September 15 Still on the Plains

Today we left South Dakota and entered into Minnesota.  Can’t say there is much change in the scenery.  I think maybe they grow more corn here.  We stopped in Sioux Falls for gas and checked out the local Cabella’s store.  A virtual Disneyland of a store for hunters and fishers.  More camo gear than you could possibly need. Aquariums like you would see at a real Aquarium stocked with game fish, walleye, bass, trout a dozen more fresh water game fish I had never heard of.  A hundred stuffed game animals to help you identify what the animal looks like that you are setting out to kill, set in a natural diorama setting.  A then of course, the 100 or so mounted heads on the wall, to give you an idea how that moose head would look mounted in the family room.  I am not against hunting or fishing, but somehow I find stores like these to be a tad excessive.

Along I-90 there is not a lot to see but occasionally you come across an attraction to break up the day.  I mentioned the Corn Palace, there is also the Tractor Museum, the Pioneer Village, the 60foot Jolly Green Giant, a  metal sculpture of a very large cow with horns,  the Spam Museum, and Jelly Stone RV park with Yogi Bear.  Because of time constraints we had to miss most of these attractions, although we could smell the Spam Museum as it was located in the Hormel Plant, but we did stay at Jelly Stone Park as they had an “Overnight Special” which encouraged us to stop. Yogi and BooBoo were unfortunately out of town. Tomorrow we will continue to head east on I-90 into Wisconsin where we anticipate meeting a large cheese.

Sept 14 Across the Great Plains (again)

Bad Lands of South Dakota

We left the Black Hills headed east on Interstate 90.  Soon we went through Rapid City and out on to the  grasslands.  About every half mile or so were outdoor advertising signs for Wall Drug Store.  Come stop at Wall Drugs for breakfast, clothes, gifts, shoes, ice cream, etc., etc,.  This went on for 30 miles or so, building to a crescendo that compelled us to stop and at least have a cup of coffee.  We stopped at the town of Wall.  After driving a couple of blocks we came to main street which is two blocks long, one side of the street was the Wall Drug Store.  It comprised the whole block and turned out to be a warren of gaudy gift shops and tourist trap stores all under one roof. One the other side of the street was more of the same, but independent shops.  The entire business district of this town, in the middle of nowhere, was turned into a tourist trap selling the same souvenirs, jewelry  and t-shirts found all over this region. One thing these South Dakotans seem to be expert at is self promotion.  That is what got Mt Rushmore to the Black Hills and a bunch of ignorant tourists to stop at Wall South Dakota.

From Wall we took the Bad Lands Bypass to check out the bad lands.  The Dakota Badlands reminds me of the Grand Canyon in miniature .  Dry, desolate hills eroded by time, wind and water.  No river running through it, but ridge upon ridge of dry desiccated hills.  The unusual part was the road took you down into narrow gullies and you wound around the miniature hills and mesas and scrubby grasslands.  Again another example of South Dakotans taking a god forsaken piece of land that not even a jack rabbit could live in and turning it into a tourist attraction.  Tonight we are staying outside the town of Mitchell, which is the home of the world famous castle made of corn.  I can hardly wait.

Bad Lands!

Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore

The Model and the Mountain

Hail to the Chiefs!

The two big attractions in this part of the country are the giant size statues of Crazy Horse the presidents at Mt Rushmore. Mt Rushmore was started in 1927 as an attraction to bring more people to the Black Hills. It was finally completed in 1941. President Coolidge originally wanted George Washington, two republicans and one democratic president to be depicted. There was even discussion about including Susan B. Anthony. Eventually the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, choose Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt as best representing 150 of presidential history. Also at the site is a large archway and avenue of flags from every state, and a huge outdoor amphitheater. Built into these structures are museums, exhibit halls, gift shop, and restaurants. There are two multi-story parking garages that can handle 100s of cars. There is only a two lane road up to the site, I imagine it much get pretty crowded during the season.


Crazy Horse has been under construction for 62 years and was the dream of sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski who started the sculpture in 1948 and who’s family has been working on it ever since. He was originally asked by the Lakota Chiefs to build the edifice to show the white man that the Indians had great leaders as well. I always thought that he must have been financed by the Indians or the state government to pursue this project, but not so, this colossal statue is a totally private funded project. Ziolkowski had to buy the land and all the equipment from his own funds and what donations he could muster. He even started a diary and a lumber mill, using the timber on the lands that he was able to buy to generate income for the project. During the course of the project he and his wife had 10 children, who carry on with the statue building today. The Crazy Horse statue is going to be five times larger than the Mt Rushmore faces, it will be taller than the Washington Monument. Right now only the face is complete. They are working on the horse’s head, but it will not be done for many years. Crazy Horse too has a huge visitor center, museum, movie theater, sculptor studio, and Indian craft shop. There are plans for and Indian university, medical school and cultural center, but those are not in evidence at this time. We heard that some of the modern day Lakotas are asking why are these white men blowing up one of their sacred mountains to build a colossal likeness of an Indian Chief who didn’t even want to be photographed when he was alive.

Black Hills Country September 12 – 13

The Quilt says it all

Patsy and Dede in Deadwood

We’re in the Black Hills a pleasant respite from the Great Plains. Pine forested hills with rocky out croppings and cliff faces. Clear streams and mountain lakes. This is the land that Custer prospected for gold and that Congress stole from the Lakota. We entered at Spearfish and took the scenic drive to Deadwood.


All of you who watch HBO and followed the Deadwood series know what went on here, besides the vulgarities, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane met their demise here in 1876. It was a gold mining town and as usually happens the gold ran out and the town has to figure out some other way to survive. Actually Deadwood looks to be pretty prosperous compared to say Virginia City. Its main street is mostly stone and brick buildings which look to have been well maintained. Of course they are all bars/casinos, t-shirt shops, ice cream parlors or restaurants. Just about every popular TV or movie cowboy/girl has a bar here, Miss Kitty, Butch Cassidy and Sun Dance kid, they are all here. There are tours to Boot Hill where we can pay our respects to Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. We indulged in two giant ice cream cones which we thought better of about half way through eating them.

We moved on south to Hill City where they were having a quilt show. The quilts were displayed all along Main St for about four blocks. We decided to stay in a nice RV park near town and reviewed the quilter’s handiwork.

Glacier to Devil’s Tower Monument Sept 7-10

The Indian Memorial at Little Big Horn

Home on the Range

The Aliens are coming!

These have mostly been traveling days across the great plains of Montana.  Once we left the Rocky Mountains of Glacier, we immediately arrived at big skies, rolling grasslands, and emptiness.  Straight two lane highway as far as the next horizon.  A good portion of this land is Indian reservation, mostly untouched, with a few hay farms scattered along the highway.  Big rounds of hay sitting in the fields awaiting to be collected after they have dried out I suppose.  Most of the towns are in unexpected valleys along the rivers.  One drives along for miles on these high plateaus then to suddenly descend into a narrow valley into small town, protected somewhat from the wind that I’m sure blows hard most of the time.  There are exceptions of towns and cities out in  the open on the high plains, but I don’t think they would be very pleasant to live in.  One example  is Judith’s Gap, high on a hill surrounded by wind farms a hundred miles from anywhere, a town of maybe 200 souls.  I think only the main street of town was paved, the houses small and dreary, fighting against the heat in the summer and the frigid cold in the winter, and constant wind across the plains.  I met a girl in college from Judith’s Gap, I don’t remember her name but I do remember how happy she was to no longer be living in Judith’ Gap.

We spent a couple of days in Great Falls, a pretty good sized town with every fast food and restaurant  franchise in the world.  It also sports more casinos than you can shake a stick at.  If you have a video poker game you’re a casino.  Our main purpose in Great Falls was to provision.  Bobby, bless her heart, figured out how to get our mail to us via overnight UPS.  I had the truck serviced and went to the RV store to buy some parts that had broken or fallen off along the way.  We went to Walmart, a store I detest, but hey, they got a lot of stuff, and sometimes you just gotta do it.  For culture, we visited the Louis and Clark Information Center and learned all about their journey from St Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River and back.  It turned out that the falls on Missouri river were not so great but that there were five sets of rapids that caused L&C to portage 18 miles around them.  The is where the city of Great Falls is today.

After getting all our stuff together we travelled on east.  After driving for ever on the high plains we came to Billings Montana, a big city, nestled far below us as we approached from the north west.  A huge modern city in bottom of this unexpected hole in the plains.  We went on and stayed in a little town of Hardin.  Nothing special about Hardin, but it is near the Little Big Horn.

Next morning we went to the Battlefield of the Little Big Horn, where Sitting Bull won the battle against Custer, but eventually lost the war.  It is now a national cemetery, with military graves from the Indian wars through to Korea.  On the actual battle field they have marked where the individuals soldiers died.  On an adjacent field there is a monument to the Indian tribes who fought in the various Indian Wars.  I thought it was impressive that the monument represented and paid respect to all sides of the conflict, although it was originally dedicated to the US soldiers exclusively.

Today we have arrived at the Devil’s Tower Nat’l Monument.  A very peaceful place, where we are awaiting a close encounter of the 3^rd kind.  This tall monolith of rock is very surreal to be near as it has an “other worldly” ambience surrounding it.   It is a solid rock with vertical columns that span over 800 feet up the sides.  The Indians believe that a giant bear shredded the monolith trying to attack seven little Indian girls, who eventually turned into the stars that make up the Big Bear and Little Bear constellations.

Oh if I were but 40 years younger, this is a rock climbers Mecca.  I spent quite some time watching the climbers through binoculars making their moves up the near vertical columns.   More than 5000 climbers a year come here to climb this challenging rock.  I am afraid that if I signed up with a guide my mind would be writing a check that my body couldn’t cash.     

  

Glacier Park Montana Sept3 -6

Pats spans the divide

"Jammer" Touring Car

We fled Lake Louise before the Labor Day crowd arrived, and pushed on south not knowing how long it would take to get to the border. We drove south on a secondary highway (22) avoiding Calgary and the major traffic we would expect on a major freeway.  Much to our surprise we covered the 220 miles to the border in about 5 hours and decided to drive on in to Glacier at Saint Mary.

  We crossed into Montana at Big Chief border crossing, a little used border station on the top of a mountain pass.  We were the only car there at the time.  The border guard asked us if we had any thing to declare and we said "No"  He asked us if we had any citrus fruit and we said we had a lime in the fridge.  He asked us for the keys to the trailer to do a search.  He emerged with our lime that had one section cut out of it and said we were free to proceed.  I hope that lime worked out for him when he made Margaritas that evening.

We stayed in a Glacier Park campground that was full of ripe huckleberries.  We were told by the rangers that huckleberries are a bears favorite food and that this time of year is when the bears are especially fond of them.  That made us feel real safe in the middle of the night or in the morning, expecting to fine a grizzly bear just out side our door.We did see bears four different times, but thankfully not in our camp.

Glacier is 100 years old as a national park this year.  Over 2.2million visitors have arrived this season, the place was pretty busy.  It is a park of rugged beauty, with massive peaks and lots of blue lakes.  It was developed by the Great Northern Railroad as were the Canadian parks by the Canadian Railways.
The railroad barons built these wonderful old hotels out of native trees and stone and they still operate today.  Glacier has 5 of them at various places around the park.  When guests arrived by train they needed away to get around the park to see the sights.  The park had special red limousines called jammers that could carry 30 or so people.  They were convertibles with a canvas roof that could be retracted so the passengers could look up at the mountains through the roof of the vehicle.  Lap blankets were provided to keep warm.  One hundred of these 1930 vintage limos were built.  Some years ago, Ford Motors refurbished these limos for free, with the understanding that they were to continue to be used in the park and that they sport the "FORD" emblem on the rear trunk.  With modern engines and transmissions they no longer are called "jammers" which was derived from the sound they made when the drivers tried to jam the car into gear while going up and down the steep mountain passes.

Along with the old hotels, and cars, there is a fleet of wooden launches built in the 20s that still ply the lakes for the tourist trade.  They too have been meticulously cared for. 

We didn't see as much wild life as we a had hoped.  We saw bears eating the huckleberries, some mountain goats way high on the slopes, but no moose or elk which we expected to see.  There was an osprey nest near the ranger station and we got to see a program about the ospreys that live in the park.  Again we had a lot of unseasonable weather, rain, snow, wind.  We were able to get out most mornings but many of the afternoons were  too cold and wet to venture out.

Sept 1 Banff – Lake Louise

The Chateau at Lake Louise

Moraine Lake

This area is the premier Canadian Rocky Mountain venue.  It was opened up in the  late 1800s by the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) and later created into a national park in the early 1900s.   The mountains here are truly spectacular, massive rock formations that rise 3 or 4 thousand feet  from the valley floor, with ragged peaks and knife edged ridges.  The peaks are buttressed with layers of snow and ice.  As an old mountain climber, I could not fathom a route to the tops of these mountains, although they have all been climbed many years ago.  The two signature hotels, the Chateau at Lake Louise and the Banff Springs Hotel,(both owned by Fairmont Hotels now) are remnants of that golden age of travel.  The pictures of that era show men in tuxes and women in evening gowns dancing to the music of swing bands.  It mentioned that guests would come and spend the entire summer at the hotels and open up $50,000 lines of credit.  In 1924,  $50K was real money..

About this same time the CPR brought over a number of Swiss mountain guides to guide the guests up the mountain peaks. Many pictures of the guides smoking pipes while patently belaying the climbers below. I have heard stories about these old guides, they pretty much dragged their customers up the mountains rather than teach them how to climb. 

A number of the guides were from the Feuz family.  My stepmom, Ann was a Feuz.  Her family emigrated from Switzerland to Wyoming in 1910 . I am thinking that some of these guides might have been cousins to her parents.  Her family came from Grindelwald a village high up in the Swiss Alps.

Banff  is where is is all happening, Jasper had a modest city center with 3 or 4 blocks of restaurants, t shirt shops, and the like.  Lake Louise had one little shopping mail, maybe a dozen shops,  but Banff has it all, Starbucks, Safeway, Hudson Bay, North Face, The Body Shop, it’s all here babe. 

We did some sightseeing,(we saw a wild bear)  it was still overcast and occasionally raining, but we got in a hike around Moraine Lake, and rather than rent a canoe on Lake Louise, we dined at the Chateau for lunch.  We had the antipasto for two, and Bloody Marys seated next to the picture window looking out at Lake Louise and the mountains beyond.