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Published: September 27th 2015
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'Member when I said we had time to spare, 'member that? Good thing because the night we arrived in Keystone (a town nestled securely in the Black Hills) I got (bleah, sputter, groan) a
cold. The resilient T had been nursing a cold since Grand Teton (yup, that far back), but having such a strong constitution, it didn't slow her down. I finally caught it and it knocked me on my ass. I ended up spending the next day in bed intermittently sleeping and watching documentaries about the Wild West while T did some solo touring.
Because she is the very best cousin ever, she brought me some soup and told me all about her day. She saw the Crazy Horse Memorial which she really liked and went to the Jewel Cave National Monument which she found disappointing. The only "tour" being offered at JCNM was the 20 minute "discovery talk" (guided tours are the only way for visitors to see the caves). The Discovery talk takes an elevator down to a platform in the main cavern where you listen to an interesting chat from the ranger and then...nothing...that's it. Hmf. She said the other tours might awesome, but they
Cars go through here?
The needles, Custer State Park weren't being offered. She also took a scenic drive through Custer State Park. It was such a nice drive that she went through a second time the next day when I was back up and running (if "running" is chugging along with a pocket full of Kleenex and cough drops). In addition to the great drive through the "needles" in CSP, we also checked out the very famous Mount Rushmore. Certainly an impressive sight, but as a Canadian, I think the full impact is lost on moi.
We decided to drive towards our next destination until we felt like stopping and did just that. We went south(ish) from the Keystone/Black Hills area through Wyoming to Colorado. The next day we were ready for our next (and last) national park of the trip: Rocky Mountain National Park.
Not surprisingly, it was beautiful. We took the park's serpentine Trail Ridge Road up to over 12,000+ feet and back down the other side of the park. The landscape reminded us of our glorious Canadian home turf (lots of the northern parts of Colorado reminded us of home...when we did a road trip some time ago in the Southwest we only saw
the southern part of Colorado near the four corners area and it ain't nothin' like this). Here in RMNP the Aspens are changing colour to a golden yellow and make us wonder if there are any signs of fall back home. Hard to believe our next stop is Denver before flying back to the Great White North. Madness how fast time goes by...
One thing that has intrigued us this past couple of weeks going through these national parks is how convenient it would be to do all this in a small RV. We saw tons of them out and about (not those big behemoth homes on wheels, although we did see a handful of those). They were moderately sized, a moveable pied-a-terre. Mostly we'd look at them stopped by a picturesque pull-out and opine "could you imagine being able to just pull over and have a nap anywhere you want". Yup, that's where we're at folks. Thinkin' about naps. It would also be swell to be able to make some of our own meals (okay, only *I* think that, but still). Who wouldn't love to pull over and have an afternoon snack overlooking a field full of buffalo?
That's right.
No one. Because it would be awesome.
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