Mitchell, SD.

8/7-8/2007
We camped at Lake Mitchell Campground. It was a small city park, very well taken care of. In fact we spent an extra day there because it was such a pleasant park. The town of Mitchell is big enough to have all you need and small enough to be able to get around in it with no problems. The Corn Palace was first constructed in 1892. The current Corn Palace is the third one and was built in 1921.


This is the front of the building. Every year there is a new theme and the muriel's are changed every year. The material used is corn of course but also, sour dock, milo, rye, and oat heads. The corn is sawed in half and nailed to the building. The other materials are bundled and nailed to the building, also. The cost this year was $130,000.00. As the sign says this years theme is "Salute to Rodeo"

This is around the corner on the right side of the building.

This close up is meant to show how the tie the bundles of material and nail it to the building. The only one I know for sure is the dark brown which is the sour doc.

The above picture is one side of the inside of the Corn Palace. There are more pictures in my picture album of both the Doll Museum and the Corn Palace.

Located in Mitchell, SD. in an English style castle, complete with a moat, turrets, and a drawbridge, this museum houses over 4,000 antique and modern dolls from the early 1800's to modern times. There are also 2,000 ethnic dolls from more than 125 countries.

I really can't make any comment about these pictures other than to say they are all from the Doll Museum in Mitchell, SD. I was very impressed by the displays, only wish I could have used a flash to get better lighting but I understand why they don't allow it. Some of the displays are not well lighted but there were more displays than I could take pictures of any way.

They had all kind of ethnic dolls.

I wish the picture of this display showed up better. There were two displays like this, one above the other. This is only part of the bottom display. These are all dolls of the presidents and first ladies. I know you can recognize some of them like Barbara Bush and Jackie Kennedy.

Badlands National Park

8/5/2007
I am not going to print too many pictures of the Badlands. You can see the rest in my picture album.
This is the view from the visitor center.

There are many board walks in the park which make it easy to walk to good overlooks.

There are also many good viewing overlooks with great scenic views.

There are more bikers here than cars or RVs.

Another walk way. Tomorrow we leave for Mitchel, South Dakota. The home of the Corn Palace.

Wall Drug

8/4/2007

On our way to Badlands National Park we stopped at Wall, South Dakota. It is the home of the famous Wall drug store and the free glass of ice water. This was the weekend of the Sturgis motorcycle rally. On the way there on interstate 90 we passed hundreds of motorcycles on their way to Sturgis. In Wall there was "wall to wall motorcycles." :-)

This is just one of the parking places that was full of motorcycles.

This is the front of the Wall drug store. It has more stores inside than a mall and believe it or not they have a small drug department. All recent pictures are in the South Dakota picture album.

Mt. Rushmore & Needles Highway

8/03/2007
Sorry, this picture is out of order but if I move it you can't click on it to enlarge it. Some how I missed it when I imported all the other pictures. This is on the Needles highway. As you can see it was foggy, it had just rained and was still drizzling.

We are just south of Rapid City, SD at the Rushmore Shadows Resort. We are getting three days of free camping if we listened to their talk trying to sell us a time share. We listened to their two hour talk but were not interested in buying the time share, which we knew at the start we wouldn't. Mt. Rushmore was only about 6 miles down highway 16. The town of Keystone is located just before you enter Mt. Rushmore National Park. They were totally set up for the biker that right now are all over the place. They have a special place for them to park and there were hundreds of them parked there. The National Park Service and the Federal Government now have a way to get a round the Golden Age Pass. They don't charge you to get into the park, they charge you $8.00 to park your vehicle.

This view is from a pull off before you get into the park.

This is at the entrance to the viewing area. They have a restaurant, a book store and they sell a tape you can listen to about the sculpture and of course rest rooms. The visitor center is below the viewing area at the end of this walk. They have two short slide shows, one about Gutzon Borglum and the carving of the mountain and one about the animals in the park.

This is the view at the end of the walk way.

This is further back on the walk way looking through the hall of flags. There is a flag for every state and the date it entered the union and what number it was entering the union. Alabama was twenty second.

These really are not wild mountain sheep like we first though they were because there was about five more on the grounds grazing also.

From Mt.Rushmore we went to see the Crazy Horse carving. However, it had rained the night before and the fog was hanging so low you couldn't see it, so we decided not to go in. We then took a drive on the Needles Highway. It's in Custer State Park so naturally they charged us $5.00 each to drive on it. The above picture is of one of the tunnels on the drive, it is 12 feet high and 8 feet wide. Naturally no RVs are allowed on the road. Our RV is 12 feet 6 inches high and eight and a half feet wide. Might be a little tight. :-)

I know it's hard to see it but the white spot in the middle is a real live wild mountain goat. Sorry that's the best my telephoto lens can do. Tomorrow we are heading for the Wall drug store and the Badlands National Park.

Devil's Tower 7/28-31/2007

7/28/2007
We spent four days camped at Devil's Tower. The campground was typical of government campgrounds. No hookups, no showers not even a dump station but what a beautiful location. We were right at the base of the tower surrounded by huge old cottonwood trees. From our camp site you could look through the trees and see the tower. What an impressive view. On one side of the campground was the prairie dog town and almost every evening a deer would come by. In the morning we would sit and watch the rabbits.

This is the first view of the tower as you come over the hill. It's about a mile away from the entrance to the monument. Notice the three hills on the left in the distance. They actually are higher than the tower and in a couple of million years probably will be more impressive than the tower is today. The tower is 867 feet high from the visitor center. Remember this is the main object in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Since that movie was released their number of visitors have greatly increased.

This is one of the first thing you see as you drive in. It is a large prairie dog town. Every time you drive past it you see little heads poked up all over the place.

This is the view from the first pull off in the park.

7/31/2007

This is the beginning of the trail around the base of the tower. Any day that you are on the top side of the grass is a good day, but you know some days just are special. Today was one of those special days. We got up early to beat the crowd and to go when it was cooler. The trail around the tower is 1.3 mile and is black topped all the way. It follows the base of the tower just out side the fallen rocks. They have benches every so often, especially at scenic overlooks. It was so quite and peaceful, the views were spectacular, both of the tower and the scenery it just made it special. We took our time and really enjoyed the whole scene and I made it all the way around.

This is the rubble at the base of the tower. These are the remains of the columns that have fallen to give the tower it's distinctive shape. According to the literature no columns have fallen since the tower was made a monument in 1906. By the way this was the first national monument, so Wyoming has the distinction of having the first national park and the first national monument.

This is just one of the views on the trail. It was so quite you could hear the wind singing in the trees.

Even the deer were enjoying the morning. There was another one there also but she was harder to see. I said she because it had no antlers.

This is the north face of the tower. Notice how much more the top is cracked than lower down the sides. The top of course it has been exposed longer and therefore has weathered more. The top of the tower is about one and a fourth acres. It is not flat but dome shaped and rather rugged. Just about every day in the summer some one is climbing the tower. There are no restrictions on climbing it. You do not have to have any experience as a climber, all you have to do is register at the park office. It usually takes about four hours to climb it. The record is 18 minutes according to the literature. One man parachuted on top. He was an inexperienced climber. It took them 4 days to get him down. Needless to say he paid a fine.

Heading North Again 7/ 26-28/2007

7/26/2007
I think this is the first time I have added to the blog without pictures. On the 26th we left the Golden Eagle Ranch Campground heading for Gunnison National Park. We had a paid reservation there for four days. We are going on route 50 which we had been on before to as far as Salida. Beyond that we still had about 60 miles to go to get to the national park. The part we had been on before was a beautiful drive mostly through the Big Horn Sheep Canyon and along the Arkansas River. As we drove through the second time it was a lovely day and there were even more rafters on the river this time than the last time. They were coming in groups of six and eight rafts at a time, with six to eight people in each raft. After we passed Salida the road started up. At first gradually then steeper and steeper. The motorhome started over heating. I pulled off the road three times to let it cool down. On the second time I even unhooked the car to see if that would help. It did for a little while but it over heated again. When I pulled off each time I would gun the motor and it would gradually cool enough to go again. Finally at about 9,000 feet with the road still going up, I decided to give up before I burned up the engine. We turned around an went back to the Wal-mart at Salida. I put up the satellite and searched for a Cummings repair shop. The closest one I could find was in Henderson, Co. which is a suburb of Denver. It was about 125 miles away. Fortunately the engine didn't over heat as long as we weren't going up steep grades. I made an appointment for 11:30 the next day (Friday). We drove on from Salida to Canon City and spent the night in the Wal-mart in Canon City. I also had to call and cancel my reservations at the national park. They did give me a partial refund. I knew even if they didn't give me any of the money back it would be cheaper than burning up the engine.
7/27/2007
We got up early Friday, had breakfast as McDonald's and then left for the repair shop. We drove back up route 115 passed our old campground to route 25 through Colorado Springs to Denver. We got to the Cummings Rocky Mountain repair shop in Henderson about 10:30. We wanted to get there early because we had to take our bikes off the back of the RV and remove the bike rack to give the repair man access to the engine. The pull in at the shop was one of the best I have seen. They even had a place for three RVs to plug in if they had to spend the night. The area was not junked up with trucks or trash all over the place. The service areas were neat and clean. They had a lounge that had two couches and two recliners along with a large screen TV. While you waited in the lounge there was a window which you could look out onto the work area and see the men working on the RVs and trucks. While waiting I met a gentleman from Louisiana who had just bought a new Allegro Bay. This was his first trip in it. He was having generator problems. Seems it didn't have enough power to run both his air conditioners. At 11:30 as scheduled they pulled my RV in to check it. At 1 o'clock they told me they had steam cleaned the radiators and washed out the trash between the two radiators. They charged for two hours service for a total of $240.00. I doubt that will fix the problem. I'm sure I will find out soon enough. We left there after putting the bikes and rack back on at about 1:30 with no idea where we were going. We just hadn't made any plans past getting the motorhome repaired. Since we were headed north on interstate route 76 we decided to go to Greeley for the night and make plans there. We spent the night in the Wal-mart parking lot in Greeley. I decided we would go to Devils Tower in Wyoming from there.
The Wal-mart parking lot is right beside a Golden Corral, so we had dinner there.
7/28/2007
On weekends the Golden Corral has a great breakfast buffet. Peggy isn't much for breakfast so I had the buffet myself. From Greeley we are heading north on interstate 25 on our way to Devil's Tower. Maybe I'll get some pictures there. Peggy has never been to Devil's Tower, I have, about 40 years ago.

Cripple Creek

7/22/2007
Sorry to say in all of our travels so far from leaving Alabama in February this is the first place that I was disappointed in. The town is nothing but one casino after another and I mean one right after another. You can't find a restaurant that isn't part of a casino. We were going to eat in one but it was upstairs of the casino and when we walked in it stunk from cigarette smoke. So we just turned around and walked out.

We did find this nice little city park. So we had our picnic lunch here. They even had a place to wash your hands. We always take a picnic lunch with us when we go site seeing because you never know what the situation will be. Many time you are too far away from any place to eat, besides Peggy and I both love eating picnic lunches. I usually forget to take a picture.

This is a view from the park looking at the back side of town.

We did take a ride on the train. I wasn't impressed with it either. They take you for a little ride around the mountain along side the road we came in on. The only thing is they do explain the area and what old abandon mines you are seeing. Unfortunately there was a family with two young children behind us that were constantly talking so much and so loud that I couldn't hear what the guide was saying any way. It cost $10.00 each and it definitely wasn't worth that.

A view of Cripple Creek from the train.

One of the abandon goal mines and tailing's from another one above. The guide told the name of it and how much they had extracted from it but as I said I couldn't hear him.

This was neat, it's called echo valley. The train stopped and blew the whistle and you could hear the echo.

One thing you could say for this campground is you wouldn't have to worry about your satellite not working, there certainly wasn't any trees to get in the way.

This is the second train they use. When our train got to here it switched to a siding and let this train go by. Then we pulled out and switched back to that track and backed into the station. They have a gold mine tour here that I heard was really good from all the people I talked to that had taken it. However, after thinking about it I decided not to go on it. First Peggy wouldn't go, she get nervous in caves and mines. Secondly, I have been in a gold mine in South Dakota, a coal mine in Pennsylvania, and an iron mine in Minnesota so I didn't think this would be much different. Lastly it cost $15.00 which I though was too much after the rest of my experiences in this town. The best thing about our trip there was getting there. We drove up to Cripple Creek from Canon City on a road they call the shelve road. If you ever drove it you would know why they call it the shelf road. It is just that, a shelf on the side of the mountain. But the scenery was great. The only problem was the road was so narrow there was no where to stop and take pictures. When met a car coming the other way, we had to backup and find a place wide enough for them to pass. Peggy nearly had a heart attack. When we met the car both cars had to stop, Peggy got out of the car while I backed up and pull over to the edge of the road (cliff). After the car passed she got back in and we drove on. When we started on the road it said it was 21 miles to Cripple Creek and that vehicles over 25 foot were not allowed on the road. After we got half way there a sign said 4 wheel drive vehicles recommended. Thanks, but we couldn't have turned around if we wanted to. Our little Saturn made it with no problem and as I said the scenery was great. Only problem was Peggy was so scared she couldn't look down and enjoy the view. Thankfully there was another way out of Cripple Creek so we didn't have to go back the same road. State Road 67 north to 24 was black topped and a good road. It was on the side of the mountain too but it was wide enough and had guard rails so Peggy wasn't scared on it. On the way back we stopped at Manitou Springs. When we were there before Peggy saw a purse she though Whitney (her granddaughter) would like. So she went back and got it.