Bismarck, ND
I know I'm over a week late, but it's been a crazy, busy week with work and I haven't had the time to sit down and finalize this until today. Even yesterday (Sunday) required my full attention catching up on personal and non-client business stuff which took up my entire day. So, apologies to my curious and anxious readers!Returned "home" on Monday, Sept 5 (not sure what "home" means, exactly, since home is where we park it, so it's always with us. I guess in this case it means wherever we are long term for Mitch's job - currently Bismarck, ND). Here is the synopsis, starting from the beginning. Warning - VERY LONG POST!!! See previous days for the actual travel down to SD, starting Wed. Aug. 31.
Friday, Sept. 2
Another example of plans made in bubbles, although they were somewhat close. The plan was to visit the air & space museum and take the tour to Ellsworth AFB with a visit inside the Minuteman missile silo. We woke up early so as to catch the first tour leaving at 9:00, with the plans afterwards to stop at a store for a few groceries (we only packed enough travel food for the way down and realized we needed to restock for the way back home), then stop for lunch and then either tour downtown Rapid City or head 50 miles to Wall to visit touristy Wall Drug. Figured we'd play that part by ear.
When we got to the museum, we learned that the tour guide was delayed and the first tour wouldn't start until 1:00. So we toured the museum. Outside were about 20 planes from all different war eras. Inside were exhibits of air & space technology, starting from WWI to present satellite systems, with a large part dedicated to the Cold War era planes and missiles. Here are some photos:
Outside:
Inside:
We finished seeing the exhibits around 10:30, so decided to head out shopping, have some lunch out, and then it would be time for the tour. Turned out we had to go to a few different places to find a cable Mitch needed, and then the supermarket he wanted to shop at took us through downtown Rapid City. Mind you, also, that nothing is near anything else so we spent a lot of time driving around. Of course, they were doing a lot of construction in the downtown area (which is a small-town style downtown, not a large city) so there was a lot of traffic. The reason Mitch chose that supermarket (Safeway) is because they are known to have a food concession and he figured it would be less expensive and "kill 2 birds with 1 stone," so to speak. Well, after all that, it turned out that the concession was take out only; nowhere to sit, and they really didn't have many vegetarian selections other than prepared salads. So we bought what we needed and decided to go to the first restaurant we could find. By now it was 1:15 and we were both very tired, cranky and hungry (hadn't eaten since 8:00). Although there were many restaurants in the downtown area, due to the construction, there was no place to park. Plus, the parking spots (if you could find any) were the diagonal kind, so the truck would never fit.
We took the highway and got off at the first exit that showed food, which was a Perkins. We landed up having omelets as they didn't have any other choices for us besides a tossed salad (and when you're starving, that's the last thing you want!)
We finished lunch and realized that we didn't have time to make the 2:00 tour, but we could easily make the 3:00 one. I also had to plan to return home to finish preparing for Shabbat. This week, due to the time zone change, candle lighting is a few minutes after 7:00, as compared to the 8:30 it's been the last few weeks in Bismarck. The 3:00 tour would work out perfectly. PLUS... I forgot to mention how in between all this, one of my clients was frantic and needed me to put out a fire, despite his knowing I was on vacation and wasn't near a computer, so I promised to do it when I returned home (figured I'd do it in between making the food, and I counted on Mitch to help as well, which he did).
Anyway, we got back to the museum to discover that one of the previous tours ran late so the next one wouldn't start until 3:30. At this point, not only did I feel that would be cutting it a bit too close, especially if this tour ran late too, but Mitch was getting really tired, and I wasn't feeling well. Remember I had been sick and was still not completely recovered. I was still coughing and having trouble breathing, especially when I exerted myself or got excited. I had a few coughing attacks and just didn't feel up to the walking and stair climbing on the tour. So we decided to just head home and take a little more time to prepare for Shabbat. Guess we'll have to visit a missile silo another time.
Saturday, Sept. 3
Friday night was very lovely. Although on 3 sides of us, we saw a sea of trailers, across from us was a field and a hill. There was actually a picnic bench on the field, so we sat there and watched the sunset. The sky was completely clear and we noticed there weren't any street lights around. Since we're not near a city, we hoped we might finally be in a place where we could see a blanket of stars. After Shabbat dinner, we went back outside, and indeed we could see a lot of stars. Unfortunately, there were still a lot of lights around the campground, so we couldn't see millions of them, but at least it's more than we usually see. We sat on the bench, me in Mitch's arms. It was a magical evening.
Saturday was a beautiful day, which we spent mostly outside. We took a walk to the pool (didn't realize there was a hot tub too). Unfortunately, we didn't take our bathing suits and I didn't feel like walking back to change. Plus, I'm still having trouble breathing (I had to stop twice on the 1/10th mile walk to catch my breath) so swimming probably wouldn't have been a good idea anyway. We did sit in the shade in the pool area, which was quiet and serene. Towards the evening, there was a thunderstorm off in the distance, and because of the wide open space, I was able to watch quite a light show. The storm pretty much missed us except for a few raindrops.
Looking forward to the big tour tomorrow. Monday we will be packing up and driving about 140 miles. Not quite 1/2 way, but it's the only place along the route home where there's a place to park overnight -- in a city park -- (we're taking a different route that's not 50 miles out of the way. Hopefully that won't turn out to be a big mistake!)
Sunday, Sept. 4
This was the big day and the one the vacation revolved around, with the major highlight being Mt. Rushmore. The tour was actually everything in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Fortunately, it was not at all physically taxing, as we were on the van most of the time, so I didn't have any bouts of coughing spasms.
The tour started at 8:00 am when Bill, our tour guide, picked us up at the campground, and ended at 6:30 pm when he returned us. There were 5 other people on the van - 3 ladies who were together and another couple. I don't think there's anything Bill hasn't done in his probably 60+ years, but his main focus has been as a chemical engineer and a HS science teacher. I think this helped his bias in teaching us all about the extremely abundant geology of the area. Pretty much every rock we passed, he had to point out what it was made of! Of course, he was also very well versed in the history of the area as well.
Being that the tour lasted 10 1/2 hours, I can't possibly cover everything, so I will attempt to just list the highlights.
The main towns that comprise the Black Hills are Custer, Keystone, and Hill City. We drove through all of these areas, with Bill pointing out every landmark. Keystone was probably the biggest touristy area there was. A few photos of the town. Reminds me a bit of Gaitlinburg, TN.
Besides the amazing geology, this area is best known for being the first area of the country where gold was discovered by General Custer. It was the results of this expedition that triggered the great gold rush, which started here and not in CA. South Dakota mined more gold than all the other states combined! Along the tour route, myriad old, long closed mine shafts were pointed out.
Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore, where Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln were carved into the mountain. I thought I would be underwhelmed, having seen so many photos, but it really is pretty awesome seeing it up close and personal. You entered the viewing area through an arch of state flags:
The next part of the journey took us through 2 very interesting and exciting drives. Personally, I'm thrilled that we did this on a tour and not by ourselves, as I would have been scared expletive-less, to say the least. The first part was Iron Mountain Road, which took us through the beginning of the Black Hills, with many, many switchbacks on narrow roads. Below is a photo of one of the sharp turns we had to take to cross a wooden bridge. Mostly the scenery was ponderosa pine trees. Bill taught us how to identify whether a tree was dead by fire or pine beetle.
Along the way, we drove through Sylvan Lake which is a popular wedding location.
After driving on this hair raising road, we came to another one that was even worse - Needles Highway - called this because of the "needles" - rock formations which appear to be like needles. This is a favorite rock climbing area. It also contains a few extremely narrow tunnels. There was one place called "eye of the needle" because it truly looks exactly like that.
We also took a video while driving through the tunnel. Here is a link to it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j6k86bzgmpdsaqw/2016-09-04%20001%202016-09-04%20017.mp4?dl=0
From the Needles Highway, the tour took us to Custer State Park, where we were greeted by a herd of bison, and then some mooching mules (we actually got out to feed them). Both held up traffic as they love to walk in the road.
When we were finally able to move again, we made our way to the State Game Lodge, which was originally President Teddy Roosevelt's "White House" when he was in the state, until it became a restaurant where we had a nice buffet lunch (all we could eat was a tossed salad and mashed potatoes; everything else was or had meat in it).
Later on, before exiting the park, we had a quick potty break in another rustic style bar & grill, with this lovely mosaic outside of the entrance, and these adorable saddle chairs at the bar:
Finally, we were on our way to the last part of our tour - the Crazy Horse Monument, which has been in the process of being built for the last 75 years and there is still no end in sight, at least not within our lifetimes. They've come a long way and still have so far to go. The little statue is what the finished product will look like, and this is what's there so far (his head, arm with pointing finger and horse's mane. It took 10 years to get the "tunnel" you see there.
Sadly, it was raining by then, so the photos didn't come out very well. Of course, the distance photo makes it look insignificant, but you could fit all the presidents' heads of Mt. Rushmore into the space of Crazy Horse's head alone! It's a fascinating story, and how mountains are sculpted into statues is an awesome and amazing feat!
Monday, Sept. 5
The plan was to drive to the halfway point - Faith, SD - and stay the night. By the time we packed up and hitched, it was about 9:00 am. We got to Faith a little before noon. Very interesting place: it was the first "town" (signs of civilization) in our travels from Hermosa. Population 550 and it reminded me of an old west ghost town. It's history is actually a place of cowboys. The streets were very wide and empty. We were going to park in one of the sites in the city park, but there was so much space on the street, that we just put the rig there (across from the park). We decided to have a bite to eat first, and took our urbe-s out and rode around town. We found a cute little bar & grill - Two R's. Very "cowboyish;" even the restrooms were for cowboys and cowgirls! Here is their welcome sign and the main stores in town:
During lunch, we decided that it was still early enough and the town wasn't all that exciting, so we would push ourselves and drive the rest of the way back to Bismarck -- another 180 miles. We were taking a different route than the one we drove down (middle of the state rather than the western side), and hoped it might be a bit different. No, it wasn't! There were no other places to stop along the way, so when we needed to change drivers again after about 100 miles, we had to pull over on the small shoulder. Fortunately, no other cars for miles away so it wasn't a big deal.
We kind of figured since it was Labor Day, everyone would have headed out of the campground and returned to their homes. Oddly enough, this was not the case and the campground was filled to capacity! We lucked out in that someone didn't show up, so we could take their spot until the morning, when we could have our own space back. We only hooked up to electric; it wasn't worth the bother to attach the water and sewer hoses overnight. Besides, the original plan if we stayed in Faith was to boondock anyway, so we were already ahead of the game.
Tuesday, Sept. 6
We woke up relatively early (8:00), made breakfast, and packed up stuff in order to close the slides and move to our spot. We were done and settled in by 11. I spent the day setting up house and Mitch cleaned the truck out. We didn't do anything else too exciting, as we were pretty tired.
Wednesday, Sept. 7
Not really part of the vacation, but I'll post these few sentences here anyway. It was back to work day. I had about 30 emails to action, so it was a long, hard day of catching up. Mitch also went back to work, and learned that tomorrow one of his colleagues is leaving and in 2 weeks, the other one is. They brought in one person, but it will soon be just the 2 of them finishing up the area. I sure hope they can finish before the winter!
Thursday, Sept. 9 to Sunday, Sept. 11
More of the same as Wednesday. Still inundated with work. Thankfully, Mitch helped once again to prepare for Shabbat (including baking the challah) so I could work. Weather has been in the 60s, except Sunday when it was 88. Now back to 60s. Oy!
UPDATE ON MITCH'S DEER PHOTO (http://mitcheryl-rv-journey.blogspot.com/2016/09/vacation-status-day-802-yr-3-day-69.html), here it is if you couldn't find it. And now he thinks it might be a fox and not a baby deer. Who knows, maybe a golden lab?
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