Toulin' Down the Highway

We have finally made it to the last leg of this journey emanating in true retirement. We chose to go a different way home. Our first stop after South Dakota was Denver for a night. Nothing exciting happened in our overnight stay... except for the trains screaming by at 3:00 am enthralled with the sounds of their own horns. The hotel we stayed in was not in the top 100. We both were up extremely early and decided to leave.

Now that we escaped Denver, we are on our way to Albuquerque for a couple days.

 Carol and I decided to conqueror our fear of heights and rode the Sandia Tram to the top with the idea of having lunch at the restaurant on the top of the mountain. When we got to the top, it was windy and 20 degrees cooler. Yes, we did bring jackets, hats and gloves. If you look at the first picture closely you will see a concrete structure at the top of the mountain. The original structure was a wood cabin used by the Department of Forestry. Unfortunately the first cabin burned down and was re-built again out of wood. The second cabin was destroyed by a monsoon. The third little piggy got wise and re-built out of concrete, and has been there ever since, which is about 60 years. On a good day one can see most of New Mexico from this peak. In the winter time the back side of the peak is a ski resort. It was chilly enough on the top and we decided not to wait for lunch. Carol and I caught the next tram down and had lunch at the bottom.

After lunch we took a little drive unusual spot listed in the Garmin. This little place called Tinkertown was fantastic, well worth the $4.00 per person to get in. Most of the displays were made as a hobby. It was easy to spend hours marveling at this gentleman's handy work.

There are objects of the past dotting the journey through this museum. There are a couple of areas to have fun in too. The hard spot with these two characters, was getting up off the grounds after the photo session.

These little breaks in the road back to California are a welcome rest before facing a new retired way of life in California, even if a short time. Our next stop before California is Mesa Arizona.

The drive to Mesa was uneventful. We spent two days there, where we had to opportunity to visit with some of our friends from church. It was great to see folks we haven't seen in years. I got lucky, I caught a cold to enjoy back home. I close this will a good swig of cold medicine and hopefully some rest.

Preps for Heading West

Here is a surprise for all to enjoy, Pauly's Pizza and Subs, in Rapid City. This place is different when it comes to food, not just the normal, but a little off center too. What you see is a mac and cheese, and bacon pizza, it was outstanding. For you beer lovers, this is paradise, up to 48 ounces. The beer is self serve. At the counter you receive a "credit card" for beer, then you run to the taps and make your choices. The card keeps track of your desires to taste as many beers as possible. If the pizza is not enough, we had fried pickles, and fried cheese curds as well.

Definitely a lot to see in Rapid City area, especially museums. The Journey Museum was interesting because of how the Native American Indian sees how the universe began. There is a lot of walking to do, from the time of the Indians, pioneers, some of the atrocities against the Indian tribes, and other achievements. Then there is the Heritage Museum on the hill. This museum relates to local history within the a tri-state area, that being Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Left - Wyoming  Center - So. Dakota (the hill)  Right - Montana

You think you want to be a teacher, here are your rules to follow back in the day:

 Need a ride, available at the museum you can sit in this beautiful 1904 Studebaker, not running though. One of the early residents owned it.


You RVers out there, here is an RV for you:

  Storage in the rear, AC, Dutch front door, cooking facilities, and roomy enough for a family of five.

We said good bye, but not without kissing one of their local residents good bye.

 Our last place we visited before we left was the Badlands of South Dakota. It was only a 40 minute drive from Rapid City. The Badlands don't look much different than when the settlers came across the Midwest.

 

As you can see there isn't much difference from the first time I traveled through the Badlands in the late 1800's and today. You can drive a loop around the Badlands, giving the opportunity to see this national park from all sides. 

Though out the park is lots of wildlife ranging from buffalo to prairie dogs. It is necessary to get out of the vehicle to see the prairie dogs, they are so close to the road. Tent campers should be excited to know that there is a campground located in the park. The fun thing about this campground is sleeping with prairie dogs.
 We drove half the loop and headed for the town of Wall for lunch. We ate at Wall's Drug Store which is not your average drug store. This place is over 27,000 square feet of store nooks and eating places.


We ran into a couple of character after
we enjoyed lunch. Apparently there is a lot that happens during the spring and summer months here.

This was our last tourist journey as we prepared to leave South Dakota for California.

Hunkering in for the Storm

Think you will be booooooooard in South Dakota? We stopped at The Prairie Berry Winery for some wine tasting. We decided to have lunch before wine tasting, and they serve a good lunch.

Carol had a Chicken Alfredo Fuchsia, she took half back to hotel. I had a soup and sandwich, a turkey and cranberry panini, and potato soup. Now let's go wine tasting. This winery makes their wine from berries, rhubarb, and grapes. Most of the wines are from berries, grapes do not grow well in the area, and are imported.Their most advertised wines are rhubarb, one called Red Ass, the other, Rosy Ass. We bought a bottle of each, and a couple of others to our liking.

This was a short day and we wanted to prepare for the advertised big storm to come, they are saying anywhere between 5 and 15 inches, so we went to Walmart.

Well it is storm day, boy is it windy and cold. The temperature went from the upper 60's to the mid 20's overnight. Wellll.... we continued to prepare for the storm, we went and registered the truck and trailer. Woohoo, it is done, Dakota plates and licenses. This calls for celebration... off to Contraband Distillery. The spirits here are closer to liqueurs, still good. While we were taste testing, it began to snow.

 Let it snow, and it did..... somewhere else. Where we were 

received somewhere around 2 to 3 inches, the deeper stuff went north of us. It stopped snowing so we could move from one hotel to another.

Moving into the new hotel was like moving into a mansion. Our new hotel has a kitchen so we can cook meals instead of blowing a lot of money eating out. See ya later.

Back Up the Hill

                                                    

 There is a lot to see in the Black Hills area, and we went back up the hill to see one the most famous, Mt. Rushmore. This monument contained a couple of surprises for me. I didn't realize there would be surprises until Carol and I started walking the trail to the upper viewing platform. There is a studio on the path to viewing platform. In the studio is a model of the original design for the monument. One noticeable thing is Lincoln's ear, that's right, the one that is not there. Secondly, if you notice the scraped down areas below the presidents heads. Originally we were going to see their jackets as well. Listening to the park ranger we learned quality of rock prevented them from completing the original design.

The trial to the viewing platform is considered strenuous, with approximately 450 stairs throughout the trail. Unfortunately Carol's knee gave out at 2/3rd of the way up, I shouldered the responsibility of making it to the viewing platform for pictures, which I politely handed off to someone else. I don't want to sway anyone from hiking to the viewing area, but I prefer the photo opportunity at a distance.  I climbed my way back down to the rest platform Carol was at, we made our way to the main area to shop and eat.

What better way to end an afternoon than a drive through animals. We took a drive through "Bear Country", another source of entertainment that allows one to enjoy creatures in an open environment.

 

 These are just some of the animals you can see while driving through the countryside. Once we drove through their countryside, we stopped at their zoo portion of the establishment.

We found two others that should have been in cages, but were roaming free.  Sometimes I guess it is better to just let them roam.

How's this for ending the day?

 That's right, wasps. We came back to the room to find approximately a dozen wasps hanging around our window. I called the lobby asking them to send up maintenance with some wasp spray, he comes up with a fly swatter. Speaking with the maintenance guy, he told me he removed a wasp nest from the eaves near our room. Apparently they liked the broken screen leading to our storm window. The other fortunate thing was the fact that only a couple got past both sets of windows, and into the room, where the fly swatter was called into operation, successfully. We did get a good nights sleep without being bit.

Scenic Drive

There is a lot to see in South Dakota. We drove the Spearfish Scenic Drive to see the tree leaves in "full" color, however, the leaves were less motivated to be in "full" color, but were willing to tease.
                                                                              The drive was beautiful, Carol is standing in front of Bridal Vail Fall, which is on of three falls that can be seen during the drive. We are taking our time playing tourist, only visiting one or two places a day.

Custer State Park on a sunny day is great, on a sunny, very windy day is chilly, requiring a good coat. Other than that it was fun driving through the park looking for wildlife. Driving through the park there are opportunities to see bison (buffalo), prong horn antelope, deer, elk, prairie dogs, and a few other creatures I'm sure. After entering the park, probably a couple miles in, a bison was grazing along side the road not more than 5 feet from the truck. Farther into the park we stopped at one of the turnouts and took pictures of the bison in the corral area. They corral the bison to conduct health checks, and counts, then they are are release to roam again. The park keeps their herd  between 800 and 1400 members for sustainability, and land management. I recommend you have apples and carrots with you when you visit the park. About half way through the drive we were stopped by a small group of donkeys, holding us hostage until we paid their ransom demand for handouts. Fortunately we had an apple available, which I cut in half to feed these guys. We did see some deer, antelope, and a couple of prairie dogs. There is an opportunity to visit another part of the park, unfortunately we could not go through the scenic way. There is a tunnel on the Needle's Highway that does not like vehicles wider than 8 feet, we happen to be close to 8 and 1/2 feet wide. There is a back way around to this piece of the park, but while driving it we decided to go to Crazy Horse Monument, which was only 16 miles away.

 

This monument is phenomenal. The mountain was privately purchased, and work began in the late 1940's by the sculpture designer. The family continues work to this date with assistance from 10 other workers. This monument is funded by donations only, no federal support, although it has been offered, and refused. To understand why federal funding has been refused, requires an understanding for the purpose of the memorial. To give some perspective to the effort: only 15 people doing the work, whereas Mt. Rushmore had over 400 men working on it for 27 years. For most of us this monument will not be done in our lifetime. Oh, size. This monument will stand over 560 feet when completed, if they stay to the original plans. Mt. Rushmore in it's entirety, fits into the head and cleared portion behind the head. For $4.00 per person you can ride a bus to get closer to the sculpture, it is worth it.