Monday, June 4: Fin

We ate a delicious breakfast at the Waffle House next door to the Motel 6. Our booth was connected to the counter, behind which all the employees were gossiping. Our server was talking about how she hoped she could open a bank account because everything is harder to accomplish when you are a felon. She was talking about her parole officer and how her mom got fired for having charges of her own. Devin and I couldn’t believe our ears. She was talking about being a felon like it was being blonde or something. After breakfast we got in the car and drove all the way to Crested Butte, with one stop in Buena Vista (in search of a Wendy’s) where we ate Subway sandwiches. We made it to Crested Butte after a million (5?) hours of driving. We unloaded my car into my bedroom, then I had to do some maneuvering to fit the bed in. We had a fantastic sushi dinner at the Lobar, chocolates from Julie’s friend at the chocolate shop, and stayed up a little later lounging around the house. We went to bed around 10:30, exhausted, dizzy, and breathing hard. Yay altitude!

Sunday, June 3

We kind of threw this day together at the last moment. We took another one of the scenic highways around the National Forest. It was nice and slow. We then stopped in a small city on the edge of the park for breakfast the Rt. 16 Diner. Which was kind of had a sixties atmosphere. We then returned to the Reptile Gardens for one last time to see what we missed the first time. The large Galapagos Tortoises were outside today and it looked as if they had a little more energy than the first time we saw them. One of the employees was letting people get over the fence to touch them, so we just had to join in. Both Devin and I got to rub the neck of the giant which he obviously enjoyed. He stood up and stretched out his neck in a demonstration of pleasure. We zipped quickly around and saw what we missed on Friday, the Komodo dragon, and the snake floor. Then we were off to Devil’s Tower, across the border into Wyoming. We drove a lot today cause everything we wanted to see was so far apart. Anyway the tower was fantastic. We walked a trail encircling the base that was about a mile and a half. On the way around we saw the very same Prairie Rattler that we saw at the reptile gardens two days before. Only this time it was in the WILD!!! I wanted to cuddle with it but the ranger counseled me against it. We snapped a few pictures oohed and ahhed and were out of the park around 2pm. We set off for our next destination Spearfish. I wanted to see fish babies being raised at the hatchery. Back across the border into South Dakota we were looking for a Wendy’s but were unable to find one. So hungrily we entered the Historic Fish Hatchery. There were little ponds of all sizes holding fish of different ages and sizes. The biggest was about 3ft, we bought some pellets to feed them with and walked around looking for fish eggs and feeding the different fish as we went. Sadly the smallest fish on display there was about 5 to 6 inches. It was great fun feeding these fish though because when the pellets were dropped in there was a literal feeding frenzy. Tails flopping, water churning the fish went mad to get those little brown balls of food. We then headed to Deadwood to see gambling and fake gun-fighting. Deadwood was a wild gold panning town when South Dakota was being settled. It sprang up over night for the gold and was a hot bed for debauchery. Now it is all gambling the main street had a gambling parlor in every other establishment, we saw an ice cream parlor with gambling, restaurants with gambling. The main reason we went there was for the gun-fighting which was lame; we actually missed one show when we were playing Black Jack in a bar because we thought the show was at 8:30pm, but we heard gunshots at around 8:24pm. We cashed out went outside saw it was over and looked at each other. It was time to go. We left in search of Wendy’s again after having a little something back in Deadwood. The road we ended up driving had just about nothing on it let alone a Wendy’s. We had to stop frequently as we came upon groups of two to three deer in the middle of the road that didn’t move until we were right next to them beeping the horn. We changed drivers at around 10:30 and Devin drove the rest of the way to Cheyenne where we planned to stay for the night. By this time we were starving because we had been holding out for a Wendy’s, but realizing this was a lost cause we stopped at a gas station in Cheyenne. We asked the attendant where would be the best place to stay in town. He told us the refinery was being fixed and there were a lot of people from out of town fixing it, so we would have a heck of a time finding any place to stay. We drove back towards the highway and sure enough every hotel/motel we stopped at had a no vacancy sign in the window. We grudgingly decided to press on into Colorado and stop as soon as possible. We eventually found a motel 6 in Fort Collins another 45 min down the highway and promptly checked in and fell asleep all in one haphazard motion.

Saturday, June 2

We awoke after a rainy night, mildly damp but in good spirits. I -Steph again- made friends with a woman from Wyoming in the bathroom at the campsite. She told us that we had to go to Spearfish to see the Fish Hatchery, so we added that to our list of things to do in the Black Hills. Saturday was Crazy Horse day for us. A man named Korczak (I forget his last name) was asked by Henry Standing Bear to carve a mountain monument to the natives of the area, since they were overlooked during the construction of Mount Rushmore. Originally Mount Rushmore was to be of the heroes of the West like Lewis and Clark, did you know that? Anyway, Korczak created a beautiful sculpture model for his design for the Crazy Horse monument, Crazy Horse riding his steed, hair flowing back in the wind. In the photo you can see the real one off in the distance. I'm pretty sure if you click on the picture it will open up much larger. The first blast was made in June of 1948, and for decades it was Korcazk alone, and later his sons joined in, chipping and blasting away at the mountain. For the last 22 years, every June, there is the annual Volksmarch. It is a 6.2mile circuit hike up to the face of Crazy Horse. This monument is to be the biggest in the country (world?). It will be about 15ft higher than the Washington Monument in DC and over 600ft wide. It is a sculpture in the round, so it can be seen from three sides. We labored up the mountain, trying to maintain speed so we could accomplish more things later that day. There were hundreds of people there participating. Babies, toddlers, even elderly people trudging along. Devin and I helped a guy carry his stroller, with baby inside, up a particularly steep and rocky portion. We made it to the face, which was something like 9 stories high by itself, took a bunch of pictures, ate granola bars, and hiked the much shorter path back to the base. The 6.2 miles did not include the long walk from/to the parking lot. Whew! We spent a very short time in the visitor’s center, mostly to use the restroom and look at some photos of the mountain before blasting began. Then we set off for the town of Hot Springs, thinking we’d get a nice soak for our imminently aching feet and legs. When we got there, we found that the “Hot” Springs were really more like Tepid Springs, so we went to the local bath house to cheat. We got in their Jacuzzi to enjoy heated up spring water and relax our muscles. The proprietor of the Springhouse told us that they named the town Hot Springs to draw visitors (still works) but that there was all kinds of historical “evidence” that the spring water, though not hot, had real healing properties. After a soak and a nice soapy shower, we drove up to Wind Cave National Park. Wind Cave has over 120,000 miles of explored tunnels and rooms, all under about 1 sq mile of land. It also only has one known natural entrance, which is a hole in the rock that measures approximately 8X10 inches. The first explorers must have been quite skinny, or at least very flexible. I tried to dive in there, but I’m pretty sure my shoulders wouldn’t have made it all the way through. I also got a little claustrophobic waiting for Devin to snap the picture. Nowadays there is a much larger entrance with stairs and a railing that was dug/blasted out for us to tour part of the cave. It is a barometric cave, the name Wind Cave came from the air that blew out or sucked in from the natural entrance with changes in air pressure outside associated with the weather. The Native Americans felt it was a sacred place from which the buffalo came and was the origin of man. There is a fascinating formation called boxwork that is essentially fossilized cracks. It’s hard to describe. Wind Cave contains 95% of the world’s known boxwork. After Wind Cave, we decided to drive along the Wilderness Loop Road in Custer State Park to try to spot more bison as well as some other creatures. We saw bison and a few pronghorns, lots of deer and prairie dogs. Devin was set on seeing a huge herd of bison as the Custer brochure claimed to have 1500 head of buffalo in the park. He thought he spotted something over a hill, so we turned off onto a dirt road and discovered a huge mass (400?) of bison with tons of calves. It was really awesome. We headed to Keystone in search of dinner and ended up at a touristy (well the whole town was touristy) Mexican place called Arriba! Restaurant. The food was a lot better than we guessed it would be. We bought firewood just outside of town and went back to the campsite for a nice warm fire and more Harry Potter (of course!) before bed.

Friday, June 1

First thing we woke up relatively dry and traveled down the Needles Hgwy to Rapid City. We fought with the internet trying to maintain a signal but kept losing connection. At least the Chai was good. We got a late start that morning and after the internet fiasco finally started sightseeing around 2pm. The Journey Museum was the first on our list of sites to visit. It was a history of the Black Hills, everything from how the unique area was formed to the Native Americans that first inhabited there. Terrible stories about how the U.S. government slowly pushed the Native Americans from the lands they held sacred. There was also an atlatl but it was nailed to the wall. Not nearly as fun. After we searched for Dinosaur Park, a collection of life sized statues that overlooked the City. We found them, but it was pouring rain and seeing as how they were outside we decided to sit in the car and read Harry Potter hoping for it to pass. Eventually it died down and we got to go climb on the cement behemoths. When we were finished we stopped to get supplies for our mountain pie maker(Cheese, Tomatoes) and got a lunch of deep fried tamales and potato salad from the grocery store Mmmmm Oily. We ate in the car whilst driving to our next destination, Thunderhead Falls. It was located in an old gold mine shaft the actual falls were 600ft underground and pretty neat. After about 10 minutes there we were off. The Reptile Gardens/World/Land/Park/Thing we couldn’t remember the actual name. Steph got us lost on the way there and we ended up in a rural development marked no outlet. So we had to turn around and made it there about 15 minutes before last admittance. The park didn’t close til 8:30 though so we had enough time to see most of the park and two shows. The snake show was great. We got to touch an 8 ft Albino Burmese Python (sooo smooth), as well as see 4 venomous snakes including a hooded Cobra, and a prairie Rattlesnake(the only venomous snake in South Dakota). A lot of the out doors exhibits were closed because of the rain and closing time, but we also managed to see a Gator show. The same guy who did the Snake show taught us all how to wrestle an alligator. He was on a little island and just pulled a gator tail first out of the moat filled with at least 25 gators and Crocs. While he was demonstrating gator wrestling the 25 others looked on hungrily with their chins resting just out of the water just as captivated as the 10 people in the audience. When it was over he brought out a baby gator that couldn’t have been more than 2ft. Steph asked if she could hold the gator all by herself. The keeper agreed slowly stating that they weren’t supposed to do such things but an agreement was reached where she could hold the body while he held the mouth shut. He did let go of the mouth for about 10 secs just long enough for us to get a picture of Steph and the gator. Our reptile fantasies fulfilled we then made for Rushmore, much to the chagrin of tired Stephanie. It was cold, rainy and windy. We got there at 9 o’clock cause we heard that was when they turned the lights on for night viewing. To our dismay the lights do not go on at 9, instead a park ranger gives a little speech about god knows what and they play what might as well have been a 400 hour long video about why each of the four presidents deserves to be carved into the stone mountainside. Finally the lights came on slowly and we laughed because the rain had made funny patterns as it dripped down the faces. Washington looked to be crying while Madison seemed to have a bloody nose. We left as soon as we got a few pictures. We got back to the site around 11 had another grilled cheese dinner and passed out.

Thursday, May 31

Woke up in Mitchell, SD and found breakfast at a diner (Fanny-something) while we planned our day. First we went to the Prehistoric Indian Village, where our very nice, but somewhat breathless high-school-student-summer-job-tour-guide told us all about the Native Americans that lived on that spot. There was an archeodome under which archeology students (not currently there) were carefully excavating the ancient sites of the earth lodges that housed the Native Americans. The best part was when Devin and I got to practice throwing spears/arrows with the atlatl. I hit the deer target right in the chest! I was the first girl to hit a target. Victory! (It wasn’t the deer I was aiming at, but we don’t have to worry about that.) Devin wouldn’t let us leave until he hit one too; he knew he’d never hear the end of it. To keep the playing field even, as soon as he hit one, we had to leave immediately. After that we went to the famous Mitchell Corn Palace. It is their civic center, where they have craft shows, basketball games, etc. But the outside is decorated with ears of corn. This year’s Corn Palace was a tribute to rodeo, and there were corn murals of cowboy boots, rodeo scenes, and more. We went inside to look at the photos of all of the previous Corn Palace designs, dating back to the late 1800’s! Next we set off westward again. We tried to take a scenic bypass that would have led us north to Pierre, we followed a snaking river in order to reach the specific road, and when we finally got to it, the road was closed and we turned south back to I-90. The whole detour was about an hour. We pressed on until we neared the Badlands. One of us recomended that we take another scenic highway through the Badlands citing that it couldn't take more than an hour or so. We pulled off 90 and started through. THe first pull off was jaw droppingly gorgeous, we just sat there staring around at how alien the landscape looked. We made our way to the next pull off and spent another while there. An hour and about 300 pictures had elapsed before we realized we had to get a move on, but even then we had trouble tearing our eyes from the striated dark red and tan landscape. We had our first run in with prairie dogs and Bison here, although it they were too far away to get a good picture. Finally we realized that if we didn't start driving we wouldn't make it to the campsite til 9pm and we had no idea when the park closed. We hightailed it to Custer State Park straight through Rapid City to the south. On the way in we had one of the trips best moments. We rounded a bend and right smack in the road was a Bison. He was so close we could have spit on him so we circled around and videoed him at close range. Though we saw some bison in the Badlands Custard, thats what we nicknamed him, was up close and awe inspiring. We picked up essentials: firewood, firestarter, bread, butter, and cheese. We found our reserved campsite – completely open, no trees – lit a fire and set up our tent. We made campfire-grilled cheese, read more Harry Potter, and went to bed.

Many Miles from Madison to Mitchell

This first photo is me (duh) wearing Chicago's "Bean" for a hat.
The internet connection at the Alternative Fuel Coffee House here in Rapid City, SD keeps kicking us off so it's hard to get photos on. Here's one to wet your appetite.
Wednesday we had a nice breakfast at the Sunprint Cafe in the USBank building, and after writing to you from Ancora coffee shop in Madison, WI, we visited Monona Terrace Community Center, another Frank Lloyd Wright design. The whole building incorporated a lot of round, cylindrical structures. We explored the inside a bit, but the rooftop gardens overlooking Lake Monona were really pretty. With our backs to the lake, we had a perfect view down Martin Luther King Ave/St/Blvd/Dr? straight to the state capital building. We knew we had a lot of driving ahead of us, and it was nearing one o'clock, so we left town for more westward driving along I-90.
We stopped for lunch at the drive-in (my first!) A&W and were tempted by the Spam Museum there in Austin, MN. We resisted and got back on the road, not stopping again until Sioux Falls, SD. In Sioux Falls we drove around in circles before we managed to find Falls Park. We stretched our legs and walked around the falls. There wasnt a lot of water, but there were a ton of red/pink rocks that made the view quite lovely. We realized that these rocks tied in to a lot of the surrounding area because many of the roads were the same reddish color. We then drove around town for another 15 or 20 minutes searching for a used-book store (or any book store for that matter) because we desperately needed Harry Potter 3 as we had finished the second book along that drive. Unlucky in that venture, we set off for Mitchell. We found our glorious Corn Palace Motel, complete with enormous plaster beasts out front (Bison and some other furry thing). We spilled icky cheese-curd juice on the bed and had to bug the awesome old lady who ran the place for new sheets at 11pm. Side note: She was the same woman with whom we made our reservation over the phone. We think she lives there. And never sleeps. We we're tired and smelly so we watched the end of Galaxy quest and ended a hard day of driving lazily.

tuesdays with cheese curds

Tuesday we had a breakfast of fresh apricots, coffee, and fresh Wisconsin cheese curds (from a gas station). Somehow, it managed to satisfy us until our late lunch, with a supplement of Junior Mints around 10am. We drove straight to The House on the Rock, a wild structure built by Alex Jordan to house collections of everything from dollhouses to suits of armor, giant organs to carousel horses, there was an enormous octopus attacking a whale in the Heritage of the Sea room, the world's largest carousel (which had all sorts of animals, but no horses, all the horses were on the walls). There was so much to see there, and the myriad collections were broken up by huge music machines - violins, pianos, cellos, bassoons, harps, drums... all played mechanically when you put tokens in the slot. Words and photos do not do this place justice, you absolutely must visit. Take all three tours, the $26 was worth it! make sure to buy lots of tokens to play the music machines.
We spent almost 4 hours in the House on the Rock, someone told us it was a 3.5 mile tour. We then drove to Taliesin, ate a late lunch at the cafe in the visitor's center, and spent a boatload on the tour there. This tour was two hours, led by John, who knew his stuff and was fun in a college professor kind of way. Taliesin was the home of Frank Lloyd Wright, and for all of his personal glory, this building was not holding up well. He used the cheapest materials he could find because he wasn't into planning for the future, especially when it came to his own home. It was a really spectacular looking place, the outside as complicated as within. the ceilings were incredibly low in a lot of places (~6ft) and some of the guys on our tour had to duck. Not me though. After Taliesin we drove to Madison, stopping at the Shoe Box (the midwest's largest shoe store) which we had to investigate. In Madison, we strolled State Street and ended up in State Street Brats - a crazy college bar that happens to serve food. we ate outside and wrote on all the postcards we had bought in the last few days. After dinner we went back to the campsite at Lake Kegonsa, hung out lakeside till the bugs chased us away, and went to bed after another short fire and Potter session.