Friday, July 31, 2009

Big Horn and Little Big Horn

Medicine Wheel
Over the last couple of days we have traveled from Devils Tower to Buffalo, Wyoming then into Montana where we are now at an RV Park and Campground in Glendive, bringing us to within about 30 miles of the border with North Dakota. Yes, we've turned the corner at our westernmost part of the trip near Billings, MT, and are now heading East.
On Wednesday we took a sojourn of over 300 miles (by car) on a large loop through and around the Big Horn Mountains. We traveled from Buffalo, Wy, (the "Gateway to the Old West) and, winding our way through mountains, reaching altitudes of over 9000 feet at points, passed through towns like Ten Sleep, Basin and Greybull (some populations like 63 and 308). A major point along the way was a visit to a Medicine Wheel which required a 3 mile hike in some cool and very windy weather up to another 'top of the world' experience where over 80 tribes still conduct ceremonies at an ancient religious site.
Thursday's travels took us to the site of the battle of the Little Big Horn. After viewing a video describing the battle and the events leading up to it, we explored the area where the battle took place, a very desolate top of a bluff near the Little Big Horn River.
As usual, see captions on some of the following photos for additional information.
Big Horn Mountains (52 Photos)

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Devils Tower - Wyoming

Welcome to Wyoming As you will tell by viewing most of the photos for today's entry, our main objective for this day was the Devils Tower National Monument near Sundance in Northeastern Wyoming. The tower is generally thought to be a monolithic igneous intrusion or volcanic neck. The top is nearly 1300 feet above the surrounding terrain (rising to about a mile above sea level). This was the first US National Monument (1906) thanks to a declaration by President Theodore Roosevelt. About 1 percent of the nearly half a million visitors to the monument each year actually climb to the top. Personally, I'll pass on that one. Devils Tower National Monument (24 Photos)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Exploring the Black Hills

Artist's Rendering - Wait Until You See the Real Thing
You'd think we have all the time in the world and I know in a sense we do, but over the course of this trip it seems the days go by so quickly that we frequently have little time left for such things as email and blogs. That being said, I will keep this entry short in favor of getting the photos published that we've taken over the last few days so that we can share more of what we've seen, rather than trying to describe things.
Just briefly, our Black Hills Experience has been punctuated by Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, the Needles Highway, Iron Mountain Road, Hill City, Keystone, the Three Flags RV Park at Black Hawk, Deadwood and a host of other side trips and byways.
Again, some photos are captioned while others are not. Try to catch the ones you can.
The Black Hills (89 Photos) Black Hills II (78 Photos) Both Galleries (You can add) Thanx For Joining Us!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Enjoying the Badlands of South Dakota

FINALLY, a chance to share with you our experience in the Badlands. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this part of our grand country, the Badlands are located in the SouthWest quadrant of South Dakota, surrounded by the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and the Pine Ridge (Lakota) Reservation. This stop was one of the primary objectives of this particular adventure and it revealed itself to be much more than any of us would have expected.
Thanks to our membership with Recreation USA (and its proprieters, our friends Dick and Judie Riblett), we were very pleased to spend 3 days and nights at the Badlands Ranch & Resort which is located near the town of Interior, SD, just to the South and East of the National Park. This tract of 1000 acres is owned and operated by Jake Sharp, quite a character and the friendly host of our stay. One of the pleasures we enjoyed was a late evening hike to the North end of Jake's property where high on a hill overlooking the White River, we had a spectacular view of a large portion of the formations of the Badlands which we observed as the sun set, providing an ever-changing vista of light, dark and colors across the formations and the valley below.
We spent our days here exploring the park as well as taking some side trips to Wall Drug (a famous tourist destination in these parts), and a Minute Man Missle Site (no longer active, dating back to the 60's), but greatest of these was the time spent driving and hiking the park.
Next stop...Rapid City, SD, and all the sites that surround it in the extreme West and SouthWest of South Dakota.
The following list of photo galleries will lead you share what we saw, as much as we were able to photograph. There is just no way to describe it so most of the scenic photos are without caption, but some other shots will contain some comments (upper left of the photo) about our locations, etc. Deb hopes you enjoy her excellend Buffalo sequence. We spotted this guy just as a dark dot in our view, then kept our eyes on him as he made his way to right in front of our car.
SD to the Badlands (15 Photos)
Badlands Continued (59 Photos)
All of the Above (If you have lots of time)

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Making Our Way to the Badlands

From our previous blog entry, you know that a need to replace our camera precluded any ability to share photos from the first couple of days of this trip. Since then, even though we've managed to accumulate a fair collection of photos, our ability to publish them has been limited by infrequent and marginal internet service. I'm going to keep this short in the hope that I can get it finished and updated while I have a medium WiFi signal available (NO cell phone or air card signals available here). We are currently living in a very pleasant location just to the South and East of the Badlands National Park. While I will be sure to share more on this and the Badlands later, for now I am publishing the photos from the days leading up to this point. Please refer to captions (at the upper left of the photos) for additional information. Of particular note is photos of the murals from the Corn Palace - click on this link for additional information. Thanx for joining us and we hope you enjoy the photographs. Photo List (Click on a title to view photos): Manufacturing the Cameo 5th Wheel at Carriage in Elkhart, Indiana (15 photos) RV Museum in Elkhart, Indiana (37 photos) RV Shopping (4 photos) Indiana to Iowa (20 photos) Wind Farms and Corn Palace (26 photos)

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Good Fortune and Bad Fortune

We send you greetings from Elkhart, Indiana. We are fortunate to have started out on a new adventure, joined by Deb's sister Mary and our brother-in-law Bill. Unfortunately, our camera bit the dust after only the first photo of the trip. Fortunately, we quickly found a Walmart with a nice selection available, but (you guessed it) unfortunately, they had no inventory of the one we wanted. Ok, we paid a bit more than we wanted for a camera they had in stock and we will continue this blog with photos just as soon as we learn how to use it. Our best to everyone - having a great time in spite of the camera!