes up to about 1,450. In the Fall, they round them up in a corral and auction off about 500 to ranchers who want to raise them or for meat. This keeps the herd at the right size for the grass available in the park. I'm coming back for the auction - yum! We're having bison burgers for dinner tonight.


We saw prairie dogs, but they're too small to get a good picture. We saw pronghorn, but they're too far away. The burros were just right - big and close:






We left the park and followed the Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway to Mt. Rushmore. It was definitely the curviest road we've been on. I got dizzy on the Pigtail Bridge, but it was cool.

On the way, we got this early view of George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe. You have to look really closely:




We visited a museum that told about Gutzon Borglum, the man who carved Mt. Rushmore. I had my picture taken with one of his sculptures:





After we visited Mt. Rushmore, Poppa stopped to get gas and saw this Dodge Matador. Look at those fins:





A big problem they have here is the pine bark beetle, which burrows under the bark of pine trees and kills them. The dead trees have to be cut down and moved so they don't add to the forest fire problem. It also helps kill 80% of the new beetles and slow their spread.





Another thing that helps slow them down is this little bird:





Some of the bison that live in town dress really strangely:









Back at the campground, another HUGE 5th wheel was pulling in. I hope they don't park next to us - it will be like a solar eclipse.

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Saturday: Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota

On Friday, after seeing the battlefield, we had lunch at the Little Big Horn Trading Post. Poppa had something called "fry bread", which is better than it sounds, especially after drizzling some honey on it. Poppa had read about it in Tony Hillerman novels and wanted to try it.

When we came out of the trading post, Poppa saw a strange looking cloud in the distance. It was puffy and white, like a lot of pretty clouds, but it seemed to reach to the ground. He decided to get a closer look. We drove about 25 miles east on RT 212. The cloud didn't change much and was still pretty far off, so we turned around and headed back to the campground. We were still thinking about how strange it looked. When we got back, Nana turned on the news and found out that the cloud was the Ash Creek wildfire, about 35 miles from where we had turned around. There was already a fire called the Dahl Fire that was burning north of the campground when we arrived, one of the worst ever in Montana. Colorado has it's worst wildfire ever.

This is an interesting article about the people who fight wildfires.

You might consider signing this petition.

Yesterday we drove from Hardin, Montana to Custer, South Dakota. The wind had blown the smoke from the Ash Creek fire all the way down to I-90, and it made our eyes burn.

We stopped at a Walmart in Sheridan, Wyoming to get Nana's glasses fixed. The nice lady there used to live in Weirton, West Virginia.

We saw a lot of signs that said "Road closed ahead when lights are flashing. Return to ...", where "..." was whatever town we had just gone through. There were also gates that came down over the road, like at a railroad crossing. The gates had their own signs, promising jail time and a $750 fine to violators. Poppa says either they get a lot of snow here, or the local Chambers of Commerce have cooked up a good way to get travelers to spend more time in these little towns.

As we drove across Wyoming, we saw another strange looking cloud. We made a little detour to see The devil's Tower National Monument:





Then we watched the cloud as we drove down RT 585 and RT 85. As we got to Newcastle, we took these pictures:










A lot of people were stopped by the roadside watching it. It was probably 20 miles west of us, in the Thunder Basin National Grasslands. We haven't seen anything about it on the news.

Time to go explore South Dakota!

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Little Bighorn, the Sioux are too smart for Custer's Luck

Today we visited the site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. New Americans wanted to expand across the country (Manifest Destiny, courtesy of President polk), but old Americans were in their way. What to do? Push the old Americans out of the way.

One of the new American soldiers sent to do that wasn't as smart as he thought, and the old Americans taught him a lesson.






But ultimately there were too many new Americans, and the old Americans were pushed out of the way.

We drove through the land where this happened and saw some horses. Can you see the foal with its Mommy?




Here is a nice pinto (that means its coat is spotted brown/white/black)




When we came back, it was 1:30, which must be nap time for foals:





We got back to the campground and it was over 100 degrees. What's a Tigger to do? Head for the pool!





Notice how I'm still working on my Spanish in case Nana and Poppa invite me on their Peru trip in September? I think they'll fall for it.

Tomorrow we're off to see something called Mt. Rushmore.

Posted from Nana's iPad

Thursday: leaving Island Park for Hardin, Montana

We left Island Park this morning for Hardin, Montana. We decided to go up RT 191 because it looked scenic and we had already been on RT 287. Just 32 miles into the trip we saw Bruce the Bison's cousin, Barry, walking south along the road, probably looking for a Starbuck's. Honest - just walking along the road! Poppa wasn't quick enough with the camera.

Part of the trip was through Yellowstone, then we followed the Gallatin River through a beautiful valley. Nana and Poppa said they want to come back to Yellowstone next year, earlier, before schools are out. (I thought they liked kids!)

The Gallatin River Valley is sprinkled with summer homes and vacation cabins. We saw a sign saying "Bighorn Sheep Crossing", but the only wildlife we saw were small herds of fly fishermen and a school of white water rafters. We definitely have to come back here.

We drove through Bozeman, Montana, which looked very interesting - we should have scheduled an afternoon or a day there. Continuing east, we were out of the mountains and onto the plains. Poppa stopped in Livingston
for gas. It looked like a one-intersection town when he got off I-90 at the first exit. After getting gas, we drove through it and found that it is actually a rather vibrant town with open stores, a big railroad depot museum, etc. Definitely worth a look next time.

we continued to Hardin, which is near the scene of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. We'll tour that tomorrow and then head further east on Saturday.

We'll actually cross vacation paths with Nana's cousin in the next few days. Remember the little sports cars back in Moab? One of them was having a tumbleweed for breakfast? That's what Mary Ellen and Tom drive. I don't know if they have it with them now.


The temperature is in the 90s here! I think this is the first time we've had temperatures above 80 since April 25th. It's supposed to get to 100 tomorrow. And they have forest fires north and south, plus in Colorado. (Mommies - show little ones where Colorado is. On the map it is one of the green ones.)

More tomorrow.

Posted from Nana's iPad

Work and then a play

Todays was a work day: laundry, house cleaning, truck washing (including taking everything out of the back and washing it because of the dust from 8 miles on the gravel of Sawtelle Road yesterday).

Then a play. We went to a dinner theater at Mack's Inn and saw "The Three Amigos". One of the leads was our waiter at lunch yesterday. He's in the top row, middle, with the red bow. It was a pretty funny show.






Tomorrow we'll be up early to head for Hardin, Montana. We'll visit the Little Bighorn while we're there.

Posted from Nana's iPad

Tuesday cruising around Island Park, Idaho

On Saturday just before we arrived at the Red Rock campground, we entered the little town of Island Park, Idaho near the intersection of US Route 20 and Idaho Route 87. Population 286. We proceeded south on Rt. 20 a few miles and turned off onto a side road to the campground.

This morning we started out on our local trip by going back out to Route 20 and turning south. The GPS showed that we were headed toward Island Park. Wait a minute - we already went through there north of here! What the .... ? A town can't be north of us AND south of us.

Yes it can, according to Wikipedia:
" Island Park is a city in Fremont County, Idaho, United States. The city's population was 215 at the 2000 census. The city was incorporated by owners of the many lodges and resorts along U.S. Route 20 in 1947, primarily to circumvent Idaho's liquor laws that prohibited the sale of liquor outside of city limits. It is only 500 feet (150 m) wide in most locations and, at 33 miles (53 km), claims to have the longest "Main Street" in the world."

So we headed for Sawtelle Peak, shown in this picture:




Do you see the little round dot at the top? That is a radar dome for airplanes. The peak is over 10,000 feet above sea level, which would be a new record for us on this trip. Poppa said "We're going for it!" And we did. Starting around 6,400 feet, gravel road, no guard rails, ALMOST two lanes wide. We got to 9,328 feet, at a beautiful sweeping left turn with nothing below us on the right but air, when Nana said "That's enough!", crawled into the back seat, and sat on the floor. Poppa turned around (pretty scary in itself), drove back down to 6,470 feet, stopped the truck, and pulled the cooler out of the back seat so Nana could crawl out.

Poppa said he was really disappointed we couldn't get to the top. He thought 10,000 feet would be a good opportunity to do some high-altitude training for our trip to Peru in September. Maybe run a couple miles, do a dozen 100-yard wind sprints. I think Poppa was really glad Nana wanted to turn around - he didn't look like he was having that much fun.

The rest of the day was much nicer. We went to Big Springs, where 120,000,000 gallons of water comes bubbling out of the ground EVERY DAY! It is the beginning of the Henry's Fork of the Snake river, and is the clearest water I've ever seen:









Right beside it is the Johnny Sack Cabin. It's really neat, so follow the link to read about it. Here are some pictures:













Then we went to the Upper Mesa Falls:





and the Lower Mesa Falls:



There was a beautiful old inn at the upper falls:





A very nice day, with no crowds.

I hope Nana and Poppa weren't too harsh in their opinion of Yellowstone yesterday. It is very nice, and I think the crowds and traffic jams got to them.

Tomorrow is a "camp day" - laundry, haircut, truck wash, house cleaning, etc. And then in the evening - dinner theater at Mack's Inn Playhouse (somewhere in Island Park), where we'll see "The Three Amigos". One of the lead actors was our waiter at lunch today at the Henry's Fork Landing Cafe. His brother-in-law runs the theater and his other brother-in-law is the chef. We'll post a full review.



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Monday in Yellowstone

This morning we headed back into Yellowstone, planning to do the clockwise northern loop: Norris to Mammoth Hot Springs to Tower-Roosevelt to Canyon Village to Norris. About 70 miles, plus the 60-or-so miles each way to Norris. We've done longer day-trips, but none that seemed this long.

The Madison River is beautiful, and Nana and Poppa once more talked about fly fishing - how peaceful and relaxing to be standing in the river, watching the water... I'm all in favor of it because I like trout almost as much as salmon! I heard that Autumn went fishing last weekend - maybe she can get Nana to take her.

We went to Gibbon Falls and Paint Pots - no parking, so we couldn't see them.

Poppa and I walked down to Porcelain Basin and got some interesting pictures:








Then we saw Bruce the Bison just walking down the road. He came toward Poppa's side of the truck, walked in front of the truck, and continued right past Nana's window. If she hadn't rolled the window up, I was ready to pounce!

We saw a mommy grizzly bear and her cub, but they were too far away for a picture.

We had lunch at the grill at Mammoth Hot Springs. It was like being at an amusement park instead of a national park. We didn't walk up to the Hot Springs because of the crowd. One good thing was that we drove past half a dozen mommy elk and their calves, lying on the lawn of the lodge in the shade. The mommies were just looking around and the babies were taking naps. Unfortunately, there were too many people to get a picture (and they were standing WAY too close to the elk.

Later, Poppa did get a nice picture of a bull elk grazing. His antlers are HUGE:




Another traffic jam was caused by two young black bears about 50 feet up a tree, right next to the road. They were on the side of the tree away from the road, so all I could see were their paws wrapped around the tree trunk.

Yellowstone is very interesting - the rivers are great, there are mountains and great wide meadows, the wildlife is the best we've seen since we left our back yard in Pittsburgh. We went over a pass at 8,859 feet, the highest so far on our trip. There are lots of waterfalls, but we couldn't get to see some of them because of no parking.

There are lots of trees, but they are almost all lodgepole pine. Lucy, our tour guide at the lodge yesterday said they're referred to locally as "pinous monotonous". They can't compare with the beauty and variety of the trees and forests we've seen in California, Oregon, Washington, and Glacier. (I know Glacier isn't a state, but Poppa keeps referring to it like one.)

Yellowstone is spectacular in its size and variety, and deserves its place as a jewel in the National Park system. But I don't see the sparkle in Poppa's eyes that I saw in Glacier. Nana doesn't like it at all. I think its biggest problem is TOO MANY PEOPLE. So tomorrow, there will be 3 fewer tourists. The nice lady at the Red Rock RV Park has given Poppa a map that will take us to waterfalls, fish, an interesting log cabin, and a drive to more than 10,000 feet, all of it close to the campground, and probably not known by too many people.

I had hoped to get back to Old Faithful and get a picture of Dan and Diane in their natural plumage - "black shirts that we wear to work with jeans and tennis shoes". Hey, thanks again to them for their hospitality yesterday! If you follow their blog, you'll get a much richer picture of Yellowstone and hopefully a better one than we can give in two days. If we had the time to see the park in smaller bites, we'd probably like it better.

Posted from Nana's iPad