Black Hills, SD to Casper, WY July 21 to July 28, 2012

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When we arrived at our huge KOA campground last Saturday, I was frazzled because of the ups and downs and curves we had just driven our big RV through. But by Sunday, our 17th anniversary!, I was recovered and resolute enough to face exploring some of the area. I insisted on being the driver, and it makes a big difference in my equanimity when I am the driver. We went first into nearby Hill City, a pleasant small town which though tourist-oriented, is not as hokey as many are. We went to the Teddy Bear Museum; about a decade ago, a woman started collecting and displaying teddy bears. After a few years, when she had around 4400, she wrote to the Guinness Book of World Records and acquired the record. She has since broken her record five times, and now has 7769 bears. We didn't get to tour the museum because the power in town had just gone out, but talking with her had been entertaining enough.

Then we were off to the Needles Highway, one of those places I dread. But it was a lovely, sunny, cooler day, and since it is a tourist route, there were not huge "through" trucks tailgating us. I got nervous at the Needles spot and drove through without stopping. The road hairpins and passes through rocks with just enough clearance above and beside. Definitely one lane, and I just gunned it behind a pack of motorcycles as an escort. There are many motorcycle tourists out here now; the rally at Sturgis, SD, begins on August 6. We were told that SD's population of 900,000 doubles during the rally!

Most of the hills here are "black", i.e. covered with dark pines, but an alarming number are rusty brown, or bare, thanks to the pine bark beetle. To counter them, the dense growth can be thinned, but the area is so huge that that's not widely reasonable. Spraying, too, will work, but not in such a huge area.

The Needles Highway has many hairpin curves, but winds past a few lovely lakes and is well worth experiencing. We stopped briefly at the end where it joins the Custer State Park and went into a lodge/store. A sign near the cash register said that rangers are authorized to arrest anyone they catch smoking. There were numerous large wildfires burning not far off, with hundreds of firefighters from several states deployed, and the folks out here seem inclined to blame the fires on careless smokers and campers. Lightning is also a major cause. We later learned that the fire nearest us had been caused by a construction vehicle which scraped a rock, causing a spark which ignited the extremely dry vegetation.

We rode the Wildlife Loop Highway in Custer State Park, and saw pronghorn antelopes and a lot of buffalo. Also burros, but they are not native; they were brought in to carry people to the top of the highest peak nearby. When that service was curtailed, the burros were simply let loose. They are highly experienced beggars.

We stopped for a late lunch at the Game Lodge, a pleasant buffet. Back to the RV to rest, then to Mt. Rushmore for the 9:00 PM illumination ceremony. It was very patriotic, e.g. all veterans were invited on stage and then asked to introduce themselves and state their branch of service. When I saw Mt. Rushmore 50 years ago, my reaction was sort of "whatever." But decades of learning some more American history have allowed me to become much more respectful, awed, by the men whose heads are carved into the rock there.

Next morning, we were up fairly early to drive the 50 or so miles north to Deadwood and Lead (long e). In Deadwood, we strolled past the saloons and casinos and made the obligatory visit to the cemetery where Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok are buried, high on a hill above town. The area developed because of the influx of gold seekers after Custer's expedition reported gold in these hills. Even though much of it was on Indian land... The treaty between the US government and the Indians got rewritten so that the land could be mined.

In Lead, we saw a massive mine that had been preserved for tourists, a remain of the largest gold mine in the world, which operated for decades until relatively recently. Now the area has been turned over to explorations far below ground involving neutrinos, black holes, and other highly advanced science.

We drove north to Spearfish along the Spearfish Highway, which is very lovely, somewhat reminiscent of the Kancamagus in NH or Oak Creek Canyon near Flagstaff. Back "home" along the same route, because it was so pretty. Showered and went back into Hill City for a unique meal at the Alpine Inn; the dinner choices are a 7 ounce filet mignon or a 9 ounce filet mignon, period. Lots of dessert options, though.

John and I agree that the Black Hills would be a wonderful place to bring kids to vacation. There are so many and varied opportunities for lodging, hiking, learning about history, "kid stuff" like archery/minigolf/swimming, etc.

The next morning, we headed west. Past Custer City, we went through a huge burned stretch and read the roadside marker to discover that it had been the Jasper fire, and covered an area of eight by ten miles. The grass has grown back, but blackened tree trunks remain, and I did not notice any small trees starting up. That fire was attributed to a match.

Soon after we entered Wyoming, we saw our first small oil rig. The land was long rolling hills, with sparse vegetation, sparse cattle, sporadic oil mining operations, and rare small towns. We drove into one town where pronghorn antelopes were roaming all over the streets, just as deer sometimes do back home. We saw long, long trains loaded with coal and eventually came to Black Thunder, which claims to be the largest coal mine in the world (open pit). We stopped in the little, really little, town of Bill, where BNSF and the Union Pacific use the same five (or more?)tracks and John got to watch trains go by to his heart's content.

On to Douglas, a small lively town not far east from Casper. We stayed there overnight in a wonderful spot, a palate cleansing after the over-the-top KOA in the Black Hills: they allow free overnight camper parking in Riverside Park. No hookups, but we needed to run the generator for a couple of hours anyway. Our neighbors were three motorcycles and another fogey RV. Very pleasant. And the next morning we had a pleasant coffee, book browsing and internet time at a charming bookshop/cafe where the owner said her favorite thing is the group of men we saw shooting the breeze, who gather there every single morning.

Casper was only about an hour farther west, past another major energy producing area of dozens of windmills. John, who is so "on top of" the RV's service needs, found a place to get the oil changed while I found a nice knitting store and chatted with its enthusiastic owner. We settled into an adequate RV park, for three nights. The spots are quite narrow, but it doesn't really matter to us here, and the people are pleasant.

John worked in Casper for two and a half years, 1969 to 1971. We took a driving tour of the area past the building where he worked, the church where he and Marcia were married, etc. The city has grown up much and well in the past few decades, though it is unalterably the "Wind City".

On Thursday we visited the BLM Trails Interpretive Center, which is excellent. Four sets of westward bound folks passed through here, along the North Platte River: Oregon Trail settlers, Mormons, California-bound (Gold Rush), and Pony Express. Each of these groups is well-described in dioramas and text. There is a simulated river crossing via covered wagon which would be really neat for kids. Later that day, John went to a local dentist; he seems to have a custom of breaking teeth while we are far from home...

Friday morning we visited with a very enthusiastic lady at the Chamber of Commerce. We went for a nice walk at an Audubon Center, then to the Nicolayson Art Museum, where we saw a couple of very imaginative exhibits of modern art. (One, which shows the size of the cage in which chickens are raised, makes me seriously wonder if I want to eat commercial chickens again.) A couple of hours then in the local library, where John was delighted to be able to download Value Line reports.

One of my favorite memories of Casper will be the "Art in the Streets", statues sprinkled around the city. My favorite is of a little boy on a small horse, twirling a lasso, with three little chickens in front of him. The pamphlet text says that the sculptor/dad asked his three-year old son, who was quite skilled with a lasso, if he too wanted to be a rancher when he grew up. The boy replied that he wanted to, but that he would want to raise pigs and chickens.

On Saturday morning, we were at the local fairgrounds before 6:00 AM to watch a balloon launching. John volunteered us as helpers for a nice young woman from Colorado. The balloon next to us started filling with air, but the rest of the 20 or so held off because the black balloons the committee was sending up showed too strong a wind. And finally the whole launch was scrubbed. Disappointing, but at least we had had a chance to mingle with the enthusiasts. It reminded me a bit of the model airplane meet in the Arizona desert which my brother took us to a couple of years ago. But the balloons are surely a lot bigger than the model planes!

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