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Published: September 17th 2011
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After nearly one year absence I’ve returned to share with you our travels and to keep the record of memories going for ourselves! Please feel free to ignore my entry reminders if you’d like or let me know and I’ll remove you from my “guestbook.”
My last entry was of our East Coast trip last fall, 2010. We landed in Florida and a few weeks later drove the Element back to Michigan for Christmas. Thankfully our lab Harley is a great traveler so tolerates all this travel well (probably better than we do.) After a few weeks enjoying the kids, grands and friends we drove back to Florida. The winter consisted of a five week Habitat build in Fellsmere, Fl with our Care-A-Vanner reunion group. This group of friends is so special to us and we have great fun doing the work together and playing together. Then a month at Riverbend RV Resort in Fort Myers lounging and then in Orlando visiting son John and grands Autumn, Mary and Nathan over Spring Break. Then a ten day catamaran sail in the BVI’s with our sailing group and back to Michigan for the summer. Whew! We needed the rest after this
much fun!
Now finally that brings us to today. We left in early September for a fall trip out west. While we generally travel secondary roads as much as possible, we have used I-90 to date and experienced interesting views and little traffic. We love Walmarts or any large parking lot that will have us for overnights (and we’ve stayed at many) when on the road. Our second night we stayed in Blue Earth, MN, the home of the Jolly Green Giant canneries. The town honors the Giant himself with a huge statue in their city park. Check out the photo for the “huge” description.
Our first big stop and current location is the Black Hills of South Dakota. We are staying at Hart Ranch Camping Resort outside of Rapid City and love the park. (We’ve extended our stay twice now and that has as much to do with the beauty of this area as the park.) Our first time in the Black Hills was with our young sons John and Aaron in 1984 in a rented Class C motor home. Our “Out West” trip then also included Yellowstone and Tetons National Parks, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Rocky
Mountain National Park. I guess that’s when we got the travel fever.
Sidebar: We noted a billboard downtown Rapid City warning that the city police have arrested 514 people for DUI since January. We took this as an effective reminder to local drivers.
There are miles of gorgeous drives all over the Black Hills, including the Iron Mountain Road and the Needles Highway which we traveled on the motorcycle. There were a few tense moments but what a thrill to navigate all the hair-pin turns and single lane tunnels with a fair amount of traffic to increase the thrill factor. The engineer who built these winding, mountain roads, Scovell Johnson, took 2 years and 150,000 pounds of dynamite. They were completed in 1933. We loved the far off views of Mt. Rushmore’s four presidents. While we have seen this twice before, this mountain sculpture is a stunning work of art and an architectural miracle. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, created plaster portraits of each president and mounted them on the mountain as a guide for the workmen who carved.
The 18 mile wildlife loop at Custer State Park was entertaining. We saw a herd of Bison from a
distance .There are as many as 1300 bison in the park, each weighing more than 2000 pounds... We would love to stay for the Buffalo Roundup the end of September, a very big deal here where they gather the buffalo, keep a select number according to their DNA and sell of the rest to those looking for very tasty Buffalo Burgers. We also saw pronghorn sheep, white-tailed deer and many prairie dogs in their very own “village.” Delightful!
We enjoyed the burros that are so used to being fed by the visitors that they put their whole head into your car window. I found that a little intimating, obvious in the photo. Harley was also backing up as far as possible. During our stop at the Visitor’s Center, one of the rangers awarded Harley with a “Bark Ranger” scarf. Too cute.
Sylvan Lake is one jewel of Custer State Park. We hiked around the lake and watched a man repel from a surrounding mountain. We hiked Cathedral Spires for beautiful views of the area.
Spearfish Canyon National Scenic Byway lived up to its billing as one of the loveliest spots in the area. We hiked several trails
here. We drove the bike to the Badlands today. The Sioux Indians referred to this as “land bad,” likely referring to the difficulty traversing them. The ragged ridges and saw-toothed spires give the area a desolate but awe-inspiring appearance. It was a beautiful bike ride. During our stop in Wall, the home of the infamous Wall Drug, we saw a man with a Marquette, MI shirt and asked if that was his home. We discovered that he was retired MSP. We really enjoy confirming that it is indeed a small world.
We leave the day after tomorrow for Cody, WY and Yellowstone National Park and then I’ll be back with you.
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