Great Adventure
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Chapter 4: Thunder Bay, ON to Wapiti, WY
July 11– July 19, 2002
After nearly 1200 miles of driving in three days, the name of “Rush No
More Campground” in Sturgis, South Dakota, seemed particularly
appropriate! All of us, including the cat and the dog, had enough of
being cooped up in the motorhome for many hours at a stretch. But we
arrived in the West, and could scarcely believe we just left Thunder
Bay. The climate and landscapes were totally different!
Our route took us south from Thunder Bay, along the shore of Lake
Superior, back over the U.S. border at Grand Portage, Minnesota and
through Grand Marais. At Duluth, we said good-bye to Superior and
made a beeline for Rogers, just outside Minneapolis. We wanted to
visit the RV’ers “Mecca”- Camping World. We had bought many things
from Camping World’s catalog, but had never been inside any of their
stores. We wandered up and down the aisles for an
hour and bought a few needed supplies. We
spent the night in their parking lot at no charge,
as they make several hook-ups available on a
first-come, first-served basis.
The next day, we crossed the Mississippi River
just north of Minneapolis. Not very impressive this
far north and so close to it’s source! It’s not even
as wide as the Connecticut River in Hartford. However, crossing the
Missouri River in central South Dakota was another story. Not only is it
a very wide river, it provides a line of demarcation in the landscape
from farmland to prairie.
Missouri River
From Minneapolis south to Rt. 90 and across to South Dakota we saw
nothing but cornfields. In fact, we stopped for the night in Mitchell,
South Dakota, home of the world’s only Corn Palace.
www.cornpalace.com
The Corn Palace has been rebuilt nearly every year since 1892 to
showcase the crops grown in the Dakotas. The original settlers wanted
to prove that Lewis & Clark were wrong when they declared the area to
be the Great American Desert, claiming it was suitable for buffalo but
not for farming. The exterior of the Corn Palace is covered in murals
made from eleven different colors of corn, as well as various grains,
much as a giant paint-by-numbers project. About 275,000 ears of corn
are sawed in half and nailed flat side to the building over three months
at a cost of over $100,000. The building actually functions as the civic
center for the town of Mitchell and draws 400,000 tourists each year.
However, on the west side of the Missouri River there is no corn, just
prairie grassland. The prairies once stretched across the middle of
what is now the U.S. from Texas to Canada. The climate is too dry to
grow trees but too wet to be desert. In western South Dakota we spent
a couple of hours driving the scenic loop road in Badlands National
Park.
Badlands
It got its name from the early French trappers, who called it, “Les
mauvaises terres a traverser”; “Bad lands to travel across”. On this
particular day of blue sky and sunshine, the Badlands were
unbelievably beautiful and truly awesome.
Badlands too
Sandstone hills and valleys, in layers of gray and red and in some
cases, gold, presented us with ever changing vistas as the road
traveled up the ridges, through the passes, and down on to the prairie
and back up again. Two-dimensional photographs can not possibly
capture the feeling of being surrounded by bluffs and canyons and
prairie for miles around.
From our campground just north of Rapid City, we drove through
Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills National Forest
www.blackhillsbadlands.com. The road followed the canyon floor
parallel to the river, which was very low due to the drought. The yellow
and black stone canyon walls were vertical in many places and capped
with fir trees. We passed the place where the National Holiday
Christmas tree was cut in 1977 for the U.S. Capitol building in
Washington DC. The remaining weathered tree stump was several feet
across! In the evening, we toured the mining town of Deadwood, where
Wild Bill Hickok was shot to death in the late 1800’s. A re-enactment of
the shooting plays out on Main St. each evening. The town has been
restored and is now thriving due to the opening of western-themed
casinos attracting tourists.
Over five days in South Dakota and a day in Wyoming, we saw so much
that reminded us that “we’re not in Connecticut anymore!” We toured
the Black Hills National Forest, Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse
Memorial, Custer State Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, the
Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, and Devils Tower in Wyoming. Ed & I
agreed that our favorite “attraction” was Custer State Park www.
custerstatepark.info. We never heard of it before arriving in SD, but
the park is a 73,000-acre game reserve named for George A. Custer,
who led a scientific army expedition into the Black Hills in 1874. The
discovery of “gold in them thar hills” and the resultant throng of
fortune-seekers took a toll on the area’s wildlife. In 1913, the game
reserve was created to protect bison, pronghorn antelope, elk,
bighorn sheep, and mountain goats. We were able to drive the 18-mile
Wildlife Loop Road and see herds of bison so close to our car we could
have reached out to touch them!
Bison in Custer State Park
They are magnificent animals weighing up to 2000 lbs. We also saw
pronghorn, mule deer (similar to white-tailed deer but with big ears), a
couple of lone coyotes, and a LOT of prairie dogs. The prairie dogs
would pop up out of their burrows and give a high-pitched “yip”,
reminding me of Duncan’s yips when he wants attention, so maybe that’
s why they are called “dogs”. In addition to wildlife, Custer State Park
also has two scenic drives through the rugged Black Hills terrain. The
14-mile Needles Highway takes its name from the slender granite peaks
of the area and is an adventure to drive due to the hairpin turns and
narrow granite tunnels. The Iron Mountain Road leads to Mt.
Rushmore, and in fact, three granite tunnels along the way perfectly
frame Mt. Rushmore in the distance.
Mt. Rushmore
Mt. Rushmore inspired mixed feelings in me. Fourteen years and a
million dollars (over 60 years ago) resulted in an awesome
achievement for Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor. He chose to carve 60
foot high heads of four Presidents in order to honor each one for his
role in shaping America. He chose George Washington for the founding
of our government; Thomas Jefferson for growth through exploration
(Lewis & Clark expedition) and land acquisition (the Louisiana
Purchase); Abraham Lincoln for stabilizing the country after the Civil
War; and Theodore Roosevelt for preserving our natural beauty by
creating National Parks. The evening lighting ceremony was very
moving and patriotic as the entire audience recited the Pledge of
Allegiance, a park ranger recited the history and rationale behind the
monument’s creation, and we concluded by singing the “Star Spangled
Banner.” At the same time, I felt some sadness that the “glory” of man’s
creation to honor men intrudes on God’s creation of the mountains.
Apparently, others had the same sentiments when the sculpture was
first proposed and I wonder if today such a project would even be
allowed. The Indians answer to Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse
Memorial www.crazyhorse.org lies just 17 miles away. This mountain
carving of the Native American who defeated Custer at the Battle of
Little Big Horn, under construction since 1948, accepts no government
funding. When completed, The Crazy Horse Memorial will be much
larger than Mt. Rushmore.
The perfect antidote for a nearly 100 degree summer day is to visit
Jewel Cave National Monument, where hundreds of feet below the
earth’s surface the temperature is a constant 49 degrees! We toured a
½ mile portion of the 127 miles of explored sections of the second
largest cave in the US, spending about an hour and a half climbing up
and down over 750 steps. (Another very good reason for taking this
trip now, instead of waiting ‘til retirement, as there were no elderly
people taking the relatively strenuous tour.) There were not as many
formations as in some other caves since many parts of the cave are
dry. But in the wet sections, we saw stalagmites and stalactites,
limestone that looked like coral, and a rippled stripe of colored rock
than when backlit looked like a giant strip of bacon! Unfortunately, I
forgot my camera that day, so no pictures.
The same geological forces that created the caves also created hot
springs in the area. In the town of Hot Springs we visited one of the
world’s greatest fossil treasures, the Mammoth Site
www.mammothsite.com. The remains of 52 mammoths have been
uncovered since 1976, when the site was discovered while being
excavated for a housing development. Scientists theorize that the
mammoths came to the hot springs in winter to feed on the vegetation
that grew on the banks, accidentally fell in, couldn’t climb back out, and
drowned. The site will require many more years to excavate, so an air-
conditioned museum on the work site protects it until additional funds
can be raised for further work.
Anyone who remembers the opening scenes from the 1978 movie
“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” has seen the natural rock
formation called Devils Tower www.nps.gov/deto. As far as I know, no
alien spaceship has actually landed on it! The tower is the 867-ft. high
core of a volcano that is 60 million years old. Although the region is
hilly, this tower can be seen for many miles in all directions. It is a rock
climber’s paradise! The sides of the tower are grooved and periodically
chunks of rock fall off, but geologists estimate the last section fell over
10,000 years ago, so we felt relatively safe lounging at the base. If it
hadn’t been over 100 degrees, we might have walked the 1.3-mile trail
around the base, but with that kind of heat, well, we thought its name
was appropriate! Granted it was in the sun, but the needle on our
outdoor thermometer was buried at 120 degrees!
After Devil’s Tower we camped at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains,
outcroppings of the Rockies. Following Rt.16 west, we crossed the Big
Horns via a pass at 9666 feet. In Cody, Wyoming, our Honda broke down
stranding us thirty miles from Yellowstone. So close, yet so far! We had
stopped at Wal-Mart to do some shopping and have lunch on our way
to Wapiti. As we were getting ready to depart, Ed started the Honda for
a few minutes to warm up the transmission before towing. He shut the
car off and noticed a big puddle of motor oil underneath. He checked
the dipstick and barely any oil registered. It had all leaked out! Now, if
this had to happen, it really couldn’t have happened at a better place.
This particular Super Center has an oil-change facility, so we asked the
guys if they could look underneath to see where the oil was leaking
from. The mechanic said it was pouring out of the crankcase seal. He
was kind enough to call around for us to find a mechanic who was
capable of doing the work and had the time. We called AAA and had the
car towed to a dealer in Powell, about 20 miles north of Cody – wrong
direction, but what could we do? Luckily, we still had the motorhome
for a vehicle, so we continued on to Wapiti where we had reservations
for five days. We learned that it would be nearly a week before parts
could be located and installed. So I called and was able to get
reservations at two campgrounds right in Yellowstone. Could have
been worse – what if we had been on a two-week vacation and this
happened? We still believe that God was looking out for us. We could
have been stranded somewhere, but we were quite safe. It actually
turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we had a better time touring
Yellowstone in the motorhome and staying right in the park.
July 11– July 19, 2002
After nearly 1200 miles of driving in three days, the name of “Rush No
More Campground” in Sturgis, South Dakota, seemed particularly
appropriate! All of us, including the cat and the dog, had enough of
being cooped up in the motorhome for many hours at a stretch. But we
arrived in the West, and could scarcely believe we just left Thunder
Bay. The climate and landscapes were totally different!
Our route took us south from Thunder Bay, along the shore of Lake
Superior, back over the U.S. border at Grand Portage, Minnesota and
through Grand Marais. At Duluth, we said good-bye to Superior and
made a beeline for Rogers, just outside Minneapolis. We wanted to
visit the RV’ers “Mecca”- Camping World. We had bought many things
from Camping World’s catalog, but had never been inside any of their
stores. We wandered up and down the aisles for an
hour and bought a few needed supplies. We
spent the night in their parking lot at no charge,
as they make several hook-ups available on a
first-come, first-served basis.
The next day, we crossed the Mississippi River
just north of Minneapolis. Not very impressive this
far north and so close to it’s source! It’s not even
as wide as the Connecticut River in Hartford. However, crossing the
Missouri River in central South Dakota was another story. Not only is it
a very wide river, it provides a line of demarcation in the landscape
from farmland to prairie.
Missouri River
From Minneapolis south to Rt. 90 and across to South Dakota we saw
nothing but cornfields. In fact, we stopped for the night in Mitchell,
South Dakota, home of the world’s only Corn Palace.
www.cornpalace.com
The Corn Palace has been rebuilt nearly every year since 1892 to
showcase the crops grown in the Dakotas. The original settlers wanted
to prove that Lewis & Clark were wrong when they declared the area to
be the Great American Desert, claiming it was suitable for buffalo but
not for farming. The exterior of the Corn Palace is covered in murals
made from eleven different colors of corn, as well as various grains,
much as a giant paint-by-numbers project. About 275,000 ears of corn
are sawed in half and nailed flat side to the building over three months
at a cost of over $100,000. The building actually functions as the civic
center for the town of Mitchell and draws 400,000 tourists each year.
However, on the west side of the Missouri River there is no corn, just
prairie grassland. The prairies once stretched across the middle of
what is now the U.S. from Texas to Canada. The climate is too dry to
grow trees but too wet to be desert. In western South Dakota we spent
a couple of hours driving the scenic loop road in Badlands National
Park.
Badlands
It got its name from the early French trappers, who called it, “Les
mauvaises terres a traverser”; “Bad lands to travel across”. On this
particular day of blue sky and sunshine, the Badlands were
unbelievably beautiful and truly awesome.
Badlands too
Sandstone hills and valleys, in layers of gray and red and in some
cases, gold, presented us with ever changing vistas as the road
traveled up the ridges, through the passes, and down on to the prairie
and back up again. Two-dimensional photographs can not possibly
capture the feeling of being surrounded by bluffs and canyons and
prairie for miles around.
From our campground just north of Rapid City, we drove through
Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills National Forest
www.blackhillsbadlands.com. The road followed the canyon floor
parallel to the river, which was very low due to the drought. The yellow
and black stone canyon walls were vertical in many places and capped
with fir trees. We passed the place where the National Holiday
Christmas tree was cut in 1977 for the U.S. Capitol building in
Washington DC. The remaining weathered tree stump was several feet
across! In the evening, we toured the mining town of Deadwood, where
Wild Bill Hickok was shot to death in the late 1800’s. A re-enactment of
the shooting plays out on Main St. each evening. The town has been
restored and is now thriving due to the opening of western-themed
casinos attracting tourists.
Over five days in South Dakota and a day in Wyoming, we saw so much
that reminded us that “we’re not in Connecticut anymore!” We toured
the Black Hills National Forest, Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse
Memorial, Custer State Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, the
Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, and Devils Tower in Wyoming. Ed & I
agreed that our favorite “attraction” was Custer State Park www.
custerstatepark.info. We never heard of it before arriving in SD, but
the park is a 73,000-acre game reserve named for George A. Custer,
who led a scientific army expedition into the Black Hills in 1874. The
discovery of “gold in them thar hills” and the resultant throng of
fortune-seekers took a toll on the area’s wildlife. In 1913, the game
reserve was created to protect bison, pronghorn antelope, elk,
bighorn sheep, and mountain goats. We were able to drive the 18-mile
Wildlife Loop Road and see herds of bison so close to our car we could
have reached out to touch them!
Bison in Custer State Park
They are magnificent animals weighing up to 2000 lbs. We also saw
pronghorn, mule deer (similar to white-tailed deer but with big ears), a
couple of lone coyotes, and a LOT of prairie dogs. The prairie dogs
would pop up out of their burrows and give a high-pitched “yip”,
reminding me of Duncan’s yips when he wants attention, so maybe that’
s why they are called “dogs”. In addition to wildlife, Custer State Park
also has two scenic drives through the rugged Black Hills terrain. The
14-mile Needles Highway takes its name from the slender granite peaks
of the area and is an adventure to drive due to the hairpin turns and
narrow granite tunnels. The Iron Mountain Road leads to Mt.
Rushmore, and in fact, three granite tunnels along the way perfectly
frame Mt. Rushmore in the distance.
Mt. Rushmore
Mt. Rushmore inspired mixed feelings in me. Fourteen years and a
million dollars (over 60 years ago) resulted in an awesome
achievement for Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor. He chose to carve 60
foot high heads of four Presidents in order to honor each one for his
role in shaping America. He chose George Washington for the founding
of our government; Thomas Jefferson for growth through exploration
(Lewis & Clark expedition) and land acquisition (the Louisiana
Purchase); Abraham Lincoln for stabilizing the country after the Civil
War; and Theodore Roosevelt for preserving our natural beauty by
creating National Parks. The evening lighting ceremony was very
moving and patriotic as the entire audience recited the Pledge of
Allegiance, a park ranger recited the history and rationale behind the
monument’s creation, and we concluded by singing the “Star Spangled
Banner.” At the same time, I felt some sadness that the “glory” of man’s
creation to honor men intrudes on God’s creation of the mountains.
Apparently, others had the same sentiments when the sculpture was
first proposed and I wonder if today such a project would even be
allowed. The Indians answer to Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse
Memorial www.crazyhorse.org lies just 17 miles away. This mountain
carving of the Native American who defeated Custer at the Battle of
Little Big Horn, under construction since 1948, accepts no government
funding. When completed, The Crazy Horse Memorial will be much
larger than Mt. Rushmore.
The perfect antidote for a nearly 100 degree summer day is to visit
Jewel Cave National Monument, where hundreds of feet below the
earth’s surface the temperature is a constant 49 degrees! We toured a
½ mile portion of the 127 miles of explored sections of the second
largest cave in the US, spending about an hour and a half climbing up
and down over 750 steps. (Another very good reason for taking this
trip now, instead of waiting ‘til retirement, as there were no elderly
people taking the relatively strenuous tour.) There were not as many
formations as in some other caves since many parts of the cave are
dry. But in the wet sections, we saw stalagmites and stalactites,
limestone that looked like coral, and a rippled stripe of colored rock
than when backlit looked like a giant strip of bacon! Unfortunately, I
forgot my camera that day, so no pictures.
The same geological forces that created the caves also created hot
springs in the area. In the town of Hot Springs we visited one of the
world’s greatest fossil treasures, the Mammoth Site
www.mammothsite.com. The remains of 52 mammoths have been
uncovered since 1976, when the site was discovered while being
excavated for a housing development. Scientists theorize that the
mammoths came to the hot springs in winter to feed on the vegetation
that grew on the banks, accidentally fell in, couldn’t climb back out, and
drowned. The site will require many more years to excavate, so an air-
conditioned museum on the work site protects it until additional funds
can be raised for further work.
Anyone who remembers the opening scenes from the 1978 movie
“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” has seen the natural rock
formation called Devils Tower www.nps.gov/deto. As far as I know, no
alien spaceship has actually landed on it! The tower is the 867-ft. high
core of a volcano that is 60 million years old. Although the region is
hilly, this tower can be seen for many miles in all directions. It is a rock
climber’s paradise! The sides of the tower are grooved and periodically
chunks of rock fall off, but geologists estimate the last section fell over
10,000 years ago, so we felt relatively safe lounging at the base. If it
hadn’t been over 100 degrees, we might have walked the 1.3-mile trail
around the base, but with that kind of heat, well, we thought its name
was appropriate! Granted it was in the sun, but the needle on our
outdoor thermometer was buried at 120 degrees!
After Devil’s Tower we camped at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains,
outcroppings of the Rockies. Following Rt.16 west, we crossed the Big
Horns via a pass at 9666 feet. In Cody, Wyoming, our Honda broke down
stranding us thirty miles from Yellowstone. So close, yet so far! We had
stopped at Wal-Mart to do some shopping and have lunch on our way
to Wapiti. As we were getting ready to depart, Ed started the Honda for
a few minutes to warm up the transmission before towing. He shut the
car off and noticed a big puddle of motor oil underneath. He checked
the dipstick and barely any oil registered. It had all leaked out! Now, if
this had to happen, it really couldn’t have happened at a better place.
This particular Super Center has an oil-change facility, so we asked the
guys if they could look underneath to see where the oil was leaking
from. The mechanic said it was pouring out of the crankcase seal. He
was kind enough to call around for us to find a mechanic who was
capable of doing the work and had the time. We called AAA and had the
car towed to a dealer in Powell, about 20 miles north of Cody – wrong
direction, but what could we do? Luckily, we still had the motorhome
for a vehicle, so we continued on to Wapiti where we had reservations
for five days. We learned that it would be nearly a week before parts
could be located and installed. So I called and was able to get
reservations at two campgrounds right in Yellowstone. Could have
been worse – what if we had been on a two-week vacation and this
happened? We still believe that God was looking out for us. We could
have been stranded somewhere, but we were quite safe. It actually
turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we had a better time touring
Yellowstone in the motorhome and staying right in the park.
