Travel Day – August 11, 2014

After a week since leaving home, we were ready to move on from South Dakota to Wyoming.  Driving west along I90, we were ready for lunch by the time we got to the Powder River Rest Area.

We’ve stopped here at least three times in the past – and it seems as though each time has been hot!

Sure enough, this time it was, too – hot enough that we started the generator in the camper to power the air conditioner and had our lunch in the cool instead of the hot outside.

At the end of the travel day, though, we camped in the kind of campground that we really like – South Fork Campground in Bighorn National Forest.  It’s rustic camping– no hook ups for electricity, water, or waste. You fill your water tank and dump your other tanks (shower and sink drains and sewage) before you get there.

Rules and notices are usually posted near the entrance of campgrounds on public lands.  At this campground, we saw, for the first time this trip, a notice that was to become very familiar in the days and weeks to come.

The campground is along the South Fork Clear Creek at an elevation of 7,800 feet in a dense lodgepole pine forest.

Next stop – deeper into bear country.

Exploring and taking pictures –  Badlands National Park and vicinity, August 11, 2014

After heading back into Badlands National Park from getting ice cream at Wall Drug, we came across a “few” wild animals.

There was a good-sized herd of buffalo (bison) near the road that goes to Wall.  They look mild – and generally are – but, they are wild and can move suddenly and fast, attacking whatever – or whoever – has irritated them.

Just a little further down the road, we took a walk at Roberts Prairie Dog Town wayside out into the prairie, one of the largest in the country. Signs warn against feeding the prairie dogs and to avoid contact with them, as they may carry bubonic plague or other diseases.

We also saw a few more mountain sheep.

Our visit to Badlands was a short one.  It’s an interesting place and this was our third visit, but, for us, a one day visit is enough.  It was time to head west to high elevations.

Exploring and taking pictures –  Badlands National Park and vicinity, August 11, 2014

After Cliff Shelf Trail, we visited a number of view points, turnouts and even a short hike (or two).  I usually take photos of signs associated with places we stop so that I have something to refer to when putting together a post.  It didn’t happen as much at Badlands, for whatever reason, so I’ll share a few of the better images of the Badlands.

Some time after our noon meal, we headed out of the park for the nearby town of Wall, South Dakota, for some ice cream at Wall Drug.

Wall was incorporated as a town in 1908.  It was named for its location near the high wall of the Badlands.  It is best known for Wall Drug Store, which opened as a small pharmacy in 1931 during the Depression, but eventually developed into a large roadside tourist attraction.  Over time it has grown into into a cowboy-themed shopping mall/department store (and tourist trap).

The New York Times has described Wall Drug as “a sprawling tourist attraction of international renown [that] takes in more than $10 million a year and draws some two million annual visitors to a remote town.” (Wikipedia)

Exploring and taking pictures –  Badlands National Park and vicinity, August 11, 2014

The Cliff Shelf Trail is a loop trail that follows boardwalks and climbs stairs through a juniper forest perched along the Badlands Wall.

Thousands of years ago, a massive stone broke away from the cliff above. Geologists believe that it fell with such force that it compacted the underlying layers of soil and other materials, reducing permeability and slowing drainage, retaining moisture and enabling a more lush vegetation.  This type of geological event is called a “slump.”

This is one of two places where we have seen rattlesnakes on a trail.  I wrote about this one in a 2007 blog post called Mommy!… Look at me! The little tyke from the 2007 post is in the little image inset into this photo from the same trail last month.

Badlands vegetation, where there is any, is more typically that of the mixed grass prairie, such as that in this photo.

More Badlands images in the future posts.

Exploring and taking pictures –  Badlands National Park and vicinity, August 11, 2014

The Door Trail, near the east entrance to Badlands National Park, leads to a broken landscape that earned the area its name. Over time, water sliced through the earth in this area, exposing sedimentary rock layers, eroding them into dramatic canyons and spires.

We had gone quite a ways out on this trail on a previous visit.  This time, though we were at the beginning of a day in the park and we didn’t want to burn ourselves out too soon.

We didn’t see any rattlesnakes this trip, but we did last visit, in 2007.  This kind of terrain is prime habitat for rattlers, from what I gather.

The initial part of the trail is handicap accessible.

A ranger guided hike was just heading out into the more remote part of this trail, but we stopped at the end of the walkway this time.

There is a trail out there, believe it or not.  Hikers must pay attention to the metal posts in the rock and other markers that are used.  They also should wear proper footwear and carry an adequate amount of water for the conditions. I’ll probably comment on it again in later posts, but it is absolutely amazing the number of people we see a mile or two away from the trailhead without water and wearing flip-flops.

After Door Trail, we took another short trail from the same parking area and then headed further into the park.  A short while later, we saw more bighorn sheep near where we had seen them the day before.

Photos and exploring western South Dakota, August 10, 2014.

After we got to the campground and got set up, we headed into the nearby Badlands National Park for a little exploring and some photos.

Badlands National Park… in southwestern South Dakota… protects 242,756 acres (98,240 ha) of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest undisturbed mixed grass prairie in the United States. The park is managed by the National Park Service. – Wikipedia

We sure were surprised to see the bighorn sheep in Badlands.  This was our third visit to this park and I think this was the first time we had seen any.

After our inexpensive camping so far in the trip, we had decided to camp near Badlands National Park for two nights at a KOA (Kampgrounds of America.) That was a bit of sticker shock.  It was less than $100, but not much, including our 10% KOA membership discount, but still…

More from Badlands later.

Photos and exploring western South Dakota, August 10, 2014.

That’s right.  That’s the name of a town.  Scenic, South Dakota.

It’s not much of a town.  Perhaps it never was.  These days, it’s almost, but not quite, a ghost town.

We had left the Black Hills behind for a while, headed east to the South Dakota badlands.  It was getting towards lunch time and we had a ways to go before we got to the next campground.  I knew this little town was ahead, off on a side road, and thought we’d be able to find some place to stop so we could fix our lunch, even if it meant eating in the camper – usually when we are traveling, we prefer to eat outside, sort of a picnic along the way.

We didn’t see any place to eat outside, so we parked next to an old, long shuttered, gift shop and ate in the camper before venturing out to look around a bit and snap some pictures.

This old town was along what was probably once one of the east-west travel routes.  There are a lot of these around the country, little places that withered and nearly died after the interstate highway system was built.  These days, most of the traffic through this part of the country travels via Interstate 90, as we did a few days later when we headed to Wyoming.

Scenic is not completely dead.  There are a few homes there and we were able to fuel the camper at a combination filling station and convenience store.

And then we headed down the road to the next town and the RV park where we had reservations.

As I was getting ready to post this, I read that “In August 2011, a Philippines-based church called Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) bought the” town and nearby property, but has done little with it. (Wikipedia)

Photos and exploring western South Dakota, August 9, 2014

Karen needed to get some thread for one of her quilt projects, so we ran into Hot Springs to a quilt shop

We often run across local vintage car shows in our travels.  I’m not interested in old cars other than looking at them and taking pictures.

Sometimes we even come across some that are rigged up as campers – sort of.

We also, on occasion, see true vintage recreational vehicles, like this travel trailer.

Later, we went on one of the Wind Cave tours.  Wind Cave National Park was one of the first National Parks, established by President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century.

We’ve been in quite a few caves over the years.  Wind Cave wasn’t especially remarkable for us.

Caves, normally dark interspersed with artificial light are hard to photograph in a way that shows what the visitor is actually seeing.  Flash photography , like Karen’s picture above, shows much more than what one actually sees.

I try to do as much as I can without using flash.  Unfortunately, this time, my camera battery died before we got in the cave.  I had forgotten to charge it and forgotten to bring along the battery that had a full charge on it.  Double OOPS!

I did have my iphone and took some video and some photos with it, but I’m not particularly happy with what I got from it.

Wind Cave does have some formations, called boxwork, that are somewhat unique to it. Some of the most extensive boxwork deposits in the world are found in Wind Cave.

Boxwork is an uncommon type of mineral structure, or speleogen (similar to a speleothem, but formed by erosion rather than accretion), occasionally found in caves and erosive environments.

Boxwork is commonly composed of thin blades of the mineral calcite that project from cave walls or ceilings that intersect one another at various angles, forming a box-like or honeycomb pattern. The boxwork fins once filled cracks in the rock before the host cave formed. As the walls of the cave began to dissolve away, the more resistant vein and crack fillings did not, or at least dissolved at a slower rate than the surrounding rock, leaving the calcite fins projecting from the cave surfaces.

Until next time.

Near the end of our last trip to this part of the country, in 2010, we stopped at Custer State Park, camping there a couple of nights.  Unfortunately, we arrived during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the world. While we had no desire to to go to Sturgis, one of the very popular activities adversely affected us:

The Black Hills Run is a route favored by motorcycle riders, across the Black Hills from Deadwood to Custer State Park, South Dakota. It reached the height of its popularity between 1939 and 1941. The popularity of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally attracted additional attention to the route in recent years. The pine forested mountains of the Black Hills make for a unique scenic motorcycle ride. (Wikipedia)

There were just to many motorcycles on the roads and many of the places we would have stopped were too crowded for us.

Never again.

Well….

Before our trip, I intended to check when the rally was going to be, but forgot among all the other things that needed to be done.  I even thought about it along the way.

I guess I just rationalized it away, thinking that it had been September of 2010 that we had been stopped.  Therefore, the rally this year was still weeks off.

We started seeing motorcycles heading away from the Black Hills while we were still in Nebraska.  I started to get an uneasy feeling.

Maybe it was already over for his year and these were stragglers….

As we went through Hot Springs, South Dakota, heading for Wind Cave National Park and the campground, we saw quite a few more bikes, but nothing like we saw four years ago.

Well, it turned out that we pretty much nailed our time in the area to match the rally schedule.  Looking back at photos from that trip on a portable hard drive, it turns out our trip in 2010 was earlier in the year than I thought. With the contracting work I had been doing, most of our trips had ended up being in September.  In 2010, it was July and August, with our visit to the black hills falling in the first week of the month – just like this year.

Fortunately, most of the biker activity didn’t penetrate down into Wind Cave National Park.  Also we were able to visit some places early in the day before the bikers got there.

Unless you’re into motorcycles, the first week of August is the wrong time to visit the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The following short video shows some cycles going through a narrow  tunnel on Needles Highway in Custer State Park.

Image credit:

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