South Dakota
July 1st, 2007
My feet over the abyss, and a stupid bunny who let me get way too close: coyote snack.
 
Claire being brave, and a prairie blossom
Badlands National Park got its name from the early French trappers and American settlers because of the eroded spires and hoodoos of rock that made travel difficult. I couldn’t find out what the Lakota (Sioux) called the beautiful (to me) land, but they made a good life there hunting bison until the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. The mixed-grass prairie on the highlands, and on the White River lowlands, is the largest such prairie in the National Park System; it is home to the newly introduced black footed ferret, that feeds on the Park’s many black tailed prairie dogs. Long gone, probably never to return, are the wolf and grizzly.
Whitetail deer out for a morning munch in a meadow
 The fantastic eroded soft rock is a wonderful playground for the sure-footed, providing infinite routes in over and around the fantastic shapes. The colorful bands tell a story of millions of years of inland seas filled by river sediments; watering holes collected the bones of vertebrates long extinct, just now being dug up and classified. We were able to visit one such dig and watch the workers carefully brush soil away from bones undisturbed for 75 million years. Humans are a very brief part of the history of the Earth: it is unsettling that we are so thoughtless in our treatment of such a precious gift. Some are learning.  Vertebrate digIf you ever get a chance, detour off of I-90, and spend a half-day at least taking in this less-visited park. You won’t be sorry.
.  Prairie sunset
June 28th, 2007
 Riding the Mickelson Trail
 Harney Peak, highest point between the Rocky Mountains and the Pyrenees (Spain and France border) at 7240 feet.
Most people know the Black Hills as the home of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Crazy Horse Memorial giant sculptures. There is much more to the Black Hills than these two hugely popular tourist attractions. We parked Turtle for a week beside Mike Reynolds and Pam Traina’s (FHTV #190) house in Hill City, in the heart of the Black Hills. We should have known that visiting with Pam and Mike (Mike in Tucson, Mick in Hill City) would not consist of porch sitting and lazy walks. We bicycled a total of 169 miles with something over 12,000 feet of vertical climbing. After having not ridden for nearly two weeks, that was the biggest jump of weekly mileage, outside of touring, that we can remember. To top it off, the weather was at near record levels of heat and the humidity, though not high by Midwest standards, was brutal by Arizona/Utah standards. We survived though, and think we probably gained weight eating Pam’s great pasta meals. We also hiked to the top of Harney Peak, with a thousand or so other hikers; apparently it is the most popular hike in the Black Hills, with good reason.
 Bison in Custer State Park
We also visited with Nick and Carolyn Clifford, new winter residents (owners) in Far Horizons Tucson Village. We also met Mary, raconteur and next door neighbor, and friends Fritz and Loretta, who gave us a ride, with bikes, about 35 miles up the Mickelson (rail) Trail for a one-way ride back to Hill City.
Approaching bison in Custer State Park; trying to decide how to hide behind those cars.
We rode many miles in Custer State Park, gem of the Black Hills, home to herds of bison, pronghorns, flowers, blue skies and puffy clouds. Those puffy clouds do tend to turn to thunderstorms, and one day pelted Turtle with golf-ball-sized hail; we were convinced during the cacophony of hail and thunder, that we were about to lose our second motorhome to hail. We were lucky: the hail was not baseball sized, and our roof is now fiberglass and stood the test well; we could find no dents. The only casualty was a huge hematoma on Claire’s hand as she tried to stuff a blanket through the skylight to protect it, while I stood by and reminded her that hail was probably the main reason we have insurance. I’ll never say that again, and she won’t stick her hand out in large hail again.
 Crazy Horse’s eye Crazy Horse from back side
 Crazy Horse from his index finger
We left Mike and Pam after a week and went back to work, getting an up close tour of the Crazy Horse Memorial by the public relations staff (thanks Ace Crawford) for a proposed story on Native American Tourism. We spent one night in Rapid (short locally for Rapid City) and a short visit with Tass and Bruce, fellow cycle touring adventurers we met in Turkey. They had some great ideas for South America from their trip there several years ago.
Since we were passing through Sioux Falls, we decided to pop in on Miller and Marilyn Glanzer (FHTV 421). They showed us the falls and the interesting downtown sculptures and treated us to sodas at a great soda fountain. Thanks! That rich ice cream soda was a wonderful lunch and will help us put back on the weight we lost in the Black Hills! (Yes, Pam and Mike, we both lost weight, despite Pam’s pasta).
The best soda in years in downtown Sioux Falls.
We’ll be in Iowa soon, visiting Winnebago for a few minor things on Turtle. For the RVers among you, we are getting 18-19mpg, even in the mountains. Good boy Turtle!
Next up: The Greatlands National Park of South Dakota
Bob and Claire
June 17th, 2007
Last night in Spearfish, S.D., we noticed the sunny day turn black, then green, which Claire said meant tornado. Hah. It did look funny though. So we turned on our little yellow weather radio (never travel the great plains without one!) and heard a line of violent thunderstorms were due to arrive in Spearfish at 7:45. Right. 7:45. Sure. At 7:43 a light rain began. I laughed. Some storm. At 7:44 the breeze picked up a bit. So what.
At 7:45 (I swear) exactly, we were hit by a downpour and 60mph winds, lightning and thunder. Turtle shook violently. I will never doubt our little yellow National Weather Service radio again. We were somewhat protected by Wal*Mart, but when some hail began to pepper us (we have a history with hail) we drove close to the wall of the building and were well protected through the worst of it.
Then we heard about a tornado bearing down on Spearfish. We are still debating whether we should have gone into Wal*Mart. I could see that huge roof sucked off and dropped back down on us in pieces; Claire could see Turtle sucked up the tossed onto the Yellow Brick Road.
Wal*Mart is on the far eastern edge of Spearfish. the tornado touched down three miles east of Spearfish, perhaps a mile or two from us. Yikes. Glad we didn’t know until morning.
The wind backed and stayed force six until about 2:00a.m. when we again moved to the lee of Wal*Mart so we could get some sleep. I think I like 107 degrees in Tucson better.
We met a nice couple from N.C. heading for Alaska in their View (like Turtle) and spent a couple of hours talking about little glitches, and how much we like our Skinny Winnies. During the storm, we looked like two white beetles scurrying around in the horizontal rain, looking for shelter.
Not the the two pictures, taken a couple of minutes apart, are not the same. Picture number one, a heavy Wal*Mart cart is being blown uphill, out of its corral; picture number two it is long gone; we never saw it again after it passed our stern at about 20 mph.
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Vertebrate dig
Prairie sunset
