Day 1, August 29

Our route today takes us west on U.S. 2 to U.S. 41 south through Green Bay to Oshkosh. From there we will take WI highway 21 west to I-70. We started out from Moran later than we wanted to, about 1:00. I woke up very stuffy, bad news. I got the scratchy throat that always starts a cold for me a few days ago. At least I wasn't sick for the wedding.

West-bound on U.S. 2. Fortunately most of the tourists are home this weekend, so we didn't get stuck driving slowly behind the traditional summer caravans of RVs, minivans with gear piled on top, and trucks hauling boats and campers. We still had to contend with road construction, an ever-present hassle in Michigan. There was also this guy from Florida driving a Caddy who insisted on passing us and then slowing down in front of us within about 5 minutes.

The needle on the gas gauge was buried in the red as we pulled into Menominee. We decided to fill up more often. I think we had another 15 - 20 miles before running dry, but too close for comfort. It seems that the more you need fuel, the longer the stretch of highway without a gas station.

We grabbed some lunch at a Subway and ate in the car because there wasn't any seating in the building. The key was on so we could listen to the radio and Angela asked if it was normal for the service engine soon light to be on. "Sure", I said. "It will go off after you turn the engine on". Famous words for Murphy's book. About 50 miles down the road, Angela noticed that the light was still on. This is horrible timing for a car problem. I had the valve body on the transmission replaced about a month ago after the light stayed on. The truck seems to be driving okay. I'll pay close attention to it, but we decide to keep driving and hope the problem can wait until we get to Houston.

We stopped in Granite Falls for fuel, which is appropriately named since it had an impressive falls running right through downtown. Angela, ever the geologist, noted the rock was indeed pink granite with some grey sandstone and black mud seams. I got just over 18 mpg. Looks okay so far, I don't think the engine problem is affecting the mileage. I should get above 20 at the speeds we were driving (around 60), but I contribute the lesser mileage to the weight of all the gear in the back.

State highway 21 was closed between Red Granite and some other town whose name I forget, so we detoured south to Highway 23. From there we drove due west on 23, which would take us to Highway 82, leading to I-94, where we would be able to get some serious miles behind us. The drive on 21, 23, and 82 passed through rolling meadows of green grass intermixed with deciduous forests. The evening sky bathed the trees in a crimson glow and mist hung low in the valleys. It was the kind of evening that could easily be passed away sitting in a rocker on a porch overlooking a valley.

We drove through Albert Lea in Minnesota and found a hotel. I think we got in about 11:00. We thought about stopping through Rochester to visit some friends, but the timing didn't work out real well and we had just seen them at the wedding. Onward to South Dakota.

Oh, I nearly forgot. The first Wall Drug sign we spotted was 30 miles east of Albert Lea (about 500 miles from Wall).

Day 2, August 30

73° and sunny. Very nice, but the forecast is for rain. About 50 miles west of Albert Lea, it started to get overcast. The extended weekend forecast for the Dakotas doesn't look ideal. We planned on camping tonight, but I'm not too interested in camping in the rain in my current state of health. However, I feel a little better today.

The bottom half of Minnesota was BORING! All flat plains. South Dakota has more hills so far. 290 miles to Wall Drug!

We hit the Highway 240 junction and drove south towards Badlands National Park, 244,000 acres of sculpted sandstone formations and grass prairie, with such fauna as native Bison, Bighorn Sheep, Pronghorn Antelope, and Golden Eagles. The skies have cleared and it is getting hot, 96°. We were compelled to stop at a roadside tourist trap, one of the Prairie Dog Towns. I must admit those little doggies are amusing. Angela became convinced that she wanted one for a pet. "Coreeeey, I want a prairie dooog!"

The grey, pink, yellow, and green bands of the weathered formations of the Badlands are very pretty. They are highly weathered into spires, ridges, and ravines from both wind and water, although it is very dry here this time of year. Pierre shale makes up the bottom layer of the Badlands and contains one of the world's finest Oligocene fossil beds. Within the park boundary are mainly invertebrates, but there are vertibrates outside the Badlands in the Pierre Shale. Geologists don't know why. The red and yellows in the Pierre Shale are due to oxidation by iron oxides.

The ranger at the park headquarters told Cory that the Badlands recede about an inch a year to the North, back into the plateau that is being eroded to form the badlands. We picked up "Roadside Geology of South Dakota" at the visitor's center and I met a cute, very friendly little girl from Denver who must have been 8 or so. She and I looked at the fossils on display and she asked her mom if I could come with them!

We walked around at a few pullouts as we drove the main road through the park. We took a trail up the cliff at one point. My legs got shaky and both Cory and I got winded - oh man are we out of shape! We are higher in altitude here than in Michigan, around 3,000 feet. We explored some of the formations around the cliff, including a wash that ran through a small cave. After our cliff climb, we headed to the fossil walkway. It was neat, and included an ancient turtle, but we didn't stay long. We wanted to get some dinner in Wall and get to the Black Hills to camp tonight.

We arrived in Wall and went to Wall Drug, the famous tourist trap (remember the signs 500 miles ago). We scanned a couple of shops and ate at the café there. Buffalo Burger for Cory and broiled chicken sandwich with fries for me - YUM!(Angela is easy to please). A lot of the people they hire there are from foreign countries. We met a girl from Poland and one from Romania.

Wall Drug is a kind of a kitchsy place, but the strangeness of it has a certain appeal. It started as nothing more than a drug store. In 1936, the owners started an advertising campaign offering motorists passing on the freeway free ice water so they would stop in. The place just grew and expanded and became a mini-mall of sorts. They have several places to eat, cowboy attire shops, western art shops, rock shops, the drug store, and more. The rest is what can best be described as a museum full of old photos and western memorabilia. It may be a tourist trap, but a worthwhile stop. How could you drive through Wall and NOT stop? After dinner, we were off to the Black Hills!

We drove through Rapid City and picked up some camping food and a few forgotten supplies at a supermarket. We hit the base of the Black Hills in early evening. We took a scenic drive, Alternate Highway 16, from Keystone down into Custer State Park. The drive wound up through rugged "Hills" (more like mountains to us flatlanders) and dark pine forests. There were some very unique wood, sprial-like bridges used to gain elevation in a very short space. I think they are called Pigtail Bridges. I wish I had taken a picture. We stopped at two lookouts and climbed some rocks. One of the lookouts, at what appeared to be the highest point on the drive, had a nice view of Mount Rushmore. We didn't make it quite in time to catch the sunset. I found a cool rock that looks like iron ore. What a geology nerd!

First glimse of Mt. Rushmore

It was getting late and we really wanted to get settled into our campsite. We were winging this one. With it being labor day weekend, the campgrounds were busy. We continued on, stopping to look at a friendly deer by the side of the road. We got to Custer State Park and had to drive what seemed like forever to find a campground that had vacancy. We did see a huge Buffalo eating along the side of the road. It was getting dark and we almost didn't see him, man was he huge. We pulled into the Bismark Campground, which was actually a National Forest campground just outside of the west entrance to Custer State Park on Highway 16. We set up camp at 9:00, Dakota time, 11:00 Michigan time. I was really tired, not used to the time difference yet.

Oh, the truck is not doing well on the gas mileage. I think I'm down to about 10-13 mpg, much like it was before I had the valve body on the transmission replaced. I don't recall specifically when it started getting worse, but obviously the hills and all the gear in the back are exacerbating the problem. The truck seems to be lacking its usual get up and go. Check engine light still on. I'm a little concerned.

Day 3, August 31

We got up at about 7:00 and made pancakes and eggs for breakfast. It was a great morning, despite the fact that I still had a stuffy head. We climbed to the top of a hill near our site, which offered a great view through a break in the pines. We were on the road at 9:00. We drove west into Custer to get gas and then drove back into Custer State Park to take the Needles Highway Scenic Drive. After the scenic drive, we are going to see Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument and perhaps to a gold mine or cave tour later.

The Needles Scenic Highway Drive (Hwy 87) was very cool (photo of some granite needles) The narrow, two-lane road winds through the pine forests and granite spires (the needles), passing through a couple of one-lane tunnels (honk first!). We made a few stops to look at the scenery. Angela found a garnet in a piece of Feldspar, but it wasn't very big. There are lots of opportunities for bouldering, climbing, and hiking. I'd love to come back with the right equipment and do some climbing. We say two guys climbing the Eye of the Needle, a spire with a hole in it, near the highest point on the drive (photo of climber).

Mount Rushmore was our next stop (photo). They've built new parking decks to handle the crowds since I was there last ('94 I think). They charge $8 to park in the deck - city prices. Supply and demand for convenient parking, I suppose. The parks also need the money. Rushmore is a worthwhile stop, but too crowded. Visiting on Labor Day weekend wouldn't be my first choice. We bought some books and a couple of postcards at the excessively crowded gift shop (If you don't see any sheep on the mountain, at least you can feel like one!), which took an age. We didn't stay at Rushmore long; snapped a few photos and headed for Keystone. How long can you look at some faces carved in a rock? There was more stuff to do if you really wanted to learn all about the history and making of the monument and all that stuff, but we've both seen the PBS specials already.

The sole purpose of our stop in Keystone was to stop and get one of those old time photographs. at a place we saw while driving by the previous day. Kind of cheesy, but fun. I was the gun slingin' cowboy and Angela was the "Saloon floozy". The people running the little shop were fun folks. I think they really enjoy what they do. We ate at a nearby café after the photos, but it was nothing special. In fact, the meal was less than standard. They can't all be winners.

We drove back up the hill past Mt. Rushmore and were on to see Crazy Horse Monument. Once again, the admission was a bit steep for what it was: a rock with a mostly unfinished sculpture taking shape that you can see from the road anyway. The face is mostly complete, but at the rate they are carving it seems they are going to be at this a while. They have added a fairly extensive museum of Native American Art and a history of the Crazy Horse Project. Some of its was interesting. I bought Angela a silver necklace and bracelet with Lapis, a blue gem, from one of the Indian vendors. We really loved this other vendor's hand woven blankets and shirts. Angela would have bought one of the shirts if it had fit. I especially loved the reed (bamboo?) wind instruments (I forget what they are called). The vendor played them really well. They have a haunting sound. I took a shot at playing one. It is kind of like blowing on a bottle to make it hum, but I don't have the control to hit just one, or several at once, at will. Poor guy thought he had a sale, but we ended up leaving without buying anything.

We decided on a cave tour for the afternoon. We decided on Jewel Cave National Monument. The drive over turned out to be a waste of time because the remaining tours were booked, I guess we should have called ahead. We looked at the exhibits in the visitor center and decided to try Wind Cave National Park instead. WCNP consists of about 28,000 acres of mostly grass prairie. The Wind Cave's claim to fame isn't fantastic stalactites or stalagmites but an unusual "boxwork" formation, a crystalline formation that predates the cave. They think it is formed in tiny, criss-crossing cracks in the limestone. Later, when the cave formed, the water dissolved the limestone and the delicate crystal fins that had filled the cracks were left exposed.

We got the 4:00 "Natural Entrance" tour at Wind Cave. The entrance to the cave was hidden in a narrow, V-shaped ravine about 50 feet across and maybe about 30 feet deep. The natural entrance was only a couple of feet across. When high pressure systems are in place, wind blows into the entrance. Vice versa for low pressure systems. They say its howling was how some hunters first located it, one of who lost his hat down the hole when the wind sucked it in. I didn't think to ask at the time if it still howls, or what made it stop if it doesn't. We didn't hear anything.

Angela was quick to volunteer when our guide asked for someone to enter the hole. The guide actually had to tell her not to really go in because she was going for it! There was a pretty stiff breeze near the hole, according to Angela. Unfortunately, the tour did not include crawling through the natural entrance, which would have been much more entertaining than entering through the blasted entrance with the revolving doors. The cave was interesting, but I wanted to go off and explore instead of following the guide on the pedestrian-safe path. I got some postcards at the gift shop, because, if you've never tried it, taking good photos underground is really difficult. Then we left for Denver via Hwy 18 and 85 to I-25. I was sad to leave the Black Hills. I'd like to spend some time there fishing and hiking, just taking it easy. I was also a bit disappointed not to see any Bighorn sheep.

We headed west. Angela wanted to stop by the highway just outside WCNP to get a photo in front of an "anticline with a pegmatite intrusion". She also picked up some Tourmaline. It is a good thing I like geology, too. I had to laugh because the people driving by must have thought we were nuts, out there taking a picture in front of what appears to be an unremarkable pile of rock! It wasn't long before we left the relatively high hills and entered the arid plateaus of east Wyoming. Southeast Wyoming is astounding in that there are absolutely no trees, very few homes, very few towns, and really not much of anything other than miles and miles of fenced land. I can't imagine living here. I can't imagine setting all that fence! There were rolling hills and mesas, so you could probably see 40 or more miles when the highway rolled over the top of one. Nothing but empty, treeless land as far as you can see.

We ate dinner at a deli in a Conoco gas station in Lusk for lack of anywhere else to eat. Lusk is a small, lackluster cowboy town. There was a girl, fully decked out in what I'll call rodeo garb, in the gas station who jumped into a big pickup truck hauling a trailer full of horses as we pulled in. I was struck by how young she was to be hauling that trailer. She didn't look old enough to drive. Impressive.

We enjoyed a great western sunset as we drove south. Later we watched a lightning storm about thirty miles to the east. We should make Denver by 11:00 p.m. We did see some Antelope today.

We stopped in Longmont, Colorado to stay at a hotel off the highway. Cory remembered that he didn't see many hotels off the highways along our route through Denver up into the mountains, se we stopped here. It was late anyway, about 10:45. I took a long shower- ahh, nice. Then I did a really stupid thing and sliced the tip of my ring finger open pretty badly digging around in my bag for a razor. Cory patched me up with gauze and waterproof tape from our backpacking first aid kit.

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