The Black Hills and Mount Rushmore

9/30
The drive from The Sturgis area to the Mount Rushmore area was relatively short.  We were heading for Creekside Mountain RV Park  just outside Hill City, SD.  There was no problem finding a site, they were closing for the season in two days and all but one site was open.

Our main draw to the area was Mount Rushmore but there's plenty to do in the Black Hills.  After setting up we started driving around to get familiar with the area. The campground owner told us the entrance fee for Custer State Park was free for the "roundup".  We didn't know what the roundup was but we did understand free!.  We found our way to the Custer State Park visitors center and learned about the Annual Buffalo Roundup.  By this time it was late in the day but we went ahead and drove out to the roundup site along the Wild Life Loop Scenic Byway.

The buffalo were in the corrals and there was evidence of a big event, temporary parking areas and even a few  bleachers,  but all the activity was over.  We'd missed it by a couple hours.

We saw the occasional Antelope and some wild donkeys
ready for a handout but not much else.

One that got away.

After the Wild Life drive we headed up the Needles Highway, so named for the pointy spires.  It could also be for the narrow tunnels along the windy two lane road, like threading a needle with the truck. The weather was mostly overcast so the pictures are sorta bland.

Here's a short video of the Needled Highway on a much nicer day than we had.

10/1
Today we'd do Mount Rushmore. The Plan was to go past the attraction and drive another scenic highway the Iron Mountain Road, find a nice spot for lunch, then stop at Rushmore on the way back in the afternoon.  Here's some pictures from Iron Mountain Road.

See Mount Rushmore in the distance.

The road was laid out to maximize the viewing opportunity for the monument, then the engineers were given the task of making it happen.

Mount Rushmore is a spectacular site.  Once you walk out to the the amphitheater and take a few pictures...

...there's basically 4 other things to do during the day.

- Walk the 1/2 mile Presidential loop trail. Here's a 24 min. YouTube video made by a fellow who walked the trail...backwards. "YOU ARE THERE...!"
- Join a park ranger for a 30 minute interpretive talk or guided walk
- Visit the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center with lots of good information on the sculptor, the workers and history of the USA.  There's also a 14 minute film "Mount Rushmore: The shrine".
- Visit the Sculptor's Studio at the end of the Presidential Trail. There you'll see actual models used, examples of the tools and the view of the mountain the sculptors saw during the 14 year construction. There's also a very interesting Ranger talk about the sculpting of the monument. Here's a YouTube video from inside the Sculptors's Studio.

View from Sculptors Studio.

One of the highlights of a visit to Mount Rushmore is the Evening Lighting Ceremony .  We'd go back to the camper for dinner then return for the ceremony.

• Here's a tip. The only cost to get into the monument is an $11 annual pass parking fee paid to a concessionaire, so the senior pass doesn't get you a discount.  When we returned about 7:30pm there was no one collecting parking fees. Not sure what time they stop taking the parking fees.

The ceremony started with a ranger presentation followed by a film.

After after the film, the ranger called for any veterans in the audience to come down to the stage.  Each veteran introduced themselves and their branch of service.  There was even a WWII Army air-core veteran.

The veterans then participated in a flag lowering ceremony.

As we headed back to our campground, we stopped at the parking area where you can see the monument from the side, showing a Washington profile hanging in the black sky.

Here's an excellent  video about the area by RVgeeks, a great source for RV tips and travel info.

To end our visit to Mound Rushmore, here's a side of the sculpture you won't find in the guide books....

The next morning we were the last to leave the campground for the season.

Coming next, Badlands National Park.

Sturgis SD

9/27
OK, Don't get all excited.  We WEREN'T  in Sturgis during the big Motorcycle rally. No naked cold slaw wrestling! It was a relatively quiet little town with all the famous party sites a mere shell of their bike week selves. We did have a couple of beers and a pizza at The Knuckle Saloon but there was only about a dozen other patrons, just another bar on a Tuesday evening.

In truth, our draw to the area was a BLM campground about a mile south of Sturgis, Alkali Creek Trail Head.  No hookups, just a place to park, but it turned out to be one of our favorite locations.  With our senior pass it was $3 a night.  The day after the day we left, Oct 1, started their "off" season and camping was free.

We did some sight seeing while in the area including the historic D.C. Booth Historic Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, SD.  We knew about the fish hatchery from one of the other hosts at Yaquina Head.  She worked there the previous year and really enjoyed it.  We wanted to check it out as a possible hosting location for us.  Unfortunately we arrived on September 29th, 3 days after the staff left for the season, including the volunteer coordinator.  However, we did get to investigate the facility and camping area.   

Inside D.C.Booth fish hatchery.

After the fish hatchery we drove the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. Here's some pictures.

9/30
We had a very pleasant stay at Alkali Creek.  I would have liked to stay longer, there's a lot more to see and do here, but we were closing in on the end of the season for campgrounds and attractions.  So, we were off to a campground near Mount Rushmore

Coming next, The Black Hills and Mount Rushmore.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

9/23

One of our camp neighbors in Oregon told us about Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  We didn't even know there WAS a T.R. National Park.  As we were investigating where to go after the solar install, we found T.R was an easy day's drive.  We also discovered they were having a special event called Dakota Nights, a weekend long Astronomy festival.  That sealed the deal and we made reservations.

Most National Parks don't have utilities in their campgrounds and that's the case at T.R.  Now that we have solar, we can start taking advantage of these type of campgrounds.

We spent the first night after the solar install in a full service campground near Belle Fourche, SD  to drain our tanks, top off our fresh water and do laundry, we'd been off grid for the past 6 days.

The drive north on US-85 from Belle Fourche, SD was Borrrrrrring!  It was a more or less straight road  heading due north for about 200 miles. The terrain was more of the same - rolling hills, sparsely populated with trees or people.

Oh, did I mention it was overcast with intermittent rain.  The forecast was more of the same for the next 2 days, a true test for the new solar system.

T.R. National Park is just outside of Medora, ND.  Medora is a picturesque little town dating back to 1883.  It's been transformed from a working town to a tourist town without losing much of it's charm.  Mind you, we were there at the end of the season so it might lose some of that perceived charm in the middle of summer.

Some interesting architecture.

The Cottonwood campground is 5 miles from the entrance to the park along a windy road through the North Dakota "Badlands" (a.k.a. Painted Canyon).  Again, we didn't know there WAS a North Dakota Badlands!  When making the reservation, Joan picked the biggest site available.  It was a self serve campground (at this time of the year) so we stopped to consult a campground map to find our site.  Joan pointed to what appeared to be a day use parking area and said that's it!  What's it, I said.  That's our campsite!

There were two campsites that were wide spots in the asphalt road running through the campground.  There's a walk leading to the amphitheater and to the left of that, day use parking.  To the right, campsites.  Our site wasn't very private but with all the rain, the idea of not stepping out into mud was very appealing.

There were events scheduled at the amphitheater for Friday night, but with the rain, it was moved to the little theater in Madora. The Park staff pulled out all the stops, scrambling to decorate the theater with banners of stars, serving free cookies and refreshments, even popcorn with the later movie.

9/24

Saturday's weather wasn't any better, drizzly rain and cold.

There were lots of  Astronomy related attractions in the visitors center along with the history about the life and times or T. R.

Joan holding Moon rocks!

The Discovery Dome Theater was an inflatable dome that projected short movies on the roof of the dome.  We'd just lay on the floor and look up.

Buffalo on the wall celebrating the 100th
anniversary of the National Park Service.

And then there's all the exhibits about T.R.

The Saturday night speaker was Dr. Joe Shaw.  His topic, "Chasing the Midlatitude Aurora Borealis", discussed opportunities available for viewing the Aurora in places other than the Arctic, like North Dakota and Minnesota, where he was from.

After the presentation, there was a movie.  Actually, is was a PBS Nova episode about the Mars rover. Like I said, the staff did a great job pulling together a good nights entertainment on short notice.

9/25
Fiiiiiinally! the weather broke and we had a nice sunny day.

The highlight of the day was the solar viewing with special telescopes.

There were two kinds of filters used.  One would let you see the Solar Prominence (a bright feature extending outward from the suns surface).  What we could see looked like fuzz on the edge of the suns disk.

The other filter would let you see Sun Spots.  I tried the take a picture by holding the camera lens up to the eye piece of the telescope.  While we did see some very small spots, they didn't come out in the picture.

The good weather also let us tour some of the outside exhibits, like T. R.'s cabin.

The final presentation by Dr. Paul Barnhart on "The Importance of Darkness" was finally held at the amphitheater. While it was only a few steps from our campsite, it was a chilly evening and  I found myself remembering the warm theater with cookies and popcorn.

The clear evening also allow the only night of star gazing hosted by a local Astronomy club.

9/26

The Festival was over and we had a great time in spite of the weather. However, we hadn't seen anything of the park outside of the campground, the visitors center and the 5 mile drive between the two.  So, we decided to stay another day and tour the 36 mile Scenic Loop Drive.  Here's some pictures.

Our campsite on a much nicer day.

Notice the artist painting this beautiful scene.

We stopped for lunch at this beautiful overlook.

9/27

We left T. R. National Park on another beautiful day with fond memories of the park, the park staff, the town of Medora, and the North Dakota Badlands that T.R. loved so much.

Driving down US-85, going south this time, was still a boring drive.  At least this time we had blue skies to look at.

Coming next, Sturgis SD.