Takes From the Trail - Day 16

Big trouble this time!

Well Linda ya better send Helen for me cause I'll be in big trouble before we leave this motel. Let me digress for a bit (you know I never do that} Our plans to go to Yellowstone got scuttled due to bad weather and road closures. We were supposed to stay in Cody WY tonight then 3 days in the park but headed north instead. We are in Billings MT and now have a few days to stall somewhere. Called the NP reservations services, cancelled those reservations and cancelled the Cody reservation. So we decided to just make our own reservation rather than go through Hotel.com. Here is where our trouble begins. We booked to our old trusty Motel 6. I had for gotten how crappy they really are. We have been getting huge rooms with a nice easy chair to sit in, Well Motel 6 has two beds practically jammed up to one another. They only have one straig) Motel 6 has coffee in the lobby. Big deal. I have a coffee pot. Motel 6 has Internet but ya gotta pay for it. And for only one computer for each Internet card. We have been signing on for each computer for free. This room has no place for both of to sit so I am propped up on the bed. Now is where Helen comes in. Since we can only get one connection in this room (legally) and of course Lee had his farming to do I started fooling around and I am bootlegged onto Holiday Inn's wireless. Between that and if they catch us cooking in the room I am doomed to a night in jail in Billings MT. So Helen, COME AND GET ME!

It has been a rainy yuggy day all day. Crummy driving but one good picture to share. Guess we'll hole up here for the next couple of days and do an anti rain dance. Next stop will be Great Falls MT. Room should be better. Costs a lot more.

All for now.

Forgot to mention we are in the foot hills of the Rockies and it is cold. I thing it about 45 or so. Burrrrr!

Preview

Tales from the Trail - Day 15

Cancellations!

Not much to report for yesterday. Rained on our parade all day. We were headed from Rapid City SD to Gillette WY stopping along the way to see Deadwood and Devils Tower. Road Conditions on the secondary highways are bad due to the rain, rock slides etc so many roads are closed.

We got to Deadwood and it was raining. Didn't particularly feel like walking around in the cold and rain (46 deg that is cold for us) just to see an old Historic Town so we drove through and around just to say we had been there. Then off to drive through Belle Forche. That is the town John Wayne was driving his cows to in the Cowboys so I says lets go look at it. It is right on the way. Still raining, another old Historic town so we just kept on moving. On to Devils Tower. When we got there the road was closed so NO DEVILS TOWER. Oh well we saw Shiprock in New Mexico. So on to Gillette where we spent the night. Still cold still rainy so we spent the afternoon in the motel room Lee doing his farmville and I piddling around on the small notebook. Sure glad we brought both the laptop and the notebook. Of course Lee won't fool with the notebook so I get stuck with that. To avoid going out in the miserable weather we ordered room service. Food wasn't the best I have eaten (far from it) but it was hot and plentiful and it wasn't the worst either (But close.)

I think when Lee gets up we will have to make some decisions. I have been on the phone and the computer checking road conditions and looks like Yellowstone is out for us. Lots of road closures rock & mudslides and snow on the road. They are saying use snow tires. SNOW TIRES? We are from Florida. "We don't have no stinking snow tires!" Then to put the icing on the cake for bad luck. I went out to the car to get our coffeepot (first place they didn't have a pot in the room. Micro and Fridge but no coffee pot) anyway I went out to get the pot and found a huge ding in the passengers side of the car. I hadn't noticed it yesterday so don't know when that happened. Lee didn't hit anything so someone must have hit us while we were parked. Ba&%$^rds. Oh well I sort of looked for a ding or two on this trip but I figured it would be from rocks flying on a gravel road somewhere on the Alaska Highway but nothing like this mega ding and while we are parked. Guess we will have to see a body shop when we get home.

Tales From the Trail - Day 14 May 28

We passed Badlands Park as we were coming into Rapid City on Thursday but we did not drive the loop. Were just in a rush to get to Rapid City and Mt Rushmore. Well some friends we met along the way our BFFD (Best Friends For the Day) told us we should really go see it as it is just beautiful. Well since we had seen all we had planned on seeing while staying in RC we decided to take our remaining day and backtrack to drive through the Badlands Loop. Well it was well worth the trip back. It was just gorgeous and we opted to take the gravel road down Sage Creek Rim and look for buffalo. After traveling out into the wilderness on this little gravel road we found a couple of very small groups of them grazing. We saw three antelope but they were too fast for me. They were gone before I could get the camera focused. We saw Prairie Dogs and that was the extent of our wildlife sitings. Back at Rapid City we bought KFC had lunch and enough for dinner. We did out laundry then spent the remainder of the day chilling out in the room.

Tales From the Trail - Day 13 May 27

Today is Lee's Birthday and he had a good one.

On the way to Rapid City on Thursday I was browsing through the AAA tour book for the Black Hills area and came across a tour to Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, the Needles Highway, The Iron Mountain Road, Custer National Park and all the sights along the way. Included with the tour was a cowboy breakfast, a chuck wagon dinner and a foot stomping country show. The price of the whole day (a 9 hour event) was $74.00. Sounded like a good deal to us so I made the call. We had to be at the Ft. Hays meeting place at 7:30 on Friday morning. What a great day it was. As stated above we started with a hearty breakfast of flapjacks, biscuits and gravy, and smoked sausage. Plenty of coffee, tea, hot chocolate etc. We boarded the bus at 9:15 or so and off we went. Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore where we spent a little over an hour. Then we drove the Needles highway where we went through tunnels so narrow there might have been 3 inches on either side of the bus clearance. The driver told us the new buses will not fit through the tunnels as they are 102 inches and that is what the tunnels are. I don't remember what this bus was but I want to say 96 inches. As we came out of the tunnels we could see Mt Rushmore framed in the tunnel opening. Just beautiful. Our driver stopped the bus and let us off for pictures. The road was a maze of switchbacks and steep grades. Lee was so glad he did not have to drive on these roads.

Back at the Chuck wagon center we had a chuck wagon meal of baked potatoes cooked in coals, barbecued beef or breaded, chicken, baked beans, chunky applesauce, biscuits and spice cake. Plenty of coffee, tea, and lemonade. Then the show where we had 4 male guitar players a drummer, steel guitar player who was the father of the drummer and an award winner and a young girl who played the fiddle. A great finish for a great day

Tales From the Trail - Day 12

May 26, 2011

This may be the day!

We left Mitchell and are traveling through South Dakota heading for Rapid City and MOUNT RUSHMORE! Woo Hoo. We paid the most we have for gas so far in Mitchell. Shell station and it was $4.06 per gallon. We will expect to pay more and more as we head further west and then through Canada and Alaska. I am typing this as I travel so if I seem to jump around about where we are and what we are doing bear with me. In fact I don’t think we have internet in Rapid City so you won’t read this for a few days.

Passed up the 1880’s town and got off at next exit and went back. Twelve miles out of our way and well worth it. Lots of movie sets from Dances with Wolves and just an excellent little 1880’s town. They had the theme song from the movie piped all through the town and at the train station they had sounds like a train coming in. Well worth the detour. Then we stopped at Wall Drug Store and had lunch.

The terrain has been changing. Flat open fields and lovely old barns have given way to rolling grasslands and more cattle ranches. We rolled into Rapid City around 5:00 pm Mt. standard time. After problems with reservations and an exceptionally helpful desk clerk and owner we got checked in (upstairs room ugh) but the clerk helped us get our stuff to the room. Just couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning when we have our tour we headed out (as tired as we were) and saw Mt. Rushmore.

YES! After 37 years and 5 attempts we are here and we saw it. Yea! To bed early we have to be at the place to catch our tour bus at 7:30 am tomorrow. More later

Tales From the Trail - Day 11

We got up this morning with a full plate. We had three museums to visit today. We wanted to see the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Museum, the Dakota Discovery Museum, and the Enchanted Doll Museum We started off with the Prehistoric Indian Village which was excellent. It is an Excavation of a village of the Mandan Indians from 1000 years ago. Very nice. Then we went to the Dakota Discovery Museum only to find it is closed on Wednesday. Bummers! Then we went to The Enchanted Doll Museum to find it has been closed. So we consoled ourselves with a gift shop where we bought a map of the United States with magnets of the states. We found we had been to most of them or will catch them on this trip so we bought them all and will put the remaining ones on as we visit the states. We decided this was our birthday present to ourselves. Back at the motel we had lunch in the room and went for a swim. NO I DID NOT GO DOWN THE SLIDE AGAIN. Some other old guy went down but I noticed he didn't go the second time. We will eat out tonight then go see the Corn Palace lit up. Early start tomorrow to see MOUNT RUSHMORE.

A mistake

Whoops posted two of the same picture and don't know how to get one of them off. Sorry guys.