Buffalo week

Lodge in Yellowstone Campground

Yellowstone's Natural Bridge

Driving out of Yellowstone on Golden Gate Bridge

July 15, 2018

It was a week of a few cuts and bruises, but we are doing well in South Dakota.  I fell on a rock while hunting for Steve’s drone and cut my knee and Steve cut his arm on our RV slide from walking too close to the slides.

It rained for two hours this morning so that means everyone in the campground, whether with a big rig or small, is dealing with the aftermath. Our neighbor’s outdoor rug had a pile of mud roll onto it and he is spraying it off. Steve is using a long handled squeegee to wipe off the top of our slides before we pull them in to drive off. Our zero gravity chairs, where we nearly fell asleep last night while looking at the stars, are wet but need put away before we drive away- probably on a tarp in the car’s backseat. We have had very little rain to deal with on this trip so we are not complaining.

Monday, before we left Cody, Wyoming, we saw the Buffalo Bill museum, a “mall of museums” including one about the life of William Cody (Buffalo Bill), one about firearms used in early America, and one about plants, animals, and birds in the area. Spectacular specimens of bear, deer, elk, bison, and many birds had been “taxidermied” (my speller says that is not a word) for the displays.

This has been a “Buffalo” week as seeing bison in herds or in small groups or singly has been common as we drove. The Black Hills and Custer State Park are really beautiful. On Tuesday we saw the profile of Crazy horse, a monument still being carved into a mountain. Because the family of the original sculptor will not sell it or their land to the National Park Service, there is a small group of workers, and it is taking more years to carve than the ones did on Mount Rushmore. That is we saw the next day- the profiles of four of our great presidents- Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln. Wednesday, we saw Mt. Rushmore, which took  14 years to carve with dynamite and sanders and a huge crew.

Magnificent at a distance

I was nauseated most of the drive through Custer State Park on Thursday. It is really pretty but also VERY curvy. Lovely bridges built of large wood structures, tunnels through rocks, and scenic visitas. I could see only whatever was in my peripheral vision as I have to stare at the yellow lines on the road or puke. We had a very lovely lunch at the Silvan Lake Lodge and a deer came right up to the window of the Lodge.

Friday’s drive through another area of the Park was easier and we saw prong-horns and bison in the rolling green hills. We have seen a lot of lakes and beautiful RV sites so this is definitely a place to return another year. We were able to see Wind Cave but not Jewel Cave. At Jewel Cave you either have to be there early in the morning or have reservations 72 hours ahead. Wind Cave has been explored for a hundred miles and no end in sight yet. It is famous for its “boxwork”, large honeycomb-like structures on the ceilings.

Boxwork in Wind Cave

For a greater part of our travels, I have been able to do our laundry in our own tiny washer and dryer- stacked in a closet across from our second bathroom. But most of the last two weeks we have been in RV parks that did not have drains for us to use to keep our gray tank open. It can hold quite a bit but we were cautionary and used it for dishes and showers only. Using the washing  machine would have overflowed it quickly. After leaving Yellowstone, where we were in a National park ground with no drainage, we had one night in Rozet, where I quickly did two tiny loads of laundry. But then the next day we arrived in Custer, South Dakota and we were back to no drainage again for four days and nights.

That meant that by the end of the week I needed a laundromat. And it meant that we played it safe and showered in the camp showers -something we are not fond of doing, but these were clean and nice at The Roost Resort. So I spent Saturday morning at “The Lost Sock” laundromat in Custer. It had internet, which we have not had consistently here, so I did not mind. Steve spent the morning washing mud off the RV that we had accumulated going through road construction sites in Yellowstone. Some days it’s good to take a break from “seeing things” to just go nowhere and do some maintenance and read books.

The plight of Native Americans in both the past and the present is ever on our minds as we travel the west because the history is appalling and sad and fascinating. Seeing the Crazy Horse memorial and Mount Rushmore presidents has given us sobering thoughts- as if current politics is not sobering enough. Crazy Horse was the Indian whose leadership led to many tribes, who had been enemies, combining their efforts to defeat Custer and his troops here in South Dakota. The history of the strong leadership of each of the four presidents is good reading and Steve has been moved this week while reading about another great president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

He is writing about his thoughts about Roosevelt’s leadership and will tell about almost losing his drone in the next blog.

Crazy Horse Museum

Relaxing in Custer, South Dakota