Epic Cross Country Road Trip Aug 7-9

 

Day 7  Saturday 

What a treat to wake up and have the hot breakfast we ordered last night delivered to our room!  Nick has French toast with strawberries and bacon.  And of course coffee.  I have scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, OJ and hot tea.  We look at you Tube videos of various tents and their advantages and weaknesses.  Do we want to just replace the one we had or do an upgrade?  We’re leaning towards the upgrade. 

Our first tent shopping stop was Walmart.  Nothing there.  So on to Sheel’s.  We had a very helpful salesperson who said there had already been several people in buying replacement tents.  We went with the bigger tent with stronger poles.  With that task behind us, we headed on West to our next destination – a KOA at Devil’s tower. 

Several sight-seeing stops along the way.  The first is Mount Rushmore. We spot the carving as we round a curve.  It is quite impressive!  There was a long line of motorcycles waiting to get in to park.  But, we zipped through the car line.  A short walk past the ice cream stand and the gift shop were all the state flags.  Lots of people but lots of space so just felt festive and not oppressive.  We took the obligatory pictures, made a short video for Iori and Sakurako.  Hmmm.  Guess that’s about it since we’re not going to do the helicopter ride for an up close and personal view of a presidential nostril. 

It does seem a bit white, male domination to carve those faces into a Native American mountain.

On to the next sight.  Crazy Horse sculpture in progress.  It’s been in progress since I was there when I was 8!  I was quite surprised that the entry fee was $30!  Walked into the museum and I commented to Nick that it really felt like a rip off.  Still stinging from the $30 entry fee.  We were walking quite quickly through the exhibits when I caught a Native American telling some facts about the place.  No federal, state or public funding at all to preserve and honor the history of the Native Americans.   Hmmmmm.  We carved the faces of 4 old, white males in a mountain that was Indian land and that was all paid for by public funds.  Attitude reset!  Slow down, read the commentary, appreciate the art and the stories.  I went back and looked at the area we had walked past with much more interest.  Outside we listened to a man playing a native flute.  So beautiful and often haunting.  I left feeling so much better about the place than when I entered.

Since we had such a nice big breakfast, neither of us were hungry at lunch time and there wasn’t much available that wasn’t swarming with bikers.  We continued on to Devil’s tower.  We got to the area a little after 4.  Quite famished by this point.  Stopped at a place very near our KOA campground.  They had just switched over to their evening menu so we had steaks and baked potatoes sitting at a table that looked out to Devil’s tower.  I had some good local dark beer to go with it. 

When we checked into the KOA, they said they show the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind every evening at 8.  Well, not going to miss that!

We set up our new tent quite easily.  It has a little vestibule where you can sit if there isn’t any other shade, remove your shoes, etc.  It’s a little narrower than our previous tent but the two cots still fit with walking space between them. 

We washed the dishes that had been thrown in before the storm hit, dried out the quilts, got everything pretty much put back where it is supposed to be.  A little time to relax before the movie. There were probably about 30 people sitting out under the stars watching the movie.  And oh, the stars were bright and beautiful. 

Nick seems to have picked up a cold.  He was coughing much of the night.  But, the tent worked great!

Day 8  Sunday

Since Nick didn’t sleep well and is fighting a cold, I tried to let him sleep in a bit.  But the sun comes up early and it’s hard to really sleep too late.  We broke down camp pretty easily.  Since we didn’t cook last night, it was a bit easier.  The new tent folded up well, fit it in the bag it came in and in the spot in the car for it.  I stopped several times during the break down just to look at Devil’s Tower.  What a beautiful place to be.  There are red cliffs along a stream that are beautiful too. 

We drove the short distance to the park and found a spot to park near the trail head that goes around the base of the tower.  Nick walks a short way to an area with some of the history of the tower.  I continue on the loop which is about 1 ½ miles long. 

The Native American name was “Place of the bad god” which got translated to Devil’s tower.  There has been some discussion to change the name back to Native American but it isn’t getting much traction. There were prayer flags hanging from some of the trees.  The Native Americans walked around the tower clockwise. So, that is what I did too.  At the beginning of the walk, there were few people and it was quiet.  I even saw a deer walking along.  The tower is so much more impressive being up close. 

There is an old Indian tale that the tower w
as placed there to protect the people from the bears.  The vertical marks on the tower are the bear’s huge claws trying to get to the people but he wasn’t able to and they were safe.

I saw 6 people climbing the tower.  There are 4 ways up.  Of course you need to register that you’re climbing, have appropriate gear and experience.  Not for me!  I had Nick’s astronomy binoculars so was able to see them well.  If I was wondering, watching them through the binoculars confirmed it!

A city of prairie dogs were in one of the fields by the tower.  They were fun to watch.  Popping up out of their holes, ducking back in.  Real live wackamo!

There isn’t much in the way of businesses once you get away from the tourist spot.  With the help of Yelp, we found a little pizzeria that was open and not swarming with bikers.  At first there were only 3 other people there and they appeared to be locals.  Then a couple of families came in, I think from church.  They were definitely locals.  I wish I could have taken a picture of one of the boys, probably about 9 years old.  He had on new blue jeans, a tucked in red plaid shirt and a big hat like his dad’s.  He was walking so proudly.  The older ones jumped on the foosball game and seemed quite practiced like it was a weekly ritual.  The younger girls went to the kids play area with a couple of rocking horses, dolls, stuffed animals.  Fun to get a snapshot of life in small town ND. 

The weather is very hot and dry.  (high 90’s).  I don’t know how the bikers are doing it at all.  Not for me!!!  No shade at all.  Hot wind in my face for hours.  No thank you.

The landscape is really beautiful in it’s own way.  Maybe the way the Iowa landscape is beautiful in it’s own way.  Drive for hours with just subtle changes.  I like seeing the black angus cattle against the light golden background.  The sage really is the color of the sage paint chips at Home Depot.

 

We get to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park about 5 in the afternoon.  Certainly the area gathering place!  The few eating places in town have long lines.  We go inside the park to find our camping spot.  The landscape is similar to the badlands in SD but not quite as colorful or big.  We see a buffalo grazing on the hillside.  WOW!  Then we see a few more, then more and then cars are stopped because a huge buffalo is right in the middle of the road! 

We find our campground and discover that our spot is a “walk in”.  There are parking spots along the road.  A few of the ‘walk-in’ sites are close to their parking spot.  Ours is not.  It is about a city block to our spot.  The furthest one.  Right on the river.  I can see why Nick chose that one.  Private, on the river, a few scrubby trees for shade. 

No clue that there was such a walk involved!  In the 90 something heat and Nick not feeling his usual self, it just didn’t look like fun to stay there.  Since this trip is about enjoying ourselves, and we’d already seen a herd of buffalo and the landscape, we decided to look for a hotel room a little down the road.  We certainly weren’t planning to do any hiking in that heat!  We went to the visitor’s center where we could get a wi-fi signal.  Nick looked for hotels while I watched the welcoming video and looked at the exhibits. 

Nick found a LaQuinta Inn about an hour down the road in Glendive, MT.  Perfect!  With Nick fighting a cold, he really needed a good night’s sleep and that was our ticket.  We had planned to make BLTs for dinner but obviously couldn’t do that in a hotel room so we looked to Yelp to find us something that was open to get some dinner.  Slim pickens!  We found one place but when we got there, they were closing.  They had sold out of everything!  Our only option was Subway.  Broke our record of not eating at a chain restaurant during the trip.  Oh Well. 

Good night.