To think it all started with a free glass of water...

One thing great about the RV community is that it is one.  No one is a stranger and everyone is friendly.  At the very least you always get a friendly greeting on the road, at gas stations and while at camp.  Often you get into conversations of where you’ve been and where your headed.  This always leads to ‘favorites’ and “have you been to...?” with wonderful suggestions and good for-warnings. 

When you hear from many campers to “be sure and see...” I put it on our ‘must do’ list!  One such place was Wall Drug, in Wall South Dakota.  Anytime we mentioned that we were going to be anywhere even near South Dakota, the response was always “oh, you’ve got to go see Wall Drug Store then!”  Well, ok then.  So, we did.

After the visit to Devils Tower, I booked us into the Hart Ranch in Rapid City (because it is part of our RPI membership) which is about an hour away.  We didn’t really know what to expect and even tried to guess on the drive out to it.  To add to the anticipation, Wall Drug has fun signs posted about every half mile all along the way!  They began to prepare us for the fun that is Wall Drug. 

I’m almost tempted to just tell you that you have to experience it for yourself and leave it at that...but I won’t be that cruel.  It is going to be hard to describe tho, but I’ll try.

First, let’s start with a little history:  “Wall” is the name of the town, not the owners...and it’s a really small town, out in the middle of nowhere, even now, so try to imagine it back in 1931(326 ppl)...in December...on the edge of the Badlands in South Dakota.  Brrr  This crazy couple, Dorothy and Ted Hustead (and small son) decided that they wanted to open up a small drug store.  Mount Rushmore was being built and tourists would soon be driving by to see it...and stop, or so they thought.  No one stopped.  They decided to give it five years.  In the summer of 1936 their five-year trial was closing in.  One hot Sunday in July, in the deadening heat Dorothy had an idea.  As she watched all the cars driving by, she thought after driving across that hot prairie, they're thirsty, “what they really want right now is ice cold water!”  Now, they had plenty of ice and water, so she told her husband that they needed to put up signs all along the highway telling people to come there for free ice water!  They modeled them after the old Burma Shave signs, and the tourists showed up, by the hundreds!  At first, just for the free ice water, but soon, they asked to buy ice cream too.  The rest, as they say, is history.  The Hustead’s turned free ice water into a family billion dollar business.  He has a statement in his brochure that I really like - “ Free Ice Water.  It brought us Husteads a long way and it taught me my greatest lesson, and that’s that there’s absolutely no place on God’s earth that’s Godforsaken.  No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need!”

Ok, so that’s how it started, today, it’s a multi-complex of buildings a block long and wide with shops and activities for all ages! So big that they give you a map to help you figure out where everything is.  Of course there is a place to eat, the Western Art Gallery Cafe, and a gas station, along with every kind of gift shop imaginable - those are to be expected.  But, the unexpected is the fun stuff, like the Travelers Chapel in case you need to pray, different statues for 'photo ops' or the various activities for the kids, like panning for gold, or playing in the water at the train station, or how about some of the mechanical entertainments like T-Rex that goes off about every 12 minutes, or the cowboy campers singing around the campfire?  I could go on and on, but I think you can get at least some of the picture, and oh yes, there is still the original drug store tucked in among all this, and yes...a free ice water station!

...kicking back in Rapid City South Dakota,  Marie

Rapid City surprises...

A lot of the time we choose our campground locations by how many miles we want to travel in a day.  Our "rule of thumb" is four hours on the road.  This doesn't tax Jack to much and gives both of us time to settle in, relax and still enjoy part of the day.  Because of this, we don't always know a lot about the towns we end up staying in, or near, so once we get there, or near there, we try and find out about it as much as possible.  We will stop at Visitor Centers (our favorite) or ask locals (restaurants staff, campground staff, etc) for suggestions.  I'm always on the lookout for brochures and nab ones that look interesting, even if it's not where we are at, just in case it's someplace within driving distance.  Of course we always have our books - AAA Guide Book, 1000 Places to Visit Before You Die, and Off The Beaten Path and Watch It Made in the USA.  We also found a fun app we added to Jack's I Pad, called Roadside.  It lists all the roadside oddities and attractions, everything from the littlest museum to quirky graves, to Muffler men statues.

So, while I'm sitting in my 'co-pilot' seat, I'm perusing through all these various forms of information, figuring out what, if anything, this city/town/area we are staying at for the next day or two or three, has to offer.  It's often that during this research session, we find out that this place that we thought was just going to be an over-night stop, is worth spending several days there because it has lots to see!  Such a place was Rapid City SD.  We knew it was within driving distance to Wall Drug, and that was the reason for the visit...and that was going to be it, and go.  Until we got there...

A day filled with Wall Drug Store (it's own blog), a day filled with the 1880 Train and the Chapel in the Hill (another separate blog) and a day filled with what I call it's oddities...

Now, for the one or two people that may be reading this, that doesn't know, I worked for the World Famous San Diego Zoo & Safari Park for 20 years, so I've been around animals.  All kinds of animals.  I've been privileged to be up close and personal with some pretty exotic ones (no, I didn't work with animals, only people) too, so I usually don't get overly excited about seeing most animals in captivity, however...THIS place was a hoot!

Bear Country U.S.A. is a drive-through animal park.  Now, many, many years ago, California used to have something like this called Lion Country Safari where you could drive through while lions walked about, but it closed down (They say for dwindling tourists, but I would bet a lot had to do with high insurance costs, among other things!).  It's a three-mile drive through several enclosures and encounter black bear, elk, reindeer, deer, cougars, bobcats, rocky mountain goats, bighorn sheep, dall sheep and buffalo.  Even though you see all the other animals, the black bears are the attraction.  There are dozens of them wandering about!  We had one come right up along side my window and walk along with it for a minute, that's how close...and that's the closest I've ever been to one, I can tell you!  They're big!  It's kind of fun to see all the various shades of "black" they are too - from gold all the way to darkest brown.  Afterward, they have an area where you park and walk around to see the young bear cubs,  fox and other small animals.  A unique experience, I will say, even for a zoo person like me!

After all that "animal watching" we were ready to face the city, have some lunch and see what it had to offer!   One fun thing was their "City of Presidents series", life-size bronze statues of our nation’s past presidents along the city’s streets and sidewalks.   I picked out a few of our favorite and hunted them down and took our picture with them.  The other really cool thing was what they call “Art Alley”.  They let the local “artists” paint whatever they want - graffiti, art, writings, anything.  Some of it was pretty cool stuff too!  It seemed to keep “tagging” in one area of town too, as we didn’t see any outside this alley, so pretty smart of the people who came up with the idea, I’d say!

Just goes to show you...one never knows what hidden gems lies in wait for us...guess we will just have to keep searching them out!

...kicking back in Rapid City South Dakota,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/

Close Encounters...

There are just some places you have to see for yourself.  Places you've heard about.  Places you've seen in movies.  Places family or friends have talked about and maybe even shown you pictures of.  They stay in the back of your mind, until one day...your in "the" area and you just have to go and see it!

One such place is the Devils Tower in Wyoming.  First introduction..."Close Encounters of the Third Kind" with Richard Dreyfuss, back in 1977!  Who can forget that one?  Didn't it make you want to see it for yourself?  Did it really exist?  Does it really look like that?  How big is it really?  What's around it?  Tiny questions, small enough to wonder, not big enough to bother researching...just tucked in the back of your mind.  Forgotten, long ago...at least until you find yourself within driving distance of it!

So, there we were, leaving Gillette Wyoming, heading east on I 90, heading straight for that long ago memory.  Reservations had been made weeks ago at the Devils Tower KOA because we had read that they were "the closest campground to the Tower" and that they played the movie every night!  How cool was that?

The first time the Tower came into view, it was a pure "Wow" factor!  It lived up to all the expectations, and more.  The closer we got...the better it was.  This thing is BIG...and beautiful...and right in the middle of nowhere.

After the initial "photo stops", it was time to head to the official Visitor's Center to learn about the Tower and what and where we should see.  So, if you are not up to date on all the "data" on the Tower, only knowing it from the movie, like I was, here's some basic info that I found pretty interesting...

In 1906 President Teddy Roosevelt designated Devils Tower as the nation's first national (and natural) monument.  It's actually the core of a volcano exposed after millions of years of erosion brought on by the Belle Fouche River and the weather.  It stands 865 feet high. Rock climbers love to climb it.  There are loads of rocks and boulders around the base of the tower that are actually broken pieces of columns having fallen from the sides. The Tower is a sacred site to the local Plains Indians and they still practice some of their rituals on the Tower.  The Park Service sets June aside and asks climbers not to do so during this month.  There are various prayer sacks, cloths, dream catchers, etc. tied to the trees during this time as well. 

Enough "facts", it was time to go take a walk around it!  They had several nice trails, some easy ones (our kind!) and some longer ones (for the more hardy types).  The day was beautiful, so we started out, camera and hat in the ready.  The path was steep, but they were kind enough to have benches along the way, to rest and just gaze at it.  We also caught sight of a fast moving Great Basin Gopher snake...that we left alone.

As we left the park and headed back down the hill the red sandstone and siltstone cliffs above the Belle Fouche River stood out against the green Ponderosa Pine forest east of Devils Tower beautifully.

The first and last thing you encounter on the drive is the black-tailed prairie dogs in their own town at the base of Devils Tower.  Those little guys are a hoot!  There are hundreds, well, probably thousands of them scurrying about in and out of the millions of holes they have dug.  They are so used to the tourists that they almost pose for pictures as all of us stop and snap away!  (I had to take some for my grandson, he loves them!)

Our campground was right at the base of the Tower, so we enjoyed the view from all angles, but no matter how often we looked, we never saw any extra-terrestrials!

 ...on the road in South Dakota,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/

It's a Matter of Perspective...

It's funny how under certain circumstances you can feel like an "expert", or at least "experienced" and then under other circumstances, with the same subject, you now feel like a "new-comer".  Such is the RV life!

We have been full-timing it for 18 months now, and compared to some of the folks we've met at campgrounds along the way, we are "rare and experienced" and are asked a lot of questions.  Then you come to a situation like we did this week...a "Rally", changes everything.

The Family Motor Coach Association celebrated their 50th anniversary with a big rally and reunion in Gillette Wyoming.  2639 motor coaches and around 6000 people attended a four day celebration filled with seminars, shopping, exhibits, historic motor coaches, new ones to tempt you, entertainment and fun.

The few days leading up to the rally found us in campgrounds in Cody and Buffalo on our way to Gillette - along with dozens of other fellow FMCA rally bound campers.  On one such night we had an opportunity to visit with several of them over an ice cream social given by one of the campground hosts.  We quickly learned how "new" we were at this life style!  We might be the rare "full-timer" but other folks have been RVing (and going to these rallies) for 10, 15, 20 years.  "New-comer" took on a whole new meaning!

The day of the check-in found us leaving our campground in Buffalo at the same time as many others - all headed where we were.  What a strange sight to be on an Interstate with nothing but RVs all heading to the same place.  The only other rally we have attended was the small one put on by the manufacturer of our rig.  That was in Florida last year, and we didn't see anyone on the road with us as we traveled to it!

For those of you not familiar with rallies (we sure weren't before we joined the RV world).  They are an organized gathering of like-interested (or like-coach) folks to come together for a few days to camp, socialize and learn.  Depending on who is hosting and how large the group is, vendors, RV dealers along with their latest rigs and entertainment, might be included.  Something like this, that draws people from all over the US and Canada, it's as big as a State Fair, with seminars going on throughout each day on just about every subject having to do with this life-style from maintaining your rig to cooking in it!

Here in Wyoming, each day brought on a different kind of weather too.  The day of check-in was thankfully, sunny, as hundreds upon hundreds of coaches arrived and were guided in by experienced and well staffed volunteers.  The Cam-Plex that this was being held at was a huge dirt & grass multi-event arena.  They had us parking in row after row, after row, around and around we went to what seemed like miles of coaches!  That night gave us a beautiful sunset to start our celebration off.

However, it was soon to change!  The sun quickly left us and the storm of wind and rain came in with full force adding a show of lightening and thunder to the next night.  Our rigs were rocking and rolling.  As we started out the following day, to mud and grass soaked fields, we didn't let it slow us down.  The rally organizers had school buses that ran shuttles all day and evening until everything was over so that we could easily get to and from the various areas with the least bit of trouble.  Good thing, because as the days continued, so did the weather worsen.  Day 3 brought more rain and then a heavy down poor of hail!  Inches of it!  We even got a tornado warning for a few hours!  Some of us were left stranded in the exhibit hall with the vendors and just had to go on shopping (me!).

They brought in some fun entertainment for us as well.  One night they sent us down memory lane with The Buckinghams as they sang songs from the 1960's with many of us singing right along with them!  

Friday evening they held a "Black Tie and Blue Jeans Dance" that we were just to tired to go to!  Dashing from seminar to seminar from 8am to 4pm every day just tuckered us out!  We haven't had to cram so much learning in, in a long time!  Just ask me how to clean a holding tank now, and I can tell you!

We made up for it Saturday tho and got to enjoy an evening with Marty Stuart and his band.  A great way to end the event.

But Sunday was another story...Sunday was "exit day"...sort of.  You see, that "weather" I mentioned earlier, well, it kept raining on & off, more on that off, really.  Most of us were parked on what started out to be dirt & grass...that quickly turned into mud and muck.  I finally renamed our street (each row had a street name) from 5th street to Lake Lane!  Pretty much everyone on our row had to be towed out.  6" of mud & water just doesn't make for easy drive-ability when you have a 26,000 lbs vehicle!  We had put wood under our tires, Jack thought that would help...nope, as soon as he drove off of them...we sank!  But, as RVer's do, one came to our rescue and tied his car to our RV and with a lot of tugging and willpower, he pulled us out!  I couldn't hardly believe it (I delivered a nice bottle of red wine and a hug afterward)!

A good washing getting all the mud splatters off, and the day was done...many, many things learned, enjoyed, and will be remembered for a long, long time, thank you FMCA!

 Rows of motorhomes, photo courtesy of Mike Wendland

First night sunset

Seminar photo courtesy of Mike Wendland 

 The Buckinghams Concert

 Exhibit Hall, photo courtesy of Mike Wendland

Sunday's swamp dilemma...

 "Lake views"

 Might as well enjoy the lake view! 

Here we are, propped up, but still 6" deep...

...on the road (again!) in Wyoming,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/

A quick stop in Cody

Cody Wyoming, the home of "Buffalo Bill Cody" and his Wild West Show!  Couldn't miss an opportunity to check that out!  A whole town devoted to one man, and after spending a day in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, I can see why.

For a man who lived 71 years, he sure accomplished an awful lot...but he started at it at a young age.  Young Bill worked for a freight company as a messenger and wrangler before trying his luck as a prospector in the Pikes Peak gold rush in 1859 (age 13). The next year, at age 14, Cody joined the Pony Express, fitting the bill for the advertised position: "skinny, expert riders willing to risk death daily."  Sounds like a great job opportunity, don't you think? hm mm

It was his service in the American Civil War in 1867 that earned him his nickname.  He began buffalo hunting (to feed constructions crews building railroads).  His own assessment puts the number of buffalo he killed at 4,280, in just over a year and a half (he apparently was quite good at it).  He became a national folk hero thanks to the dime-novel exploits of his alter ego, "Buffalo Bill.” In late 1872, Cody went to Chicago to make his stage debut in The Scouts of the Prairie, one of Ned Buntline’s original Wild West Shows (Buntline was the author of the Buffalo Bill novels). 

In 1883, Cody founded his own show, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West," a circus-like extravaganza that toured widely for three decades, and the rest, as they say, is history...

What I also learned, was that he married and had 5 children, 4 of which died at pretty young ages.  Irma, the youngest, survived and even joined the show for awhile.  He named a hotel (turned restaurant) for her in Cody.  His wife didn't travel with him and stayed married to him all through those tough years (out lived him).  He was a very active man, involved in everything from women's & Indian rights, to water and land management in Wyoming.  His foresight helped build a much needed dam just west of Cody and he was recognized by both politicians and royalty.  He was quite a man.   We had no problem spending a full day in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.  It actually is 8 museums in one.  Jack spent most of his time in the Cody Firearms area that had a special show from the Smithsonian and I went over to the Whitney Western Art Museum & Photography Gallery.  I was in awe of some of the incredible art they had.  Jack said he saw firearms and "artwork" (on them) like he has never seen before.  I was allowed to take photos in my area (so I did, of course), but he was not.  Afterward, we made our way to the historical part of downtown to check out "The Irma" and have a drink at the bar that cost $100,000. back in the turn of the century.  They have a gunfight melodrama every evening (except Sunday) in the street out front, just to add some fun (and bring in the customers!).  The bar is now part of the restaurant, so you can't sit at it, so I just had to take a picture, but it was all fun.

The next day Cody was hosting the Plains Indian Museum Powwow, so of course, we went to check it out.  What a beautiful sight!  Hundreds of men, women and children all dressed in traditional regalia from head to toe.  We got there a little late and it was pretty crowed, so I didn't have the best spot for taking pictures, but that didn't stop me from trying.  I had promised my daughter and grandson that I would do my best to take some good shots of the various regalia so that they could see the special colors, beading and designs.  There were so many beautiful ones to look at, each different, I just kept snapping pictures.  They had each tribe parade around the area as they announced their region, then they would have different groups, like the Tiny Tots.  These were adorable little ones under 7 years.  A couple were barely walking!  Their whole family would walk with them, supporting them in keeping this tradition alive.  It was so great to see the love and happiness they all shared.  They also had the 7-12 age group.  Shy and proud at the same time.  Sweet.  Then the competition dancing began.  The drummers chanting and drumming while the dancers competing in the hot sun.  They were competing not only for the money, but for the honor as well.  You could tell that these people really had their heart in what they do.  It was very special to see.  I'm glad we were there to be a part of it, if only on the sidelines.

Cody was just a quick stop for us, as we are on our way to Gillette WY for our very first, very large, RV Rally!  Four days of seminars, entertainment and shopping! Yippee!
 

 ...on the road in Wyoming,  Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/

Last days of Yellowstone...

Weather here has been a mixture of sun, rain and even a little hail!  June, to me, seems like the beginning of summer, but here in this part of Wyoming, it’s still springtime.  The great thing about that is things are still happening...like wildflowers blooming, calves and cubs are up and following their mamas, baby birds are getting their feathers and are starting their flying lessons, and there are less tourist to see all this!  But...the weather is unpredictable too.  So, you flow with it, grabbing a jacket with a hood even though it might be sunny when you start out, or, spending a day “off” and writing while you watch the hail come thumping down all around. 

The campground at Yellowstone is quite different from the one at Grand Tetons.  Actually, Jack and I agree that the two parks are quite different from each other, both in looks as well as how they are run.  As for looks, apart from the obvious geology, Yellowstone suffered a huge fire back in 1988 and the scars are still noticeable today.  It’s sad to drive so many miles and see millions of trees laying dead all around you; looking so much like a child’s messy room with his Tinker Toys thrown about in big bunches.  It can’t help but take away some of the beauty.  The RV campground at Yellowstone is pretty much a large parking lot with RVs parked back to back with a pine tree between each of you.  Old Tarmac slabs with just enough room to park your toad beside your rig.  The Tarmac roads to each of the areas are full of pot holes and bumps, from the harsh winters I would suppose.  As I shared previously about the Grand Tetons campground, it was laid out more natural with lots of trees and a stronger feeling of camping in a forest.  Better kept roads, but since the “slabs” were “natural” they weren’t very level though either.  Yellowstone being so large, it has many more Lodges and therefore more Gift Shops, places to eat, etc.  It seems a little more “family oriented” here, more towards children’s activities, interests, items, etc than at the Grand Tetons, we did see less children there as well.  Here it’s been fun to see so many small children seeing the animals and geysers, excited, learning, having fun and making new friends to play with.

We finished up our last days with a few sights at Inspiration Point, getting a little more of the views from that gorgeous “painted” canyon and waterfalls.  Checking out the “Glacial Boulder”, a huge granite boulder that got scooped up from the Beartooth Mountains by a glacier and deposited here some 80,000 years ago that still sits among some trees by the side of the road.  I caught a glint of white on the side of the rocky North Rim and aimed my telephoto lens on it and saw that it was a mountain goat, so took a couple of shots of it as well. Earlier in the day, a fellow photographer had his large telephoto set up on a tripod, waiting.  I took a look in that direction and spotted what he had, a large Osprey nest with mom keeping her little ones warm beneath her.  My 300 lens could only get a fair shot of her, but I took it anyway.  A little something is better than nothing!

We ended out stay with a special dinner treat at the luxurious Lake Yellowstone Hotel (c1895). “A buttercup behemoth that sets romantics aflutter; that harks back to a bygone era.” is how it is described in the tour book...and that’s pretty true.  A historic way to end our stay...

...one the road again in Wyoming,   Marie


If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/