The Black Hills of South Dakota

Got to Rapid City yesterday. Got new alternator for car. It now run's fine. Drove to Mt Rushmore and Custer State Park today. Enjoyed Rushmore, herds of Bison, 1 pronghorn managed to pose for us, and lots of beautiful country and scenic highways, especially the Iron Mountain  Highway with spiral curves and very small tunnels. We were right behind a big motorhome when we came up to a small tunnel, he came to a dead stop and waved us on. I guess somehow he got turned around and headed back the other way.

Yesterday we drove down the Needles Highway which has 3 very small tunnels and 1 beautiful lake and very scenic hills. Sylvan Lake is one of the prettiest lakes in the states, probably the prettiest small lake in the world. After the Needles Highway we made our way to the Crazy Horse Memorial. We were there 18 years ago and couldn't see much development of the statue since then, but  a great difference in the visitor centers (unbelievable difference). The price of admission was also almost unbelievable, last time I think all they asked for was a donation, now it's $11/person. I guess that's what's funded the visitor center, restaurant, parking, schools and museum.

Today (Tuesday) we went to Deadwood and caught a couple of gunfights. One card player was shot accidentally in the head. He survived for 69 days without medical help, then died in a hotel room in his sleep from an aneurysm caused by a bone fragment from the wound. In the other gunfight one card player shot 2 other players after they called him out for being a cheat. Both fights actually occurred in the 1876-77 time frame in Deadwood. Wild Bill Hickok was killed and buried in Deadwood in 1876.

Wednesday we made another run thru Custer State Park. Didn't see as many Bison as the other day but had one close up view of cow & calf. They got up close & personal to Pat's open window. Other wildlife we saw included a couple of deer, prairie dogs, pronghorn and wild turkey. The ever present donkeys were fun to be around, one didn't feel bad at all about blocking the road and refused to move.

Thursday was a lay up day, got the laundry done and went out to Marco's Pizza for brunch.

Tomorrow we move on East, we've kinda wore out our welcome in the Black Hills. Our next 3 stops are: Mitchell SD, Council Bluffs IA and Nauvoo IL. We are meeting our friends from Spring Hill, the Sickenbergers, in Nauvoo on the 8th, then we'll go to the Mich UP together.

Devil's Tower

Spent 3 nights in the Devil's Tower Campground, it was great. Water provided everything else we had to provide, $6/night - what a deal. The weather was just about perfect. The campground filled up just about every night, but never seemed crowded, lots of wide open spaces. The Tower, extraordinary. Prairie dog town kinda fun to watch. Pat wasn't feeling too good so we kinda took it easy most of the time. Jill enjoyed exploring, but collected quite a few ticks in the process.

Cody, Wyoming

Spent 4 nights at the Ponderosa Campground in Cody, Wyoming. Everything here is Buffalo Bill themed. The Ponderosa charged $43/night. It was really crowded, RV;s practically on top of each other, but it's got a central location, close to everything.

We spent 1 day at the Buffalo Bill Museum, which is really 5 museums in one: Buffalo Bill Museum, Firearms Museum, Natural History Museum, Plains Indians Museum and Western Art Museum. All of them quite amazing. We had a tour featuring area animals and also a Raptor show featuring an owl, Peregrine Falcon, red tail hawk, golden eagle and turkey vulture. The firearms museum has the largest collection of guns in the world. We really enjoyed the Art Museum, featuring artworks by Remington and Proctor. We took in the gunfight at the Buffalo Bill Irma Hotel after the Museum before returning home to take Jill for a walk.

Last night we went to a chuckwagon dinner and show followed by the Cody Nite Rodeo. The dinner and show, a 3 piece western band, was really good. The Cody Cattle Company is right next to the Cody Stampede Rodeo Grounds making it easy to take in the dinner, show and rodeo in one night.

Wapiti National Forest Service Campground,

Driving out of Yellowstone East Entrance we were looking for a campground to stay cool at for a while. The first one we stopped at had a couple of loops closed due to bear activity, those loops included the water faucet, so we continued on down the road. We then stopped at the Wapiti campground. It's out of pines but has a good set of cottonwoods for shade. It's at 6,000 feet elevation and the temperature was about perfect, though a bit cool for the morning walk with Precious, our pooch.We got a pull thru site next to the Shoshone river for $10/night, electricity provided.

We spent a lot of time sitting by the river watching mountain goats (they call them wild sheep, but they look and act like goats to me) graze on the hillside, the first night 7 of them came down to the river to drink. They had a set of twin kids and a single kid, kinda fun to watch. We also enjoyed watching the many different birds, Robins, yellow ones, yellow breasted with a black mask ones, hawks or eagles and many more varieties.

The river setting provided about a five to  10 degree F lower temperature than back at the RV, just 40 feet away. We initially signed up for 3 nights but enjoyed them so much we signed up for 4 more. Each day we waxed a portion of the motor home, completing it the last day before driving to Cody.

Yellowstone National Park

We could only get a campsite for one night in Yellowstone, they said all the campgrounds were filled up. We met the Creel's in the morning and they invited us for dinner at 6:30 pm. We decided to make the most of our one day so drove around the loop road, ordinarily a 4 hour drive. Well we missed the Old faithful show and had to wait over an hour and a half for the next one - it was well worth the wait. Then on to Mammoth on the North end. Well construction along the north west loop added another hour and a half so we made a quick stop at Mammoth and scooted back to Fishing Bridge Campground along the east loop road, I had forgotten how steep and twisty that is.

We saw plenty of Bison, a few elk and Pat saw a bear. We then met the Creel's for dinner at the Fishing Bridge Lodge cafeteria - it was a really good cafeteria with real turkey and dressing.

The fishing bridge campground has a bit of construction going on,  Two or three of the loops are closed. They charge $57/night and way in advance reservations are required. I didn't think it was possible but their mosquito population was worse than the Tetons, we could hardly  get into or out of our RV.

Grand Teton National Park

We enjoyed 3 nights at the Colter Bay Campground on Jackson Lake, Grand Teton National Park. We met our grandson Randy and his family at the campground and they showed us how to enjoy a dip in the icy cold Jackson Lake. You can't really get a better backdrop for great photos. The Tetons are beautiful and we enjoyed several walks along the lake shore as well as a couple of ranger presentations at the visitor's center. The $7.50 per night fee was a little more in our price range than the park in Jackson, although we did have to run our generator a little every time we ran our microwave. The temperature was about perfect, we didn't need our furnace or AC at all. One minor drawback, the mosquitoes were really big and plentiful so our bug spray really came in handy.

Erda/Jackson Hole

We enjoyed time with Doyle (Karl's brother) and Vicki. We had lunch with Mona and Beverly (Karl's sisters) and their husbands. Everyone is doing quite well, though Beverly is having gall bladder operation in about 10 days, keep her in your prayers. (Just got an update  - Beverly said it was a 35 minute operation and she's feeling fine now.)

We really enjoyed the Bar J Wranglers and Chuckwagon dinner last night in Jackson Hole. We're staying at  the Virginaian RV Park close to downtown. It's convenient and rather nice but very expensive, over $80/night. We"ll move on up to the Tetons today and hopefully find a campsite we can afford.

We'll be in the parks for a couple of weeks with little or no internet, so will add to this later.