Home, Sweet Home

Monday, 9/22/08 – At Home in Green Valley

We left very early, a little before daylight as it turned out, which made the 14 mile drive on the narrow, curvy road exciting. I kept picturing a deer running out into the road and us (me) either driving into the Colorado River or a wall of rocks trying to avoid it. Luckily, there were no animals and not much traffic, so we made it safely into Moab.

We drove 611 miles today and just shy of 4500 for the trip. We arrived in Green Valley a little after 4. Gaining an hour when we got to AZ was a real psychological lift. Everything looks great in our place, although it is fairly dusty. The Miata wouldn’t start, but some jumper cables should fix that. Arthur had called the cable company from the car to get everything started, so we even had internet and TV waiting for us. And we even had a wonderful home-cooked dinner thanks to Arthur, which was a real treat after a month of restaurant food.

Now we look forward to settling in for awhile. Traveling is great, but it is awfully good to be home.

Arches and Canyonlands

Friday, 9/19 – Sunday, 9/21

We had a pretty exciting day today, driving from Price, UT to Moab. We covered less than 150 miles, but about 95 of them were on gravel roads. We began the day headed toward the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. It is about 30 miles outside of Price, in the middle of nowhere. The directions say to go to Elmo and then follow the signs. I don’t know if we can’t follow signs or they can’t post them, but we got lost right away. These roads didn’t even show up on the GPS. Fortunately, a couple of women in a pick-up truck came by and assured us that the road we were on would get us back to where there were signs. We did finally get there, only to find about 6 cars already there – 15 minutes before it was due to open. As it turned out, a 4th grade class from a Lutheran school in Salt Lake City was there on a field trip. A crowd in the middle of nowhere, and I mean nowhere! It made us feel a little better when the teacher, who had been there 10 or 12 times, said her group got lost trying to find it, too.

Anyway, it was a very cool place. They have found thousands of dinosaur bones in a 3-foot deep layer of earth. They have found no skeletons still intact, but all of the bones are very well preserved. Most of the bones are from carnivorous dinosaurs, which they said is very unusual. They can’t figure out why so many were in this particular place and why the bones were in such good shape, but all jumbled up. They have a small museum and also one shed open to the public that has replicas of the bones placed exactly where the real bones were found. There were some really huge bones found there.

We then headed south toward the Wedge Overlook over the Little Grand Canyon created in the San Raphael Swell. This was a better marked drive, but also on gravel roads. The Wedge Overlook was an amazing view of a canyon that did look very much like a smaller Grand Canyon. It is a thousand feet deep (as opposed to over 5000 in the real GC), but has much of the same beautiful sandstone cliffs and coloring found in the Grand Canyon. Next we drove to the Buckhorn Wash Road that goes right through the canyon – how great is that?! You don’t even have to hike into and out of it. The best parts of the drive were that there were hardly any other cars there (we saw maybe 3 on the whole drive) and the amazing pictographs on a canyon wall made by the Barrier Canyon people over 2000 years ago. They are beautiful and unlike any we have ever seen. They are larger than life and painted on the rock in bright reds and yellows, and occasionally blues and greens. The figures are larger and far more intricate and detailed than any of the other pictographs or petroglyphs (carvings in the desert varnish on the rocks) that we have seen.

After completing the drive through the Wash, we finally arrived at Interstate 70 to head east toward Green River. We got on at what has to be the most amazing scenery on an interstate in the country. The road went down through Spotted Wolf Canyon, a very steep and gorgeous area. I guess it was one of the last sections of interstate completed due to the difficulty of getting through this section.

We stopped in Green River to see the John Wesley Powell Museum. Powell was the first to navigate the Green River and into the Colorado all the way to the Gulf of California. They have a great orientation movie about the journey. The museum was small, but well done.

The final leg of the day’s journey was on to Moab. I did a great job of booking a room at the Red Cliff Lodge outside of Moab. The Lodge is beautifully set on the banks of the Colorado River among the red cliffs of the canyon. Our room was very large with a nice sitting area and a patio that looks over the river. The downside, as it turned out, is that the Lodge is 14 miles outside of Moab -14 miles on a narrow, two lane road that follows the Colorado River through its canyon. At the end of a long day of driving it seemed like a very long drive. And on Saturday a.m. as we drove back down this road toward town, there were hundreds of bicyclers participating in the Moab Century Race, which made for an even more exciting drive.

The food there was very good and reasonably priced compared to the lodges in the National Parks (sky high, we thought). We had three excellent dinners there, including Arthur’s elk medallions. And this place is a winery, too. We liked the merlot (yes, in spite of Sideways) and one of the red table wines, but the whites were way too sweet.

When we arrived on Friday, there were several fancy cars (Porsche, Maserati, BMW) with signs on that said Peak to Peak Rally. They left on Saturday, and then about ten old Jaguars arrived. They were having their own rally. I guess Moab is a road rally kind of place. There were also bunches of Range Rovers traveling around in packs, including one strange truck-like vehicle unlike any Arthur had ever seen.

The scenery around this area, with its radiant red rocks and major geological upheavals, is amazing. We visited Arches National Park on Saturday and Canyonlands on Sunday. Arches was really crowded, and there were plenty of folks at Canyonlands, too, especially considering how remote most of the park is. We have been studying all of the geological information at the Visitors Centers trying to get the different strata of rocks straight in our heads. It is mind boggling, but we (Arthur especially) are making a little progress. How long we will remember any of it is the question.

We can’t get over the number of Europeans here. We have been at lots of stops in this area when we heard far more German being spoken than English. And the number of rented RV’s is almost scary – Cruiseamerica, which we have seen in the past, plus RoadbearRV and El Monte. We think only Europeans could afford rental RV’s these days. I had heard some shopkeepers in Cody, WY saying that Yellowstone had 30,000 more visitors this year than last, but attendance at the Museum in Cody was down. After spending a couple of weeks in the Parks, it occurs to me that the increase is due to foreign visitors who are probably less likely to visit a museum of American history.

Arthur has developed what we call the “Dorothy” syndrome: i.e., “There’s no place like home.” Fortunately, we go home tomorrow. We have been on the road more than 3 weeks, and in some ways, it seems longer (I have forgotten what our regular life is like). We have seen and learned a lot. I have been surprised that living out of a suitcase has not been a big issue for me. I think, however, that the pace of touring and sightseeing has had its impact. We are both fairly worn out. And I have really missed my regular exercise.

On to Utah

Wednesday, 9/17

We left Grand Tetons after another early morning of wildlife viewing. We saw a moose cow with calf and also another moose come through the parking lot before climbing down to the Willow Flats wilderness area. There were lots of trumpeting elk bulls and not many females in sight (not sure which causes which?!).

We opted to skip another night in Jackson and head to Logan, Utah. The drive was beautiful. We first followed the Snake River south through its Grand Canyon, which was very pretty, although not much like THE Grand Canyon. At Alpine, WY we stopped at the Yankee Doodle Café (attached to the Red, White and Brew) for a late breakfast. Everything in the place was red, white and blue, and they served only American Toast (none of the French stuff…). I was a little worried about this choice given the “Obama ‘08” bumper sticker on our car, but all was OK. The next part of the drive was through the Star Valley, a broad, beautiful agricultural valley where more hay was being harvested than we had ever seen. It must be a big dairy area, because we did see lots of cows and a cheese co-operative.

We went into Idaho, a first for both Arthur and me. We stopped at the Oregon/California Trail Museum in Montpelier, ID, which didn’t have much, but it did make us think of those pioneers who went through here. In St. Charles, ID we saw a sign commemorating the birthplace of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore, which we had just visited (was that really part of this trip?!).

After driving along Bear Lake, we headed up through Logan Canyon, which turned out to be another beautiful drive with views back over the Lake and then very high canyon walls on each side of the road. There are lots of deciduous trees scattered throughout the canyon, many of which are starting to turn. There were some absolutely gorgeous red/orange trees and bushes at their prime; many yellows were also coming out. Some of the aspen trees at the Grant Tetons had begun to turn, and we have continued to see patches of these all day on the drive.

Once in Logan, we made a short drive through the campus of Utah Sate University. We have heard from friends in AZ that the University has a summer program for retirees who want to get out of the heat. They offer campus apartments for rent and short-term classes. We also stopped at the Visitor Center in the recently remodeled old Court House and had a nice visit with the volunteer manning the office. We strolled through the downtown, which is in very good shape – two book stores, two bike stores, a fabric store and numerous clothing stores. All of this in spite of a mall on the outskirts of town.

On the recommendation of the volunteer at the visitor center, we had dinner at La Nonne, a delightful Italian restaurant in a remodeled old house. We sat on the patio and had a delicious dinner.

Thursday, 9/18 –

At breakfast at the hotel Arthur spotted a young man with an unusual T-shirt. It looked very broken in and originally said Cleveland Browns. That had been crossed out with a magic marker and Pittsburgh Steelers written in the same magic marker in its place. Arthur asked the young man the story of the shirt. He said it was his friend’s favorite shirt, and he had borrowed it and had not given it back. He was not sure of its history with the friend, but since he has it now, he is wearing it on his drive across the country and having his picture taken in it at all of the major tourist spots and then sending them to his friend. Pretty funny.

After breakfast, we headed south to Price, UT to the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum. We had a guided tour of the Museum by Manon, a freshman at the college who came from Massachusetts to study dinosaurs. She really loves them! Half of the museum tells the story of Utah’s rich dinosaur history. They have found thousand of bones in this area. The other half of the museum is about the people who have lived in this area, especially the Fremont people who were in most of Utah at about the same time as the Ancestral Puebloans (a.k.a. Anasazi) in Mesa Verde. Arthur and I both decided we would have learned more by reading the information in the exhibit, as Manon is still very new at her job. She was, however, very enthusiastic.

We had also hoped to go to the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry south of Price, on Thursday, but it is only open Friday – Sunday, so we have to head that way tomorrow, en route to Moab. While in Price, we have also learned about the San Rafael Swell, which we will drive through tomorrow. There are supposed to be beautiful views and pictographs unlike any we have ever seen before.

Jackson WY and Grand Teton National Park

Sunday, 9/14 – Yellowstone to Jackson

We left the Lake Hotel on a cold, frosty morning with Yellowstone Lake covered in fog. We stopped to see the display about forest fires in Yellowstone at the Grant Village Visitor Center, which was very informative (lodge pole pines have two different kinds of pine cones, one that opens regularly and one that only opens when temperatures reach 113 degrees – who knew?!).

The drive through Grand Teton National Park was as amazing as I had expected – the mountains and surrounding area are almost too beautiful to be real. We arrived in Jackson in time for lunch and a stroll around the local art fair in the historic district. A major highlight was having internet and cell phone access again at the motel– Arthur only had 185 e-mails, which was a bit of a relief.

Jackson turned out not to be our favorite place (even without a Dick Cheney sighting). We think it is expensive, crowded and feels a little closed in with the mountains all around. We were able to find a good Mexican restaurant for dinner within walking distance of our Elk Country Inn with the help of the internet.

Monday, 9/15 – Jackson, WY to Jackson Lake Lodge

We stopped at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson as we headed north to Grand Teton National Park. They currently have a Robert Bateman retrospective that was great, of course. All of the wildlife sculptures on permanent display were amazing, as was the building itself.

The Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center at the south end of the Park had a really cool computer animation of the geological history of the Park. We have always said that we need to be able to see what happened over billions of years to even start to understand geology, and this animation took us through all those billions of years of change. The other displays at the center were also very good. And, once again, the building itself (and its setting) is a must-see. After a late lunch at Signal Hill (only average food but outstanding views), we just missed seeing a grizzly bear cross the highway. The rangers were at the turnout with their bear spray in hand.

We love Jackson Lake Lodge – thanks to all of you who recommended our staying here. It is gorgeous and has first class wildlife viewing. We had dinner on the terrace and saw lots of elk and three moose (our first of the trip!). Spotting the animals is a real group effort, with everyone pointing them out to each other. We had so much fun that we are going to cancel our 6:45 p.m. reservations in the nice restaurant tomorrow night in order not to miss prime viewing time. In addition to the wildlife, I spotted some very good friends of my parents from my hometown. Small world.

Tuesday, 9/16 – We saw a Grizzly!

What a day this has been. We were up at 6:00 a.m. for breakfast and early morning wildlife viewing. We saw huge a huge elk herd, 3 more moose (maybe the same ones), and I saw my first white pelicans. It was cold out at that early hour – about 35 degrees. After a call about work (I had heard nothing in 6 months, but once I go on vacation….), we drove up Signal Mountain. The views of Jackson Hole were great, and we saw 5 very pretty grouse in the middle of the road and more pronghorns in the fields below us.

We spent the afternoon floating down the Snake River on a “scenic” raft trip (i.e., no white water). It was a beautiful day – warmed up to the mid 70’s – and the raft ride was wonderful. Our guide pointed out all of the major changes in the river from annual spring flooding. The only wildlife we saw were two bald eagles sitting in trees right along the river, an osprey, various ducks, and a couple of beaver lodges (but no beaver).

Upon our return to the hotel, we rested, checked e-mail (the web is very slow here because Microsoft is having a meeting and they are all on their computers constantly) and got cleaned up. We arrived at the wildlife viewing deck about 6:30 just in time to watch a huge grizzly bear making his way across the field behind the hotel. It was perfect – close enough for great viewing, but no chance of being mauled (see Arthur's picture of it on the Picassa site). I had not come here with any idea of seeing a bear, but everyone around us has been talking about it non-stop (it is a real “score” to see one). So, I had become interested in the possibility, and we got really lucky. Now we can go home. Actually, we do leave for Utah tomorrow. We decided we had seen all of Jackson that we needed to see, so instead of going back there as originally scheduled, we are heading into Utah a couple of days early.

At Yellowstone

Monday 9/8 – Cody to Mammoth Hot Springs

We woke up to a beautiful clear, blue sky – finally - and to the promise of temperatures in the 70’s. We headed out early on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway toward the NE entrance of Yellowstone. The scenery along the Chief Joseph Highway was spectacular, especially at Dead Indian Pass. New snow had fallen the night before at high elevations, which made the mountain scenery picture-perfect.

At the end of Chief Joseph Highway, we took a detour up to Beartooth Pass. Charles Kuralt called the Beartooth Highway America’s most scenic drive, so we had to see it. The highway goes all of the way to Red Lodge, MT, which would have added 3-4 hours to our trip. When we were in Cody we asked our clothing salesman/tour guide about the route, and he said the WY side (the pass is on the border between WY and MT) is the prettiest part of the drive and the least “cliffy”. That convinced us to drive just to the summit on the border and turn around, thereby saving ourselves a couple of hours and miles of terror.

The drive was gorgeous. The Pass is a tad shy of 11,000 feet in elevation, the highest paved road in WY and MT. There was quite a bit of snow at the top and it was cold - only 38 degrees. There were several mountain lakes along the way and the whole Absaroka Mountain range in the distance. And not very cliffy at all! Arthur drove all of the way up, and I drove down without too much wear and tear on either of us.

We thoroughly enjoyed the drive from the NE entrance of Yellowstone across the La Mar Valley on our way to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. On the drive we saw several herds of buffalo and a few deer.

After checking into the hotel, we strolled around Mammoth and up onto the travertine terraces created by the hot springs. We saw the brightest blue bluebirds I have ever seen (they might be mountain bluebirds, but we don’t have our book with us). We also watched the elk that gather in town in the fall for rutting season (we still aren’t sure why they choose this location?!). There were many females and their young. A very large, trumpeting bull showed up just before dark. Signs all over town warn against getting too close to the elk, especially at this time of year. At the Visitor’s Center, we watched video clips that made us believers - bulls chasing people and ramming cars.

Tuesday, 9/9 - Aarriving at Old Faithful

Another warm, sunny day in the low 70’s – perfect. We drove around the Upper Terraces of the Mammoth Hot Springs and attended a Ranger talk about the terraces (a little disappointing – not much information) before heading south toward Old Faithful. En route, we spent a couple of hours walking the Back Basin and Porcelain Basin trails at the Norris Geyser Basin. The colors in the bubbling springs are unbelievable – vivid blues, emerald greens, bright yellows and rusty reds.

We arrived at the Snow Lodge at Old Faithful, our home for the next three nights, in time to see Old Faithful erupt. Before today I hadn’t appreciated how wonderful it is that Old Faithful erupts regularly and predictably every day (about every 90 minutes). It is a lot more fun to see a geyser in action! We viewed the eruption from rocking chairs on the porch at the Old Faithful Lodge (not to be confused with the Old Faithful Inn) while drinking an Old Faithful Ale and visiting with a retired couple from upstate New York who is working for 2 months at the ice cream stand at Mammoth to support their Yellowstone travel habit.

I have been meaning to comment on the demographics of our fellow travelers. As I expected, most of the folks on the road after Labor Day are your basic AARP crowd. (I have come to think of it as the “migraytion”). I have always said that to feel younger, one should hang out with an older crowd. Well, today that strategy was confirmed. As we came across a couple we had previously spoken with on a trail, they said “here are the youngsters”! That made my day. Mixed in with the geezers (as opposed to geysers…) are lots of foreign tourists (especially German, French, Japanese) and two other smaller, but persistent groups: the “home schooling” families (uh, right) and the bikers (hello-o-o, Sturgis was in August). Overall, I would say that the Park is full but not overflowing. There does seem to be a post-Labor Day shortage of staff, and those who are still here are being worked very hard. Much of the seasonal labor here is made up of students from all over the world.

Wednesday, 9/10 – Thursday, 9/11 – Two days and Two Spectacular Geysers!

On Wednesday, we joined a Park Ranger for a tour of Geyser Circle at Old Faithful. It was very exciting as he received word over his radio that Beehive Geyser (this Ranger’s “favorite geyser”) was getting ready to erupt. We hurried over and were there, up close and personal, to witness the eruption. It was very high and powerful and probably lasted for 5 minutes or so (Old Faithful goes off more often, but only 2-4 minutes).

Arthur announced today that he found the total absence of cell phone coverage, Internet access and TV in the Park “disturbing”! Fortunately, he did find a USA Today which seems to have relieved his anxiety somewhat. I am not missing the outside world. Verizon seems to be the only carrier that is commonly found in the park – AT&T is totally useless.

On Thursday morning, we drove around Firehole Lake Circle and stopped by several more geyser basins. We saw a couple more bison herds (I have now learned they are bison, not buffalo), osprey, a bald eagle and a coyote (and, of course, many ground squirrels). After lunch at the historic lunch counter in the General Store at Old Faithful, we walked the Upper Basin Loop and were fortunate to come across Castle Geyser as it was erupting. The eruption lasted 20 to 30 minutes and then roaring blasts of steam continued for another 20 minutes. It was fantastic. It is clear that Old Faithful’s claim to fame is due only to its regularity and predictability. Castle and Beehive only erupt twice per day and the time can be plus or minus 2 hours from the predicted time.

It is easy to get hooked on “chasing” and watching geysers – they are mesmerizing. There actually is a group of what we call “geezer geyser guys”. They are volunteers (mostly retired males) who track the eruptions of 10 -15 geysers around the Park and report the actual eruption times to the Rangers. The Rangers then post the next predicted eruption time in the Visitor Center for all geyser chasers.

After the excitement of Castle Geyser, we felt we needed to sample some of the world famous Yellowstone ice cream. We both had Buffalo Chip, which tasted a lot better than it sounds.

Friday, 9/12 – Saturday, 9/13 The Lake and The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Another picture-perfect blue sky day. We departed the Old Faithful area, drove to Yellowstone Lake and decided to “do” the Canyon. Wow! I had read a Smithsonian magazine article about 20 places to visit before you die, and they included the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. I was glad to think that we would be seeing them, but didn’t expect a lot. I was wrong. We took the Uncle Tom’s Trail down to observe the Falls near the bottom of the Canyon (including 300 plus very steep stairs). We were blown away – the Falls are tremendously powerful (over 37,000 gallons of water per second pouring over them) creating huge amounts of spray with a rainbow as they hit the Canyon floor. They were mesmerizing, much like the geysers, creating beautiful patterns in the water as it fell. Fortunately, the trek back up wasn’t as horrible as we thought it would be.

We took the highly acclaimed Photo Safari from the Lake Hotel with Doug at 6:15 a.m. on Saturday. It was COLD (35 degrees), but not as cold as the day before, according to Doug (thank heavens for small blessings…..). He is a talented photographer and teacher as well as a naturalist full of Yellowstone wildlife stories. We saw two bald eagles, two sand cranes (thanks to Arthur’s good spotting), and many bison, plus Arthur learned (and/or was reminded of) several very useful photo techniques and features of his camera.

We met a nice couple from Knoxville TN on the Safari, Wayne and Kathy, and invited them to join us for dinner. We had reservations at the Lake Hotel at 5:00 p.m., all that was available when I called 3 weeks ago. They were happy to join us as they had not been able to get in at all. We had a lovely dinner and enjoyed their company very much.

Speaking of food, I need to chronicle our wild animal tastings. We had Buffalo Stew in the Badlands (not good, though not the fault of the buffalo); Arthur had a Buffalo steak at Mammoth that he deemed pretty good (I had pecan encrusted trout that may be the best meal of the trip for me); we both had Buffalo Short Ribs at the Snow Lodge that were delicious; and a Buffalo burger at the Lake Hotel was also very tasty.

Yellowstone Trip- Cody, WY

Saturday, Sunday 9/6-9/7 – The weather has been cold (40’s and 50’s for highs) with intermittent rain. That has not been a big problem in Cody because we are here primarily to see the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, which is an indoor museum (or I should say, 5 museums). The Center is better than we expected. One museum is about Buffalo Bill’s life, and quite a life it was. The Plains Indian Museum is one of the best curated I have seen (perhaps the American Indian Museum in D.C. should have visited this one). Both the Natural History Museum and Western Art Gallery were outstanding, and someone interested in guns would have a field day in the Firearms Museum (not my favorite). The admission’s pass is good for 2 days, which is key because it would be very difficult to see it all in one day.

As we strolled through downtown Cody, we stopped into a clothing store to shop for some warm clothes for me (that would be Jane - what was I thinking? Of course, my primary packing for this trip was done last May when we left AZ, and the current weather in WY is below average). Not only did I find the perfect wool socks, but our salesperson was a frustrated tour guide. He gave us great recommendations about things to do in Cody and on touring Yellowstone.

One of the recommendations was to visit the Tecumseh Trading Post with its diorama of the West. Since it is free, we decided to give it a try. It was great! A guy from Pennsylvania has been creating this display for most of his 66 years. It is about 30’ x 75’ and full of miniature cowboys, Indians, soldiers, buffalo, horses, cattle, buildings, trains – you name it. Around the edges of the room, were his collection of western and Indian artifacts, which rivaled the Historical Center. I have never seen so many arrowheads and other primitive tools in one place. He and his wife moved all of this stuff from Pennsylvania 12 years ago! Amazing.

Our hotel here, The Cody, is very nice. It is new, and we were able to get a low introductory rate. It might not have been the greatest idea, however, since we are getting pretty spoiled just before heading into far more rustic accommodations in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone Trip 2008: 9/2 -9/5

Tuesday, 9/2 (after visiting Kate in Richmond and Jane’s mother in C-U): Champaign to No. Sioux City, South Dakota. We visited the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Sioux City IA and learned that Sergeant Floyd, the only member of the Corps of Discovery who died during the expedition, was buried in Sioux City; had a lovely dinner at Bev’s by the River watching the Missouri River flow by, amazed by the strength of the current (and Lewis & Clark rowed up that river).

Wednesday, 9/3 We have been in corn country for days. We crossed Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and the fertile part of South Dakota. Everywhere corn, corn, more corn and lots of beans. Enough already. In spite of the overdose of corn, we stopped in Mitchell, SD to see the Corn Palace. It was very cool. They were in the process of removing the cobs from the 2008 decoration in preparation for the 2009 design. They change the design most years, and it costs $130,000 to put up the new one.

Arthur spotted 4 white pelicans flying over the fields as we drove along route 90. We had just read that the Corps of Discovery had come across hundreds of them along the River here. We also saw our first buffalo herd.

We stopped to tour the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center in Chamberlain, S.D. It was a wonderful, small museum about the Lakota Indians who, we learned, are more commonly referred to as the Sioux (named by the early French and English).

By mid-afternoon, we arrived in the Badlands. They remind us of the Painted Desert in AZ, but even more dramatic. We stayed in the Badlands Inn and were treated to a gorgeous view of the ridge of Badlands turning white in front of a cloudbank n the late afternoon light.

Thursday, 9/4 – Long day, but we did see a lot. We left our hotel at 7:00 a.m. and did the Badlands Loop drive up to Wall, S.D. Interestingly enough, the only time we have had decent cell phone signal was in the middle of the Badlands, and I got a call about work - what timing! On the drive we saw Pronghorn antelope and extensive prairie dog towns. After a mediocre breakfast at the world famous Wall Drug store, we headed to Mt. Rushmore.

I (Jane) have been less enthusiastic about the whole Mt. Rushmore thing after reading a biography of Crazy Horse recently. First we lied and broke all of our promises and treaties with the plains Indians and then we carved the heads of white men (some who contributed to their being driven from the land) into their sacred land. In spite of that, it is an impressive undertaking, and the sculptures are much better art than I expected. The way Borglum sculpted the eyes makes them all seem very intense and real. We saw a mountain goat up close there that was really cool. After leaving Mt. Rushmore, we drove down the Needles highway through narrow tunnels and even narrower passages between the rocks. It was a pretty drive, but an awful lot of switchbacks and very slow going. Next was the wildlife loop through Custer State Park and our first Buffalo “blockade” – buffalo just standing in the road, with cars backed up watching and waiting. We also saw lots of Pronghorn antelopes, wild turkey, deer and more prairie dogs.

After all of that, we decided to skip the evening light show at Mt. Rushmore. We were very tired, and it was also cold and a bit rainy.

Friday, 9/5. We had another long day of driving, from Keystone, SD to Cody WY with a tour of the Crazy Horse Monument on the way. The whole Crazy Horse carving thing is a little bizarre – it is huge, and will take many generations to complete. I need to learn more about it, as it seems like what may have been started by the Indians has turned into more of a monument to the sculptor and his family. In addition to the carving, there is a large museum and cultural center dedicated to the American Indian, but it is all a little chaotic. We came across some pretty scenery at the beginning of the day and then again as we left the interstate in Buffalo WY to head toward Cody, but the rest of WY is pretty stark.