Hello again friends. Our last episode
ended on Friday, May 22nd, when we arrived in Casper, Wyoming and
settled into the Fort Caspar Campground for a four day stay. Casper
is the second-largest city in Wyoming, with a population of over
55,000. Casper is nicknamed "The Oil City" and has a long
history of oil boom town and cowboy culture, dating back to
development of the nearby Salt Creek Oil Field, starting in about
1890. The town was initially founded as a rail stop a few years
before the discovery of the oil fields. The name comes from Fort
Caspar, which was founded in the mid 1800's during the Indian Wars
and the migration west along the Oregon Trail. The Fort was closed a
few years later but the name stuck when the city was founded. I
couldn't find any documentation regarding how the name became spelled
with an “E” rather than an “A”. In the last 25 years there
have also been significant nearby discoveries of coal and uranium
which has become a big part of the local economy also.
Saturday, May 23rd, we left the coach
around noon and went out for lunch, some exploring, and, of course,
some geocaching. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant called
Guadalajara which had been advertised in the information from the
campground. It was a large, nicely decorated place that reminded me
of a Garcia's or one of the other large chain places. It is a local
chain with four locations in Wyoming and Colorado. The service was
good and the food was plentiful and very good. I had the usual mix
of enchilada, relleno and taco and the food was as good as any in
Arizona or California. Jackie had machaca and she thought it was
good, although perhaps slightly overcooked.
After lunch we went out to explore the
downtown area and do some geocaching. We got seven new finds and one
DNF before the rain started again and we continued our sightseeing in
the rain. We found the Elks Lodge in a nice old brick building
downtown, but unfortunately, it was closed for the entire holiday
weekend, so we would not be able to visit. After an hour or so of
driving around town we headed back to the coach for the rest of the
day. We discovered that after the many, many days of rain we seemed
to have developed a small leak in the ceiling of the coach. Not in
one of the slides, but rather right in the middle of the coach. I
suspect that the caulking around one of the vents or skylights has
started to leak. It was not a lot of water coming in, but we had to
put out some towels to keep the floor dry.
Sunday, May 24th, we had a little rain
overnight, but there were actually patches of blue sky when we woke
up. I went out and got a Sunday paper and we had a nice morning with
the paper, the Sunday news shows and coffee. After lunch we went out
with still partly cloudy skies. Our first stop was the nearby County
Fairgrounds for the annual Casper Car Show. We had seen a bunch of
the cars yesterday parked at a “cruise in” on one of the downtown
streets, but we hadn't been able to find close parking, so we didn't
stop. Today was the actual car show at the fairgrounds so we stopped
and spent an hour or so walking around looking at the cars. It was
the usual mix of street rods, restored old cars and newer hot cars.
After the car show we set out to do some geocaching. We were able to
get three new finds before the rain came down off the mountain and we
had to quit. We decided to stop at Walmart before heading home to
get some supplies. After Walmart we headed back to the coach where
we stayed in for the rest of the day.
Monday, May 25th, Memorial Day.
Although the skies were still cloudy when we got up, we hadn't had
any rain all night. After lunch we went out to do some geocaching
and had a pretty good afternoon. In a few hours we got a dozen new
finds and one DNF. After caching we hit a couple of grocery stores,
still looking for our brand of coffee. We then headed back to the
coach and stayed in the rest of the evening. We only had a couple of
sprinkles all day, a nice change.
Tuesday, May 26th, another travel day.
We actually woke up to mostly clear skies and lots of sun. We were
packed up and on the road by about 10:30, continuing north on
Interstate 25 to our next destination, Buffalo, Wyoming. Buffalo is
a small town on the front range of the Big Horn Mountains. It was
founded in the mid 1800's mostly as a cattle town. In the late
1800's it was the center of the Johnson County war, which pitted the
cattle barons, expanding their operations west from the plains,
against local small ranchers and homesteaders. Today the town's
economic engine is methane gas from the coal fields surrounding the
area. The population of Buffalo is about 5,000. We arrived at the
Deer Park RV park about 12:30 and got settled into a very nice site.
We decided to just stay in and enjoy the nice weather, so we hung
around the coach the rest of the day.
Wednesday, May 27th, the morning was
pretty clear and there had been no rain overnight. Since it was dry
I ran into town in the morning and got some caulk and went up on the
roof and sealed a couple of areas I though might be the source of our
small leak. We left the coach after lunch to do some exploring of
Buffalo and some geocaching. We have never been to this part of
Wyoming, so we were looking forward to checking out the town. The
downtown is small, but very quaint. There are a dozen or so late
19th century buildings along main street and some really nice homes
from that same era. Most everywhere we went in town it appeared that
people took really good care of their property and it was a very nice
place.
There were not a lot of caches in town,
but in the course of the afternoon we were able to get seven new
finds. One of them took us to the original Fort McKinney site just
west of town. The site is now occupied by the Wyoming Veteran's Home
and still uses the fort's original hospital building as part of the
complex. One of the caches took us about ten miles south of town,
out in the open range, where we got a good, close look at some of the
many antelope wandering the area. We also saw a couple of deer
wandering around the grounds of the RV park. After caching we headed
back to the motor home and relaxed the rest of the night.
Thursday, May 28th, we woke up to
another cool but fairly clear day. We went into town and had lunch
at a place called Taco John's. They are a big fast food chain in
this part of the country and would be comparable to Taco Bell or Del
Taco. The food was OK, I would put it between Del Taco, my favorite,
and Taco Bell, not so much. After lunch we drove downtown and parked
and spent a couple hours in the afternoon walking around, going into
antique shops and just 
Friday, May 29th, we woke up to a
fairly clear day after a night of steady rain. The good thing is
that there was no water in the coach, so I must have fixed the leak
the other day. Yea! After lunch we went out and did our laundry.
We finished about 3:00 and were going to go do some errands, but when
we got everything packed in the car it wouldn't start, the battery
was dead. I had noticed that it was a little slow starting the last
few days, but I attributed it to the cold weather. A guy at the
laundry had a big Dodge truck and he jumped us to get us started. I
dropped Jackie and the laundry off at the coach and went to the NAPA
store in town. They had one battery in my size, which I changed out
right in front of the store. All better now. Yea again! After
getting the car fixed I went back to the coach and we stayed in the
rest of the evening.
Saturday, May 30th we woke up to blue
skies and bright sun. Yea! Today is another travel day, so we were
packed up and ready to go by about 10:00. This is the point in our
travels where we make a right turn and start east again. Buffalo is
at the intersection of I-25 and I-90, so we left the park and got on
I-90, headed for Sturgis, South Dakota, about 185 miles east. The
trip was uneventful except for the winds, which made driving tricky,
and we arrived at the No Name City RV park a couple miles east of
Sturgis, about 2:00. Odd name for an RV park, but a nice place with
big, full hookup spots, lots of grass and a nice view of the green
hills and forest across the freeway. It is close to the freeway, but
there is no where near as much traffic as you find on freeways in
places like California. There is also a railroad track right in
front of us, but I think it is a spur line without a lot of traffic.
One small train went by in the afternoon, nothing since.
Sturgis, of course, is best known for
the huge motorcycle rally held usually the first full week in August.
The rally began in 1938 and was originally based around riders who
did stunts and held races. Over the years it has just grown into a
gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts. Sturgis is a small town of less
than 7,000 people, but hosts hundreds of thousands of guests during
the rally. The average attendance is something over 400,000, but in
2000 there were 633,000 attendees. It is estimated that the rally
brings in $800 million in revenue to the state, most along the 50
mile stretch of Interstate 90, from Spearfish to Rapid City. We will
be here for five days, touring the Black Hills area. We have also
never geocached in South Dakota, so it will be a new state for us.
After we got setup we relaxed in the coach and let the wind blow.
Sunday, May 31st, we awoke to a bright,
sunny morning and left the coach after lunch to do some exploring.
We first headed for Deadwood, South Dakota, about 18 miles southwest
in the Black Hills. Deadwood was founded in 1874 at the beginning of
the Black Hills Gold Rush, which had it's start when General George
Custer announced the discovery of Gold about 40 miles south. The
town was located in Indian Territory, originally ceded to the Lakota
Peoples, so it was basically lawless. The town struggled in the
early 20th Century and was nearly destroyed by fire several times.
It was declared a historic landmark in 1961 and in 1989 gambling was
legalized in Deadwood and the town began to prosper. It is probably
best known as the place where Wild Bill Hickok was killed in a local
saloon in 1876. He is buried in the local cemetery, along with
Calamity Jane and several other notable people of the time.
We arrived in Deadwood and went to the
Deadwood Social Club for lunch. It was upstairs, over a casino in a
turn of the century building. The lunch menu was somewhat limited,
so I had a meatball sub and Jackie had a bison burger. I also had a
cup of bison and rice soup, which was very good. The restaurant had
high ratings, but we thought it was OK at best. My meatballs were
tasty, but not much sauce. Jackie's burger was good, but the onion
rings were greasy. It was a mixed bag, although the service was
pretty good. After lunch we spent an hour or so walking around main
street, checking out the casinos and doing some gaming. We didn't
win anything, but had a good time.
We also did a couple of caches in
Deadwood, our first South Dakota geocaches. We then went to Lead,
pronounced “LEED”, the next town over which was also a gold
mining town. We explored a little there and did a couple more
geocaches before leaving the area and driving back to Spearfish via
the Spearfish Canyon route. This scenic road goes from south of
Deadwood-Lead up to Spearfish, a fairly big town on Interstate 90,
about 25 miles west of Sturgis. We stopped in Spearfish to shop at
Walmart, and also did a couple of caches there. We ended up with
four new finds for the day. After shopping we went back to the coach
and stayed in the rest of the night.
Monday, June 1st, was forecast to be
the warmest day we have seen yet this year, in the low 80's. We left
the coach after lunch to do some more geocaching and exploring. We
cached the area around the RV park and then in towards Sturgis. I
already provided some of the facts about Sturgis, but driving around
town we really noticed how centered around the motorcycle culture the
town is. Nearly everything in town has some reference to
Tuesday, June 2nd, we left the coach
after lunch and drove to Rapid City, about 24 miles east of the park.
Rapid City is the second largest city in South Dakota, after Sioux
Falls, with about 70,000 population. The town was founded in 1876
shortly after the discover of gold in the Black Hills and is known as
the “Gateway to the Black Hills.” The main economic engines are
tourism, light industry and nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base, formerly
one of the Midwest’s ICBM bases, now home to the B-1 strategic
bomber fleet. The city is famous for the great flood of 1972 when
the Rapid Creek, from which the city takes it's name, flooded after
more than 15 inches of rain fell in a few hours on the watershed.
More than 250 people were killed in the flooding and nearly 1,500
homes destroyed.
We spent a couple of hours driving and
walking around parts of Rapid City. We also did a couple of
geocaches, but mostly just played tourist. We got back to the coach
about 3:30 and I went to the hot tub again for a while. Around 8:00
we started getting a series of storms coming through the area,
dropping a lot of rain, but thankfully no hail. We still have no new
leaks, so the rain is confined to the outside. When we went to bed
it was still raining, but about two in the morning I woke up and all
was quiet. Wednesday we decided to just have a stay at home day.
Both of us got a few chores done and I spent a little time in the hot
tub again.
Thursday, June 4th, another travel day.
Today is the tenth anniversary of our moving into the motor home
full time. The house closed on the 3rd of June, 2005, and we took
delivery of the coach on the 4th. We had to travel from Indio to
Ehrenberg, Arizona with a professional driver in the coach, to take
delivery. We signed the papers in the Wendy's at the Flying J Truck
Stop, the driver unhooked his car from the back of the coach, handed
me the keys to the motor home, and left. I had to drive the 100
miles from Ehrenberg back to Indio on my own, after never having
driven anything bigger than our 27 foot Class C. That was ten years
ago and we are still happily enjoying being “homeless” with our
40 foot shopping cart.
We packed up and left the RV park in
Sturgis just before 11:00 and headed east on Interstate 90 again.
Our destination was Wall, South Dakota, about 77 miles away. After a
stop for fuel we arrived at the Sleepy Hollow RV park in Wall about
12:30 and quickly got settled in. It was an easy drive, with no rain
for a change. We are going to be here in Wall for four days. Wall
is a small town of less than 800 that was founded in 1918 as a
railroad stop. Today is mostly known as the gateway to the South
Dakota Badlands, and Wall Drug.
This small town drugstore made its
first step towards fame when it was purchased by Ted Hustead in 1931.
Hustead was a Nebraska native and pharmacist who was looking for a
small town with a Catholic church in which to establish his business.
He bought Wall Drug, located in Wall, which then had 231 people, in
what he referred to as "the middle of nowhere," and strove
to make a living. Being the recession, business was very slow until
his wife, Dorothy, got the idea to advertise free ice water to
thirsty travelers heading to the newly opened Mount Rushmore monument
60 miles to the west. From that time on business was brisk.
Wall Drug grew into a cowboy-themed
shopping mall and department store. Wall Drug includes a western art
museum, a chapel, and an 80-foot brontosaurus that can be seen right
off Interstate 90. Wall Drug earns much of its fame from its
self-promotion. Billboards advertising the establishment can be seen
for hundreds of miles throughout South Dakota and the neighboring
states. In addition, many visitors of Wall Drug have erected signs
throughout the world announcing the miles to Wall Drug from famous
locations, treating it as a geodesic datum. By 1981 Wall Drug was
claiming it was giving away 20,000 cups of water per day during the
peak tourist season, lasting from Memorial Day until Labor Day, and
during the hottest days of the summer. Most of Wall Drug's
advertisement billboards can be found on an approximately
650-mile-long stretch of Interstate 90 from Minnesota to Billings,
Montana. Wall Drug spends an estimated $400,000 on billboards every
year. On our trip from Sturgis there was at least a small billboard
every quarter mile.
Wall Drug still offers free ice water,
but as they have become more popular, they have started to offer free
bumper stickers and signs to aid in promotion, and coffee for 5
cents. Some popular free bumper stickers read "Where the heck
is Wall Drug?", "How many miles to Wall Drug?", and
"Where in the world is Wall Drug?".
When the United States Air Force was
still operating Minuteman missile silos in the western South Dakota
plains, Wall Drug used to offer free coffee and donuts to service
personnel if they stopped in on their way to or from Ellsworth Air
Force Base 50 miles west of Wall. Wall Drug continues to offer free
coffee and a donut to honeymooners, veterans, priests, hunters, truck
drivers, and other travelers. We are also close to the Badlands
National Park, a Minuteman Missile Museum, and a few other
interesting areas. We are looking forward to our first stay in this
area. After we got setup we stayed in for the rest of the day.
Friday, June 5th, we headed out after
lunch to explore Wall, South Dakota. Since the town is only four
square miles, we figured we could get it done in an afternoon. First
stop was, of course, the Wall Drug Store, on main street. The
“store” now takes up an entire city block with what is basically
a giant souvenir shop. The interior is divided into a number of
different shops, western wear, western art, souvenirs, clothing, a
huge restaurant, and an actual drug store, although it is only a
couple hundred square feet in size. They also have lots of tourist
trap things like a huge, animated T-Rex, an eight foot jackalope, a
lot of stuffed game animals, and a huge collection of historic photos
from the central west area.
We spent about two hours in the Wall
Drug store, then walked the two block main street, looking in all the
other shops that have sprung up to soak up some of the Wall Drug
business. It was interesting, but this is clearly a one time thing.
It's a kitschy bit of Americana that you have to see once, but only
once. Jackie was sort of expecting a giant hardware store of sorts,
and was a little disappointed that it was just a tourist trap.
After touring the Wall Drug, and
getting a tee shirt, of course, we went out to do some caching.
Surprisingly, given the tourist pull of the town, there are very few
caches around. We did three in town, including one at the Wall
cemetery, and one next to the giant cement brontosaurus that sits
next to the freeway, courtesy of Wall Drug. We then drove some of
the back roads and found some really interesting little places. We
did a couple caches in the town of Quinn, about fifteen miles east of
Wall. This was a little farming community of a couple hundred. We
then drove to Cottonwood, South Dakota, population 12, to do another
cemetery cache. We had to DNF the cache, just couldn't find it, but
found the town, or what's left of it, fascinating. I had to take a
picture of the old wooden church, now abandoned that looks like a
prop from a horror movie. We ended up with five finds for the
afternoon before heading back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Saturday, June 6th, the 71st
anniversary of the D-Day invasion that marked the beginning of the
end of WWII. We left the coach a little after noon for day of
exploration. We started by driving about 21 miles south of Wall on
Interstate 90 and stopping at the Minuteman Missile National Historic
Site. They are housed in a brand new visitor's center at exit 131,
so new it hasn't even been formally dedicated yet. The visitors
center has a few exhibits and a book shop, but the real interesting
sites are the preserved Launch Control Center at exit 127 and the
preserved Minuteman Missile silo at exit 116. Both of these were
active parts of the system in the 60's and 70's. The park service
now maintains the facilities and offers free public tours. We didn't
do the tour since we have already been inside one of the old Titan
sites in Arizona and since they all used pretty much the same 1950's
design and hardware, we didn't need to do it again.
Our next stop was the Badlands National
Park, where we went in the east entrance a few miles south of the
freeway, also off exit 131. This park, which covers nearly 380
square miles, was established as a National Monument in 1929 and
elevated to National Park status in 1978. The park protects a
hundred mile long area of eroded prairie, composed of fairly soft
soils, which has been carved into a series of mesas, pinnacles, peaks
and steep canyons. It was known in frontier times as “the wall”
because of the way it just appears on the prairie as you approach
from the south. This is how the town of Wall, where we currently
are, got it's name. We stopped at the visitor's center and learned
about the park, how, when and why it became the way it is. We then
drove the 35 mile interior loop road that goes back northwest and
eventually leads back to the town of Wall. We spent a couple of
hours in the park and took a lot of very neat pictures. It is quite
a sight to see.
After we got back to town we stopped at
the Visitor's Center for the National Grasslands, which is similar to
a national forest, but for prairie lands. There are currently twenty
National Grasslands protecting nearly 4 million acres of grasslands.
The one in the area around Wall is know as the Buffalo Gap Grasslands
and is about 700,000 acres in size. We also stopped at the museum in
Wall dedicated to the Massacre at Wounded Knee. It was a very small
museum and they wanted an admission fee, so we just browsed the gift
shop and left.
The actual site of the Wounded Knee
Massacre is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, about 60 miles
south of Wall. The Massacre occurred in 1890 when a regiment of U.S.
Calvary attempted to disarm a large group of Lakota Indians.
Fighting broke out and the Calvary ended up killing between 250 and
300 men, women and children. The Calvary lost about 25 soldiers in
the battle. The reservation town of Wounded Knee was also the site
of the 1973 standoff between Russell Means and other members of the
American Indian Movement (AIM) and the FBI and Marshall's Service.
That standoff ended after 71 days during which three people were
killed and over a dozen injured in shooting incidents between the
occupiers and the government. After a tribal elder was killed by a
sniper the Indians called off the occupation and the government took
control of the town. After our tours of the various natural and
historical sights, we went back downtown and did a little more
shopping before heading back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Sunday, June 7th, we had a
relaxing day at home. I went out and got the Sunday paper, the Rapid
City paper, not the Wall one. I think the Wall paper only comes out
once a week. We stayed in and got a few chores done and just
relaxed.
Monday was another travel day. We were packed up and on
the road around 10:30, heading east on Interstate 90. Today's
destination was Pierre, South Dakota, about 135 miles northeast of
Wall. Pierre is the state capitol and is another place we have never
been before. We will be there for five days. We arrived at the
River View RV Park about 2:00, after having time traveled by passing
into the Central Time Zone. This park is on a bluff about 200 feet
above the Missouri River, overlooking the river and the City of
Pierre on the opposite bank. We have some really nice views up here.
Our arrival here in Pierre marks a good
place to close out this chapter and get it published. Until next
time remember not to be so busy watching out for what's just ahead of
you that you don't take time to enjoy where you are. See ya soon.
