Friday Having now achieved our goal of getting licenses and ID we spent Friday on a visit to the Capitol building. In the morning we had to wait for the rain to stop, it had started at about 3.00 in the morning and poured until 10.00. The weather stations says we got more that 2 inches of rain. On the outside the Capitol building is a pretty grim grey, but on the inside it is a very pretty white colour, with lots of marble effect columns and mosaic tile flooring. We literally walked in and ran into a tour just starting, so we joined in. we found out that the mosaic tiling had a special blue tile, one for each of the workers there, who were asked to place them wherever they wished. Of the 66 workers only 49 tiles can be found, but it is kind of interesting to look for the tiles as you go round. The columns are scagliola, artificial marble constructed round a steel beam, I am sure we have seen these in other Capitol buildings, but can't remember where. The building is quite small (it is a small state, population wise), so it didn't take long to get round it, but it was very interesting. After a coff/T at a local family restaurant we returned to the trailer.
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In the evening the weather started to clear and I was very pleased to get a pic (though somewhat poor, because of the evening light) of a Nighthawk fly catching over the lake.
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Thursday Pierre is the capital city of South Dakota, as it was nice and sunny we decided that we would see the capitol tomorrow and just hang out today, Oh! and renew our driving license/ID card. The grand building that is The Driving License Office Of Pierre is wonderfully described as "Down the alley behind the Burger King", which indeed it was! I had checked the place out last night and also got a driving test manual, which I had read from cover to cover, for twenty minutes this morning. We arrived and spoke to a very nice young girl, who enthusiastically guided us through our application, which required a visa, two address bills, proof of residence for one night, affidavit to say we would not live here, a completed form (in black ink only) and a twenty dollar cheque for each of us. The I had to take the eye test, which was more or less read some letters the size of a barn door, then go answer 25 questions. When I had completed that , yes OK, so I got one wrong, the dear young girl gave me my driving license, which will be valid until the end of September, but never mind, it is two year more recent that the last one. That took us about an hour, so we were definitely ready for a Coff/T, so called in at the only coffee house in town, conveniently called Pier 347 (?), before relaxing for an hour in Walmart. Though the weather had started fine and sunny, you could tell that the cloud was going to increase until it hit thunderstorm proportions, it was just a case of whether they would hit us or not. One did at about 5.00, but several others passed North and South of us. I have enjoyed watching them on the Wunderground.com radar, along with the storm tracks that have set off tornados a couple of hundred miles south of here in Kansas. Very interesting. So we will see what the weather brings tomorrow.
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Check the page out here Today I have posted a blog onto the site dated Thursday 21st May, so it could have been missed. It was a record of the snow storm we had in Custer and evening views of Stockade Lake
Tuesday At the entrance to the Badlands lies Wall, a town which has not raison d'etre for it's existence except for the famous drug store - Wall Drug, so of course we had to stop there to investigate it. It is a very nice story. Back in 1929 a pharmacist and his wife felt it right to open a drug store in Wall, even though it was a dying community. They gave themselves five years to make a go of it. No chance. In the summer of their last year the wife put a notice out on the highway to offer free ice water. Tourists visiting the places to the West stopped off for the free water and the rest is history. Unfortunately, in the inimitable style of the Americans the place now resembles the Main Street of Disneyland - all just gift shops. Anyway it had to be done!
The Famous Wall Drug in Wall
From there we drove into the Badlands NP. This, we realised, is the last of the 'Big Desert Parks' that we shall see as we move East, not knowing if we will ever get back West again. So we were determined to enjoy it, which we did. It is about a 25 mile drive through the park, with lots of stops for the overviews, so we made quite slow progress, in fact it took us most of the day to arrive at the Cedar Lodge Campground, where we were surprised to find that there was a walk in site available,with lovely views of The Badlands.
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In the evening I went for a run up into the rocky area, along Saddle and Castle Trail, which was fun. I got back in time to take a couple of sunset pics, though there wasn't a lot of sun in them.
The weather has now, finally, warmed up.
Wednesday Although it is warm, the sun is still not shining through. I got up early to take some sunrise pics (5.30!), but it was mostly cloudy, still there were some bright spots.
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We planned to drive about 120 miles today to Pierre, however a lot of the road was on I90, with its speed limit of 80 m.p.h. so we took some time to visit the Fossil Trail, which, rather disappointingly was a boardwalk with just information about fossils, no actual fossils in the rocks there. Still it gave us a last look at The Badlands.
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I even managed to take a video of the drive from the Fossil Trail to the Campground, which, while not as boring as the train passing by at Fort Laramie, is probably only of interest if you want to see lots of rocks and hear our idle banter in the van.
The weather took a hand again: Since sunrise we were watching a large rain cloud on the Wunderground.com radar, which was sitting to the East of us for several hours as we packed up left the campground, that was OK, except as we left it started to move North East, so as we hit the I90 and moved east it crossed us and we were in rain. We drove through and out the other side, just in time to turn North to Pierre and catch it as it continued North East. We drove through it again and reached the Farm Lake SP at Pierre, just in time for the rain cloud to catch up with us. So still not much luck with the weather, but at least it is now warm. The campground here is very nice though and we are looking forward to better weather.
Our mailbox is in Box Elder, so since we had to pass close we decided to pick up our mail direct. There being no suitable campground nearby we stayed in the car park of Celebas, a sports outfitters. This is the first time we have stayed on a car park. It was really quite easy and we felt quite safe. Dropping the trailer meant that we could pop out to Golden Corral for a meal and then spend some time in Walmart. Came out to pouring rain. Tuesday morning we were up and away early to pick up our mail at Americas Mailbox, before driving on to The Badlands of South Dakota.
Forgot to put card in camera, so this is a street view cheat pic of Americas Mailbox
Sunday Oh what a disappointment! We approached Deadwood with visions of the Deadwood Stage and Calamity Jame, sunny skies and lots of happy dancing people. It turns out that when when the mines closed down at the turn of the century Deadwood died. Around the eighties some astute person somehow got the State to legalise gambling in Deadwood, because that is what had made it famous, along with gold, drinking and prostitution, so like almost every other town west of Boston. This enabled Dreadwood to 'renovate' and 'restore' its old buildings and turn them into casinos, so now the City Center looks like a disney theme area. Arriving here yesterday we did not feel comfortable at all, though we did have a very nice steak in the Legends Restaurant in the newly re-opened Franklin Hotel. The theme park environment was extended by having Main street as a no parking area, almost a pedestrian precinct, which made the public car parks a nightmare.
If you don't want ads then click on the 'Start Slideshow' button, bottom left and then the 'Full Screen' button, bottom right. Then select 'Show Info', top right to see captions. Today was raining, all day, though we did go back to Dreadwood it was still very miserable with loads of small casinos and 'kiss me quick' establishments. We made a detour up the hill to the cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried, however a combination of pouring rain and charging (albeit only a dollar) to go into the cemetery made Sally see red when, having taken our money, she could not actually access their graves. So by the time she had finished with the dear lady in the box office we were able to leave with our two dollars firmly back in our pocket. So we spent this afternoon doing the laundry and watching the trickling stream that runs through the campsite turn into a raging torrent.
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Friday We rose at a leisurely pace today, knowing that the only thing we had to do all day was to go and take close look at the Devil's Tower. I guess we were savouring that for as long as possible. Once we were up and had breakfast we went out of the to the Trading Post to buy a coff/T, which was truly awful. We drove up the roadway to Visitor Center, which runs quite close to the DT. Having sampled all the information available there we then took the path that goes right round the base of the DT. This was the highlight of the day, seeing the DT up close, looking up at those columns, picking out the climbers, so small against the mass of the DT. We took the opportunity to call the kids, we got through to JP on Facetime and we had an exciting Facetime conversation as we showed him and his family the wonderful view, almost from the spot where Richard Dreyfuss slipped back down the rock face, of the DT. The we Facetimed Andy, who was slightly more busy making tea for the kids. Unfortunately we couldn't get hold of Helen, so they must have been busy elsewhere. We then continued round the base of the DT. The track is 1.2 miles long and has an asphalt surface, so Sally was able to tackle it in her power chair, though there were some speed bumps, which I think were to help with drainage. rather than to reduce speed. We watched a number of climbers, we saw about a dozen altogether, though I think there were probably some we did not see. We constantly marvelled at this amazing phenomena as we travelled round it's base. By the time we had watched climbers, taken pics and talked to various people on the way round it actually took us about two hours to circle the Tower, but is was so impressive. We drove back down to the campground, from which we could see the tower very clearly and relaxed in its memory. That left one more activity, in the evening we watched Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, which only enhanced the magic of the place, as only Spielberg can do. After this I went out for a quick wander, only to see lights way up on the top of the DT. Even though it was nearly nine o clock in the evening and dark there were still climbers up there. So I can at least say that I saw the lights in the sky over Devil's Tower.
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Thursday Well the weather has finally turned (for how long?), clear blue sky welcomed us as we packed up the trailer to move on to our most North Westerly location on this trip. Back into Wyoming, to the Devil's Tower, a huge lump of rock made famous in the film 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind'. This has been one of the most looked forward to places for me, but is not a well known landmark to many. We left Custer behind and set off West, passing through the Jewel Cave National Monument (tick that one off) and stopped for coff/T in a place called Newcastle, at Donna's Diner. Interesting but not outstanding. From there we travelled north across the foothills of the Black Hills until the Devil's Tower hove into sight. At first it does not seem too grand, but then it was about 15 miles away, as we approached we started to realize just how big it is. We have decided to stay in the campground which is in the National Monument Park, called Belle Fourche, after the river that runs round the edge of the campground. This is the first time for a long time that we have felt confident enough of the weather to camp without electricity. The campground is beautiful, we have already seen Orieles, Northern Flicker, tree creepers, a family of hawks as well as the usual Robbins flying in and out of the Cottonwaood trees that are in the campground. From our window we can see the Devil's Tower, towering over us. We plan to set out tomorrow to explore it. Tonight we will have a campfire and look for lights in the sky.
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Tuesday Well today the expected snow arrived, it started as rain, but turned to snow in the afternoon, not before we had been to Bakers the Bakers, well known for its buns. The sign says to ask the waitress to show you her buns. We stuck to donuts and sticky things with our Coff/T We returned to the trailer and waited out the storm. Wednesday Today saw about three inches of snow lying around us when we woke up, however the sun was shining and the sky was blue, the temperature was climbing, so we knew that the snow would not last long. We got up had breakfast and then went for Coff/T at Bakers fairly early, on the way we took a ride round the local lake in the chevy to take some snowy pics, which were very nice. By the afternoon the snow had just about gone and we were thinking about wearing shorts. It just shows how quickly the weather can change in this part of the world at this time of the year.
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In the evening we again drove round the lake and saw a fairly gentle sunset and several of the deer that frequent the area.
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Tomorrow we will be ready to move on to Devil's Tower.
Monday 18th May So today is the day. Today we visited Mount Rushmore. Here is a little test. Taking no more than one minute, what are your top 10 iconic locations in USA? (I will give mine at the end of this page). We had been advised that the best way to approach Mt Rushmore is via Route 16A, from the South, called the Iron Mountain Road, which we did. This road is another iconic (that is the word for today) road, more than just a scenic byway. So we set out, managed to get a few miles up the sleepy, but beautiful, valley before the first coffeeshop loomed ahead. We stopped of course, only to find that it would not open until the next day. The owners were just off to Rapid City for supplies, but they made us a drink and left us to relax on the patio! Met a couple of nice young ladies who were here for the horse riding, they had brought their horses from Kansas for a week. Now we started the climb up to Iron Mountain. Iron Mountain is the next mountain over from Mt Rushmore. The road winds and twists its way up to the top, be fore descending to Mt Rushmore. The guy who designed it had the monument in mind when he designed it. As the road twists there are three tunnels to pass through. Each of them is lined up so that its entrance/exit frames the four presidents of the monument, very impressive. There is also a wonderful viewing point at the highest point of the road. So twisty is the road that there are a couple of 'pigtails', where the road actually loops back over itself, via a bridge. We really enjoyed this road. This brought us to Mt Rushmore, where we paid our fee and parked in the multistory car park. The sun was still shining, but there was a very cold wind, so instead of eating our picnic lunch we went into the restaurant and sat where Cary Grant sat in the film North by Northwest, no actually I lied, the restaurant in the film has now been knocked down to make way for this much bigger and more efficient restaurant, shame really, but there you are. However eating there meant that we could sit and look at/discuss the monument in relative comfort while we ate, as our table had a great view of it. After we had eaten we continued walking up the central avenue that took us to the closest viewing point, past the avenue of state flags, where we interestingly noted that the Hawaii flag actually has a Union Jack as part of the design. We went to the auditorium and watched the short video about the monument's history and then went back upstairs to the outdoor viewing area to take a good long look at the four presidents, memorizing each one. From our left they are President George Washington, President Thomas Jefferson, President Theodore Roosevelt and President Abraham Lincoln. Having enjoyed a good long look we strolled back to the car and then drove home, stopping briefly at Bakers Bakery for a Goody.
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What was on your list?
Mine is (not in any order):
Empire State Building, New York
Twin Towers Site, New York
Golden Gate Bridge, California
Disneyland, California
Niagara Falls, New York
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
Las Vegas Strip, Nevada
U.S.S. Arizona, Hawaii
Grand Canyon, Arizona
National Mall, Washington D.C.
I guess National Mall is a bit of a cheat as it contains Lincoln Mem,Wash. Monu., Smithsonian Museums and the Capitol - any of which would be on the top ten list.
Sunday We were expecting reasonable weather today, but while it started sunny it was also quite cold, so we didn't want to walk around outside much. Just a few miles north of Custer is Crazy Horse Mountain Sculpture. After stopping at the Bakery in Custer we drove up and entered the quite large park. It is a very ambitious project, several hundred acres of land, with plans for a university and medical college as well as a cultural center and museum. If that sounds ambitious then you should see the centrepiece, which is the Crazy Horse Mountain Sculpture. This was started in 1948 when the then chief of the Lakota (formally known as Sioux) tribe engaged sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to produce a monument to the Indian, similar to the monument at Mt Rushmore. However this monument would sculpt the whole mountain. Ending up with a statue several hundred feet high, depicting Crazy Horse on a horse pointing towards the hills, showing where his lands are. (Crazy Horse was a chief in the 1870's, stabbed to death by a soldier, with a bayonet, in Fort Robinson, NE in 1877). So far, after more than 50 years, half of the head and the top of the arm have been completed. So it is a work where the journey is as important as the destination. We toured the visitor center and stood and looked at this marvel in rock, which dwarf's it's counterpart of Mt Rushmore (which however is finished). This mountain sculpture is not just a memorial to Crazy Horse, it is a rallying cry to the Indian Nations and though it is not said, it a monument to the wrongs that have been done to them, as Crazy Horse was the focal point of the Indian resistance to White America in the Nineteenth Century. We were quite impressed.
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After visiting Crazy Horse we took advantage of the Custer SP Open Day to take a ride round the Northern section of the park, a section called The Needles. This is a road which winds along the top of a series of granite mountain tops and bluffs, quite reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Mountain Highway in NC and Virginia. It is only a few miles long, but very dramatic, partly due to the views, partly due to the very narrow road and its tunnels, mostly due to the needle like formations of the the granite rock. These needles soar dramatically into the air sometimes over a hundred feet and are very impressive. The tunnels are very narrow, the first one is only about a foot wider than our Chevy, but didn't seem that wide at all. After the needles the road twisted and turned downhill alongside a small mountain stream, which was a very pretty route to follow. The road eventually comes out near to the Legion Lake Lodge, giving us a short ride back home. Another super day in the Black Hills.
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N.B. Wanting to give a picture intro to the slide show I cropped a pic from Street View, only to find that the Google Crew had been passing through during Sturgis Bike Week - I wonder if that caused chaos?
Hurray! The sun is out, it is a beautiful day! We pack up a picnic and head south to Wind Cave NP. We had sort of made arrangement with the Park Ranger to visit today, as they need to make special arrangements for wheelchair users. Wind Cave is a very large cave system, some 440 miles of it! We only expected to do a part of that. We were met by a very pleasant ranger, who loaded us into an elevator and took us a hundred feet below ground to a part of the cave system. Wind cave is special in several ways, first of all though it is large it only has very small access to the outside world, so it breathes! As the air pressure outside changes so air must move in or out to equalise that, sometimes the wind can get up to 50 m.p.h, so they say, however there was a gentle breeze as we left the elevator to enter the Garden of Eden cavern. Here it was explianed that the caverns are limestone, though it seems that the water erosion simply exaggerated the cracks that were already in the rock. It seems that the limestone was formed 350 million yeasrs ago, but around 65 million years ago a batholith (basaltic domelike intrusion) lifted the limestone over a large area. In being lifted the limestone cracked causing many fissures which the ground water exploited to make a large network of caverns. This made for a very interesting map of the caverns. These caverns are characterised by showing very few of the traditional forms of stalagmites and stalactites. We were then taken further down to The Assembly Rooms, which were much larger and contained the unique BoxWork phenomena. The box work lattice are made from calcite. It seems that water percolated through a layer of gypsum above the limestone, dissolving the gypsum, which was then deposited in cracks in the lower limestone. The Gypsum then hardened to Calcite. Over time the limestone was removed by chemical erosion, leaving a strange latticework of calcite, very pretty. Well as usual we really enjoyed our tour of the cave, and as usual it took much longer than anticipated. We emerged again into the sunlight and moved on. It was now the turn of Custer State Park to entertain us.
The first piece of good news was that this weekend was their 'Open Weekend'. Entry was free!! So we set out on to the Wildlife Loop. The scenery was very pretty, rolling hills and prairie. We stopped at 'Prairie Dog Town' and watched their antics for a while as we ate our picnic lunch. They are very funny.
We rode on and saw lots of other wildlife, we saw many more bison, lots of them had a calf in tow, often they were very close, they seemed more tame than those in Yellowstone. Then we ran into the 'Begging Burros'. A herd of burros who, as soon as you stopped the car, put their heads through any open window, begging for food. There were several very cute foals of various sizes and colour. This was a very popular stopping place for visitors, many of whom had brought apples and carrots to feed the burros. On our trip round the Wildlife Loop we saw quite a few pronghorn, some deer and some very pretty bluebirds as well as a song thrush. Finally we stopped at place called Legion Lake Lodge, where, as part of the open weekend we could attend an 'Ice Cream Social', complete with a free scoop of Blue Bunny ice cream. So we had a coff/T as well and watched the geese with their goslings on the lake. All in all a very pleasant day in the Black Hills.
Well just for a change it looks like the weather will deteriorate after the weeknd, so we have decided to hang out here in Custer for a whole week!That is going to make a change as it is pouring with rain today. Custer is sort of in the middle of the Southern part of the Black Hills. As well as the town itself and the very pretty scenery close by. To the south is one part of Custer State Park - known as the Wildlife Loop, while south of that is Wind Cave National Park. To the North is the Crazy Horse Mountain Sculpture, nearby is the Northern section of Custer State Park, known as The Needles. While a good way further North is the Mount Rushmore Monument. So it is a good place to see most of the attractions of the area. Today however there was very little worth seeing, except the rain. We had a slow day at home. In the afternoon the rains stopped so we went and explored Custer. We went into Shopco and then went for a meal in a very forgettable family diner, quite a miserable day really. Tomorrow should be better.
We moved North and very quickly left Nebraska and entered South Dakota. At last the Chevy was home! We had registered our vehicles in South Dakota in October 2012, mostly in order to save a lot on our car insurances, so we are also officially South Dakota Residents, so it was a homecoming for us as well, though it didn't really feel any different. We made quick time to Custer and the Custer's Gulch RV park, stopping for a coff/T in Hot Springs and a quick look in at Wind Cave NP, though we planned to return there later. We were starting to enjoy the scenery as the prairies gave way to hills and then mountains, the Black Hills of Dakota The We Love.
Wednesday We could have made it from Fort Laramie to the Black Hills of Dakota in one long hop, but decided that we would slide Eastwards a but to 'do' Nebraska. We would stay for one night in a place called Chadron. We discovered that there is a lot of prairie in Nebraska, we know because we drove through a lot of it, even though we only scraped at one corner of the state. On our way to Chadronwhile still in Wyoming, we stopped for a coffee at a place called Higher Grounds in Lusk, whre we met an English couple who were on a 5 day break from home! Arriving in Denver and driving to Mt Rushmore then South into Nebraska. Needless to say they were driving a white Mustang Convertible! Once into Nebraska we called in at Fort Robinson, this was the fort that replaced Fort Laramie and became the centre for keeping the peace around the Black Hills and West of them. It is also the place where Crazy Horse was killed (murdered?) on sept 5th 1877 while resisting being confined in a cell. He was fatally stabbed in the back by a bayonet. Our overnight stay in Chadron was not particularly noteworthy. It has a Walmart, which we visited. We ate at a bar/grill, which was OK. We used the laundry on the campground to catch up on the washing.
Tuesday 12th We awoke to clear sunny skies and the mighty roar of trains carrying their 20,000 tons of coal Eastwards. Still it was good to be up and away in good time. Today we were going to 'do' some more of the Oregon Trail, as it passed along the North Platte River. This must have been one of the more comfortable bits of the journey, plenty of grass and water, flat land, though it was probably hot, there is also plenty of shade. After walking along the river bank, having crossed the river at Fort Laramie, they were able to rest for a while at a pasture that ran up to some cliffs, known as Register Cliffs, as many of the emigrants had carved their names in the soft mudstone. Those names are still there today as a memorial and testament to those who traveled this way between 1840 and 1860. Although all seemed well there were constant threats of cholera and dysentery, of running out of food, or feed. Always there was the drive of knowing that they had to get to the Cascades before the first snow of winter, or they would starve on the cold Eastern slopes. Although we have not been there, a key point on their journey was another rock where they carved their names. Independence Rock, about 120 miles West, which the Emigrants tried to reach by July 4th. Sally and I sat and had our picnic here. It was very pleasant and warm in the sun. Earlier we had been to the site of some ruts made by the carts of the Emigrants heading West. At this point the travelers had to climb up from the North Platte Valley Floor to the rolling hills above. Here they had to move across bare rock and grass land. The rock is a fairly soft sandy limestone, so the heavy carts wore ruts in the rock. This was very interesting as some of the ruts were several feet deep. We think that some of the trail was cut into the rock to make for easy passage, but some of the ruts were just too deep to have been made purposely, we thought that they were the result of the carts moving across them. It was not as straightforward as it seemed, as there are many wagon routes all running across this area, as though the route had been changed frequently, perhaps when one wore out they moved it, or perhaps when it rained it got too muddy. Anyway it was very enjoyable, interesting and thought provoking to see this evidence of the migration westward in the eighteenth century.
On our way back through Guernsey we stopped off at the Presbyterian Church and surprisingly found Anne Miner, the minister that we had chatted to in the Cheyenne Museum ,was doing some work there, so we had another very nice chat and a tour of the lovely country church before leaving Guernsey. We finished our day by visiting some real Ghost Towns, Hartville and Sunshine. They are not old ghost towns, they have only recently been emptied, when the iron ore mine closed down. In the case of Sunshine the town was bulldozed and removed completely. Hartville is now just a pretty little hamlet, with lots of closed up shops. It was interesting to drive through. The transient nature of mining means that there are many such towns in Wyoming, indeed throughout the Western States. We returned to the RV Park and I took a short walk to see a bison and some emu that we had noticed in a field. Interesting combination.
Although this campground is now behind us it has left indelible memories, which I think are only fair to share with the world. As you read the rest of this page you may wish to play the video, it will provide a soothing background.
Did you know that Wyoming produces 40% of USA coal? That was 388 million tons last year, just over 1 million tons a day. I think I showed an interesting picture from our tour of the museum in Cheyenne. Look here it is again:
See how much coal there is.
Well, what we found out is that almost all of the million tons of coal a day passes about 25 yards from our trailer! In trains that have 3 to 4 big diesels pulling them at the front and 1 to 2 more diesels at the back pushing. I only counted the number of trucks on one train - 133 while I was washing up, after that I sort of lost the will to live. Each truck carries 121 tons of coal (that is more than 16000 tons of coal), in case you really didn't count the trucks on the train video, there are 166, which more or less rounds out at 20,000 tons of coal.
The exciting thing for the train driver was that the train goes through the middle of Fort Laramie, which is a town which has no stop light, but three rail crossings. I don't know if you know, but when a train approaches a rail crossing in USA it usually sounds its romantic, long ,low moaning whistle and rings a bell, unfortunately these cola trains have very loud air horns, really very loud air horns, and the Chuck Wagon RV is about 100 yards from the first crossing, which is where that video was shot, as we were leaving). Fortunately, so as not to overwhelm us with surprise, the train gives an initial blast about 200 yards from the crossing, and then again at 100 yards, that was the one that really was loud. Put it this way, the third crossing is at the other end of town, about a mile away, and the air horn still sounded loud when it went past that crossing. Interestingly enough these trains can travel quite fast, I reckon about 15 m.p.h., so they are making a lot of train noise as well, especially when they are 25 yards away and full of coal.
Train coming through!
Because the coal is carried in a finite number of trucks and by a finite number of engines, they must return to the coalfield to fill up again, so every train that goes down the line full, comes back again empty, only faster. Again fortunately you know they are coming and can prepare yourself, as they sound their air horns as they approach the first of the crossings at the other end of town, thus giving you a chance to strap yourself down or don ear protection. To be fair during the night we only got trains coming through at 11.20, 12.30, 3.15, 3.25, 5.00 and 5.15 a.m.
So one could get some sleep. While lying awake one can count coal cars instead of sheep and work out that at 20K ton of coal per train, that is 50 trains per day taking it out and 50 trains returning, to be fair there were not 100 trains per day, it just seemed like it. I also know that a lot of the coal is taken West, either for use or to be shipped to the East or abroad. However, we also noticed that many of the trains were oil, which is also found in large quantities in Wyoming.
I think we would say that this was the noisiest campground we have ever stayed in, but we did see some trains.
We took surprisingly few pics of the trains
The reference to Mr Peabody - Peabody is the name of the coal company that owns the mines. Same Peabody that 'owns' Memphis and the Peabody Hotel. Same 'Mr Peabody' so lamented in the haunting song about Peabody's and the ghost town of Paradise in Muhlenburg County, Kentucky, which inevitably brings to mind dearly departed Jim Martinson of Marilee and Jim, back at Istachatta, FL, from whom I first heard the song.
Monday The forecast got it right and it was lovely clear day and got away from Cheyenne really early. Although having been neatly caught in a timewarp called Chugwater, we still made good time driving over the endless prairies, those rolling grasslands, and made it to the Fort Laramie area by lunchtime. We had a choice of three campgrounds: The Guernsey State Park, which would be quiet,but had no water, the Guernsey Municipal Park, which was by the river, but had no dump station and the Chuck Wagon RV in Fort Laramie, which suspiciously had everything, including a train track, approximately 25 yards away. Still, it only a single track and it was a rural area and we knew the big trains all used the Union Pacific Railway back in Cheyenne.
We got nicely set up in a nice site, the sun was now shining, so we went to the first place on our itinerary - The Fort at Fort Laramie. we had a pleasant wander round there soaking up the history of how the army first of all came and explored the area, then in the 1840's and 50's gave support and protection to the emigrants on the Oregon Trail, as they rested by the North Platte and then tried to cross it. The in the 1860'/ 70's/80's and 90's worked hard at controlling and then exterminating the Indian population.
Tumbleweed Alert Monday, 11th May Franchise America gives the outward view that it is overrun with places which require precise architecture, attitude and offerings, so that there is little discernable difference between Bartow in Florida and Barstow in California, but there are times on our trips when we travel through a special place, one almost would say magical, except, of course, one wouldn't. Not necessarily a place with famous landmarks, as they have often been subsumed into Franchise America. When we have pulled off the beaten track expecting nothing and yet finding a warmth and richness of American life that you only find in a Jimmy Stewart or a Fred MacMurray movie. Today we became part of the timeless life of Chugwater, Wyoming. We would be traveling from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie today, about 120 miles and we have taken on the habit of stopping after an hour or so in order to have a Coff/T. With a fifty foot rig casual stopping can be hazardous, so we will often stop at a Safeway, which has a big car park outside and nowadays has a cafe, often starbucks, inside. Nice and easy, straight forward, however this scenario does suffer from being one of the co-conspirator's of Franchise America, so we will often try and choose an independent coffee shop, diner or similar to stop at. Sometimes this had brought real trials, for instance when we drove through Montrose, CO despite being a good sized town we could not find any etablishment that we could stop at, so missed out on our morning break. In the past this has given us some great experiences of Small Town America. The Manhattan Cafe (biggest cinnamon rolls in the world) in Shoshone, ID, Old Town Coffee (best workshop about the best coffee in the world) in Lander, WY, Ronnie's Cafe (best Gumbo in the world) in Eunice, LA, The Egg River Cafe (best breakfast in the world) in Hood River, OR, Atomic Express Bistro (nicest old lady in the world) in Aztec NM. There are of course many others, some of which are mentioned in previous blogs. Perhaps I should start a Gazetteer page of 'nice places to have Coff/T, where yo can stop with a 50ft rig'. To continue... We would be traveling from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie today, about 120 miles and studying the map I found a choice between a soda fountain in Chugwater and a The Wheatland Inn, a family diner in Wheatland. The safe bet was The Wheatland Inn, close to the road with a big car park. The Soda fountain looked more fun, but risky as it meant parking on the main street, "would we be able to find a parking space" is always one of Sally's Mantras. The decision was left until we were on the road, read on................ The magic began as we left Cheyenne KOA with clear skies, only some of the ice layer that had built up on the rig and climbing temperatures (actually, compared to the last few days, soaring temperatures). The landscape looked pristine, covered with snow, with the rolling grassland beneath peeking through, it was a joy to be travelling on Wyomings Interstate (80 m.p.h. speed limit). 50 miles up the road we approached the exit for Chugwater and decided that yes, this would be a good time to stop, so we pulled off the Interstate and time started to sslllooowwww down............
You can listen to this while you read
The city road sign said:
Many of the Main Street houses and shops were missing or boarded up and traffic was not a problem. We found the Soda Fountain, joy of joys, it was open, though it looked like it had been closed for years. Despite the road being completely empty we managed to find somewhere to park, right across the road from the Soda Fountain, which is called Chugwater Soda Fountain. The soda fountain stands almost alone, with the town museum (closed, for the day? for the season? for the century?) to one side and, well nothing, to the other side. Across the road were some large grain silos, which stood alongside the railroad.
The door was set back in its frontage, we went in and now time just stopped.
The Soda Fountain was built in 1914 and rebuilt in 1916 when it burned down. in 1917 it had the current soda fountain installed and looks like it has changed little since then. Although mostly tables and chairs with nice red check tablecloths, it has one booth, sort of in the middle of the floor, but what the heck!
We barely had got through the door and said "Hi" to the waitress, when we were welcomed by a gentleman sitting at a table, he insisted, pleasantly that we could sit with him, so we did. From there we had a wonderful, sparkling conversation about all sorts of things. It turns out that he has only lived in Chugwater for fourteen years, though apparently the locals will now speak to him. The rumour being that he is part of a Federal Witness Protection Program, which of course he denies, but then again, as I pointed out suspiciously, if you were part of the WPP you would deny it, thus making it more plausible. He became suspiciously reticent and changed the subject.
"So how do you think Chugwater got its name?" Was his tack. We of course feigned complete ignorance, being the polite tourists, and also because we were completely ignorant. That cheered him up. He explained that the land that Chugwater was built on had been donated by the local cattle barons, but prior to that it was settle by Indians. The son of one the chiefs was apparently both lazy and bright (often a good start for innovation). The tribe lived by the river, but fed on buffalo of course. He however did not wish to chase all over the plains trying to kill one, so imported the idea of driving them over the local cliffs. Apparently when they hit the ground they make a sort of chugging noise (he did not explain that further), so the place became known as Chug water. This sounded very plausible to us and we said so.
We continued to have a great conversation about his trips to England and other places. He did have to break off at one point as a spanish family came in. He is the only person in the town who speaks Spanish, so he found out from them that they needed gas. Amazingly he is also the only person in the town who keeps a supply of gas, since the gas station closed some years ago.
This was fortunate timing, as we had been sat drinking coff/T, talking and enjoying ourselves for about three days. So I rummaged amongst the T-shirts, because I just had to have a T-shirt that said 'Chugwater, Wyoming' across the front.
The guys name is Lee and he insisted on buying our Coff/T (and cinnamon roll), which was really the nicest thing. Unfortunately he will never read this blog as he does not have a computer. Well we had had the wildest time, but it was time to move on, as we cranked up the Chevy we passed the closed down hotel and the new museum building and the sound of the Interstate started to intrude and time speeded up to normal again and by the time we rejoined I25 we found that we had only been in Chugwater for about an hour.
Saturday Well the morning started with pouring rain, but the weather stations were putting out a weather warning - over an inch of rain today, winds up to 40 m.p.h. tonight, between 10-18" of snow tonight and tomorrow. Temperatures down to 26deg F. Horror of horrors I have, or rather the rain has, found a small leak at the top of one of the walls of the trailer, so we hope that it will not be anything too serious when we investigate it after this storm. We set out to go to town before the weather worsened, Sally got her hair done in JC Penney's Salon and had a great time chatting away with her hairdresser, Mary Ellen, who came from just south of Knoxville, TN. While I drove off to Albertson's to stock up on supplies. When I picked Sally up at about 12.30 and it was still raining solidly. We popped into Walmart to pick up the last of the food (cereals and cans are half the price of Albertson's, but their Deli' meats are not as good), by the time we came out there was an inch of snow on the car - the snow had come early! So we abandoned our plan to have lunch in Applebee's and drove straight back to the trailer to sit and watch the snow fall. It stopped snowing about 5.00, with only a couple of inches on the ground. About 7.00 the wind started up, the trailer is shaking a bit. Every now and then I could hear a noise like a pebble being thrown on the roof. Went out to have a look - icicles were forming on the rolled up awning and the wind was breaking them off and blowing them against the side of the trailer.
It is now 8.00 and hasn't snowed again, though we expect the main bout of snow to fall overnight, starting in about an hour, so we shall see. Outside temperature is showing 25.5deg F. Although it is windy, it is not as windy as predicted, so perhaps we won't get as much snow as predicted. Sunday We awoke with some trepidation, only to find that there had been only a little bit of snow added and the wind had calmed down, although it had warmed up to 25deg F we still preferred to stay inside with our two electric fires on. We will stay on here until tomorrow.
Looking at the radar pics it seems that the bulk of the moisture passed to the East of us, dropping as rain on the lower ground. Sunday Evening Well it looks like the worst is over, the temperature did just get up to freezing and we survived. It did mean that we had a good excuse for sitting and doing absolutely nothing for a day, which can't be bad. Here is the government weather warning issued on Saturday:
... Winter Storm Warning remains in effect until 6 PM MDT Sunday...
* timing... periods of moderate to heavy snow will continue tonight through much of Sunday.
* Total snow accumulations... 10 to 18 inches. Locally higher amounts are possible... especially along the Pine Ridge.
* Winds/visibility... north to northeast 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph. Visibility will be significantly reduced in falling and blowing snow.
* Impacts... extremely dangerous or impossible travel with heavy snow and reduced visibility likely. Roads will be slick and snow covered. In addition... the heavy snow may result in downed tree branches... with could lead to scattered power outages.
Precautionary/preparedness actions...
A Winter Storm Warning for heavy snow means severe winter weather conditions are expected or occurring. Significant amounts of snow are forecast that will make travel dangerous. Only travel in an emergency. If you must travel... keep an extra flashlight... food... and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency.
Friday On our second day in Cheyenne we had decided to do indoor stuff, on our way into town we had to stop at the Merci Boxcar to get the pics we didn't get yesterday, then, after another stop for coff/T at Starbucks, we made for the Capitol, which is very nice, but not overwhelming. Neither house was in session, so it was very quiet. we did find a chap on the top floor ferreting up in the roof space, doing some exploration to see what was beneath the paintwork, because the building had been extended and revamped several times since it was built. Nnwo they wanted to get it back to it's original design. We had a fascinating time, seeing how the rooms had been in 1867. We found a memorial to 9/11 that was made from one of the box sections from the 65th floor. The whole section had been taken by Oak Ridge High School in TN and cut into 50 sections, each section was mounted and then one was sent to each State as a memorial. Outside it was raining, so we quickly moved on to lunch, which we had in Sanfords, which had been recommended by the State Trooper in the Capitol. Now this was an amazing place. It was absolutely full of 50',60's and 70's junk, all very neatly displayed around the walls and between the tables. The food was very nice too. After lunch we bowled on up to the State Museum. Wyoming has a very small population, about 500,000 people, so their state organisations tend to be quite small, which was the case with the Capitol this morning and equally true of the museum this afternoon. What it did do though was give us a very good idea of all the things that have happened in Wyoming, which again didn't take long, once you had got the shooting, drinking and womanising out of the way. The did have one of those 3D map models that light up when you press the buttons, this was great for showing us the variety of Immigrant Trails, Mountain Men meeting places, U.S. Army Forts and battles with the Indians. Gave some good context to our visit to Wyoming. I noticed some pictures of the coal mines they have here, unbelievable amounts of coal, just sitting their, why we ever sent men underground when there is all this just for the picking up I do not know!
However we did meet some very nice people, on the way in a school bus was waiting to pick up a group from the museum, as we passed it the door opens and a voice calls "Sally", much to our astonishment. Then also much to our astonishment Val, our Trolley Dolly from yesterday, jumps out and introduces us to al the 4th grader kids she is driving round the town, that was fun!!!the curator had spent a long time in the UK, at York, no less, so we had a good chat with him. The volunteer on the door was very friendly as well. While we were going round the museum we kept seeing another couple, so of course we got to talking. It turns out that she is a presbyterian minister from the next place we are visiting, Fort Laramie and Guernsey and he is a friend from Cheyenne, so we had a good long chat with them, which was also fun. The only disappointment was that they nothing on display from the Merci Boxcar, it was all in storage. Still never mind. So that pretty well wraps up Cheyenne, Now we get to the problem - the weather. We know that it has been deteriorating, today it rained a lot - tomorrow it set to rain and rain and get windy, Sunday we are set to get SNOW! In quantity. So we are going to get food in and hunker down for the weekend.
Thursday May 8th Important caveat: Although I took many photos today my camera did not have a card in it, so pics are more limited today. Grrr! We had sort of figured that although Cheyenne is the State Capital of Wyoming it would probably be about the same size as Laramie and about as interesting. Well as State Capitals go it is pretty small, but Laramie is even smaller, however we were completely wrong about how interesting it is. Cheyenne is a fascinating place. It started life as a railhead in 1867 when Union Pacific were building the railroad. It was a tent city, mostly the three B's, beds, bars and brothels. It started about thirty miles to the East, but being a tent city as the railroad grew they picked up their tents and erected them again at the end of the railway. The town stopped moving when it reached a valley, with a small river running through. Whether they couldn't summon the strength to go up the other side, or couldn't get across the river I don't know, but that's where it stopped. We took a trolley ride round the town, this was driven by and tour guided by a rip roarer of a lady call Val, who gave a very high speed, action packed, yet informative guided tour round the town, telling us about such myths, with a real life, such as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. It was quite fascinating and we loved it. She told us of the many tunnels that are under the sidewalks, most of which led to one or another of the brothels (we remembered the same in Pendleton, OR), she showed us the Capitol building, the rodeo fairground and the railroad as well as the buildings in the old part of town. We ate lunch in the Albany, which looked like a typical railway hotel/tavern and was, i.e. not sparkling, but OK. After lunch we drove out to the Botanical Gardens, which were nice, but really we wen to see the old loco, the oldest in Wyoming, which is on display in the grounds. Sally got some rally nice pics of goslings and there were some nice garden benches with local scenes built into them. Next stop was Holliday Park, with a lake with the unlikely name of Minnehaha Lake. Sounds Indian, but was of course the fictional name of the girl in Longfellow's poem of Hiawatha. Anyway we didn't come to see the lake, we came to see the Biggest Steam Train in the world! Big Boy 4004 was built for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1941 to haul the big trains up the long incline to the highest part of the railroad just beyond Laramie. It is a very big engine. We were impressed, but it started to rain, so we jumped back into the chevy and moved on. Our last stop was at the Cheyenne American Legion Post 6. Why? because the Wyoming Merci Train Boxcar is on display there (See our blog for the last one we saw in Ogden, Utah). Unfortunately it was now pouring with rain. However, I got out of the Chevy and posed for a pic. There was a gentleman working by the boxcar and he came to say 'Hi'. It turns out that he introduced himself as Ken and he is the 'Chef Du Gare' for the local Forty and Eight Society, whose history I have outlined before, they have a special relationship with the Merci Boxcars. we had a great conversation, it seems that he is preparing the boxcar for public display and asked if we would like to see inside, so of course we said yes. He opened the sliding door and we (Ken and I) climbed in (it is quite high up) and had a really good look round. He told us of his plans and we told him what we do, meanwhile Sally was outside the boxcar, in the rain. It really did not seem big enough to take 40 men with their kit, rifle and ammunition, but there it was, a little bit of history. He told us that the gifts from the French were in the State Museum, so as we bid farewell we determined to visit the State Museum tomorrow to see if we could find them. /> So all in all, apart from the weather, which has been awful anyway ever since we left Phoenix, we really enjoyed Cheyenne and are looking forward to exploring more tomorrow.
