BAD BADLANDS

Evening, June 20
We started our visit to the Badlands by pulling into our KOA "kampground" at about 11:00 pm. We were beat, but in just a few minutes we were set up for the night, and then we were sitting and looking up, right into outer space. The zillions of stars were brilliant in the perfectly black moonless sky. The next morning, we discovered we had a nice little camp.

We hit the road in the morning, setting out to visit the Information Center, and then drive through the best part of the Badlands National Park. Terry has something to say about our experience at the info center.
Once we were touring again, we were excited to be in "The Badlands", but we were soon underwhelmed. Having spent our lifetimes in the arid West, the Badlands really wasn't such a big deal at all. It was very interesting, and certainly unique, but I see worse badlands every day in Henderson, Nevada.

The wildflowers, however, were world class! Just beautiful. --Tom
* * *
The badlands wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the people. Maybe I’m too much California but really, the further East we go, the more oblivious, careless and obnoxious people have been. Every national park and tourist place has rules. In Yellowstone, everybody seemed fine with that. Of course there are good and obvious reasons for staying on the paths and wooden walkways. You could get boiled alive. But by the time we got to Mount Rushmore, people were doing just about anything but following the rules and they were encouraging their kids that that was ok. Good thing that place is mostly concrete. One family was letting their four little kids run around playing games in the restaurant. Outside, no one was staying on the paths; they were climbing walls for photo-ops, using the steps for workout equipment. It was just boring and upsetting. At the Visitor’s Center at the Badlands National Park, we just had to get out of there. People were yelling, reading all the signs in their loudest vices, letting their babies cry. It was worse outside. There again, there were paths and wooden walkways, designed to protect environmentally sensitive areas. Signs everywhere saying “Stay on the paths” and “Watch for rattlesnakes.” But people were scrambling all over the hills, tramping on what few plants there were, climbing the cliffs. Maybe the damn relentless wind here makes people more independent, more incorrigible, less interested in following rules. Or maybe I’m getting old and crabby.

CRAZY, CRAZY HORSE MONUMENT

June 20
Nothing prepared me. Even though I have seen discovery channel specials about this project, I never caught the magic. I didn’t have a sense of the power or the size of this venture.

A few years after the completion of Mount Rushmore, Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear announced that he and the other American Indian chiefs “would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes too.” They approached Korczak Ziolowski, a Czech sculptor, and convinced him to dedicate the rest of his life to the creation of an IMMENSE likeness of the Native American hero Crazy Horse.
(They have a loooooooooong way to go!)

Here’s what IMMENSE is – when finished, the sculpture will be 641 feet wide and 563 feet high. The head alone is 87 feet high. For comparison, the heads on Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet high.

In 1946, the site was chosen and in 1949 Ziolowski started blasting away at the mountain. After he died, his body totally used up at the age of 74, his wife Ruth and seven of their ten kids continued the mission of getting the statue finished. It was Ruth who made the decision to finish sculpting the face of Crazy Horse before finishing the roughing out of the entire sculpture. It was a great decision. Seeing the face brings humanity to the site and gives life to the dream.
Terry spotted a pile of rocks in the gift shop. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be actual rocks blasted from the mountain during the daily dynamite-carving of the monument. The price was 2 bucks a rock--a real deal! We bought one. Turns out it weighs a ton, and so did my suitcase when we flew home from Iowa. But the rock lives in Nevada now, a state with rocks coming out its ears, but it's the only rock from the cast-off trimmings of the Crazy Horse Monument in South Dakota. --Tom

SITES WE ARE SORRY WE DIDN’T SEE

June 19-21

OIL WELL DUG BY HAND! Somewhere in Wyoming, on highway 90, there was a dilapidated billboard with this screaming headline. It promised an underground tour (sign me up!) We passed the actual tourist attraction a few miles later and it had apparently been closed for quite a long, long time. The buildings, derricks and various wheels, belts and pulleys were melting into the earth. Only the converted oil storage “Gift Tank” was still standing.

RUSHMORE CAVES! They must be really something as the selling feature on the billboard said, “Closest Cave to Mt Rushmore!”

Billboard advertisement: STATE OF THE ART SHOWER HEADS! Almost enough to make us abandon the RV and check into that motel…

BUFFALO BLOCKADE

Buffalo have the right of way in YS, and they seem to know it. A buffalo decided to use the road to go about whatever business he was on. And of course he wasn’t in any hurry. Just sauntering along with a line of 30 cars piled up behind him. In this RV, we have gotten used to watching the rear-view monitor for the pile-up behind us and pulling off when we need to. The buffalo didn’t have a camera on his behind but finally he got a clue and stepped off the road to the shoulder. As we went by, we got this shot. We did see lots of wildlife, in addition to hundreds of buffalo; we saw a field full of elk, huge pelicans, ducks, an eagle, an osprey and one bear. The bear was exactly far enough away – about a mile away across the river from us.

We saw the magnificent Yellowstone Falls, first from the rim of "The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone", then from the brink of the falls. The hike down to the brink was along a long, narrow, harrowing path with a sequence of switchbacks as far as the eye could see. The view of the falls from the platform on the brink was even worth the struggle back up to the parking lot. --Tom



The day we left Yellowstone, we drove 11 hours through Billings Idaho to Sheridan Wyoming. And three of those hours were in Yellowstone itself! That place is huge.

YELLOWSTONE

Definitely lifetime experience. Beautiful, magical, every sightline gorgeous, every smell intoxicating, the air feels like thin well-worn velvet.
We arrived at the Bay Bridge Campsite inside the park just at dusk, having stopped in Idaho Falls to pick up a rental car. Nissan Versa, nice little car but the AC is so loud you can’t think.
The people who work at Yellowstone seem to feel the power of the place and know how privileged they are to work there. Everyone was nice, professional and knowledgeable. Sort of alarming to see Signs posted in at the campsite warning against approaching buffalo or other wildlife and there was a long list of rules designed to prevent bears from trying to get into our RV. Pretty real, there.

The next morning we headed straight to Old Faithful where, to our surprise, there is a little tourist village set up. Huge gift shops, miles of parking, information centers, event tents, I don’t know what else. Sort of circus-y. Don’t know what I expected, but not that. Nevertheless, we were just in time to have a ringside seat for the eruption of the great old geyser. And a ranger talk about how geysers work, first theorized by a Professor von Bunsen of Bunsen burner fame.

We toured the great geyser basin and got back just in time to see Old Faithful spout off again. Pretty nice.


I was fascinated by all the bubbling pools of water, everywhere you go in the park. Old Faithful isn't the only geyser, either. Most of Yellowstone is over a volcanic "hotspot". Hot, molten mantle rock is just below the surface, keeping Yellowstone cooking. --Tom

THEN ON TO YELLOWSTONE

June 16-19
If you come from a place like Southern California and you want a tree in your yard, you go to the nursery, bring it home, dig a hole, plant it and water it and hope it lives. Here in Yellowstone, weed-trees spring up everywhere.

YOU SAY YELLOWSTONE, I SAY YOSEMITE,

LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF!
We have been planning this trip for two months. Researching routes, things to see, KOA’s along the route. Neither of us had been to Yellowstone so naturally that was first on the agenda. The trouble is, I have never once said Yellowstone – I have fairly consistently told people we were going to Yosemite. Even the file I started for the trip says “Yosemite, June 2009” I tried tricking my self, remembering Yogi and Booboo in Jellystone, but it didn’t work. Yosemite is stuck in my head so firmly that I was even saying it while we were there! So if I offer to show you the pics of my trip to Yosemite, walk away.

The rain in Yellowstone stopped for 30 minutes one day, enough time for a picnic!