Liz Here with a Domestic Blog.

Recently I posted a photo on Facebook of Mike sitting down to breakfast in our RV. Dear friend, Dr. Diane Buffalin commented on our trailer’s spaciousness. Diane, thank you for your interest. This blog is to explain RV space. Our RV has one slide-out. It is a feature that widens our living space by 4 feet, ample floor space for sit-ups, push-ups, stretches, Yoga or for just walking inbetween the pullout sofa, dinette set and kitchen. We retract the slide-out when we tow the trailer. 

Mike at breakfast. Happy to be in Yellowstone.  

Dinette, wall unit and kitchen with view to bedroom



View of Rear of RV

Slide-outs weigh around 1000 pounds. Our trailer’s interior is 300 square feet but with lots of head room. Gross weight is 8500 pounds total giving us 12 MPG when towing and 16 when not towing. Many RVs are longer and include many more slide outs. Imagine a slide-out for children. Imagine a bedroom slide-out for lots of clothes. We store our out-of-season clothes under our bed with its most comfortable memory foam mattress.  Top end is a deluxe late model silver and black greyhound-bus-type motor home with 3 slide-outs and a balcony. Behind the sliding doors to the balcony was a kitchen with a wet bar.

Neighbor's RV

Our Keystone Cougar unhitched with slide-out open.

Tent Camping is still a fine choice.

We are in Baker’s Hole in West Yellowstone, Montana for 16 days. A year ago I tried several times to book a campsite on-line in Yellowstone. To express my gratitude to Mike for our overseas travel, a reservation would demonstrate that our RV dream trip was shared and just as real as our overseas trip. But Yellowstone’s reservation website requires the length of our RV and truck and details about amperage and dumping. The price of the best Yellowstone campsite for an RV is over $600 per week. What if in a year we did not buy a 5^th wheel and truck? I just did not have the nerve to reserve a camp site in July 2011, a year ahead of time. I give Mike credit for delaying gratification for all these months until we finally arrived here, the place where his inner child really dreamed to be.

While in Custer State Park in South Dakota Mike struck up rapport with a retired trucker who told Mike about Baker’s Hole, a wonderful campsite. First-come, first-serve with a 16 day limit. In the Gallatin National Forest Mike’s senior pass is recognized here. Cost is $14 per night including electricity. With potable water and 2 good smelling vault toilets a short walk away we do not need to dump and fill our water more than once a week. With electricity included in most national parks we use air conditioning liberally. A/C was a blessing during the heat wave when we were in South Dakota. Here Yellowstone mornings are so cool that we run our propane furnace to take out the chill. Our trailer’s polar package means more warmth due to superior insulation.

Polar Package is why our RV is warmer than most. And designed to keep out mice and such.  

The RV kitchen holds most everything any kitchen holds except obviously with a smaller refrigerator, 3 burner gas stove (instead of 4), a tiny oven and no dishwasher or garbage disposal. We carry a few thin and light dishes. Pots, pans, utensils, and storage containers have hardly changed. Campsite garbage containers are massive to keep out bears. Do not throw out food waste here! Not only to keep bears away but because in the Black Hills we learned that if a prairie dogs eats a salt cracker, the salt will kill the prairie dogs. Prairie dogs eat only grass and do not even drink water. Marmots live in Baker’s Hole and look cute like prairie dog.

Breakfast Prep.

Kitchen

Two 30 pound propane tanks power our range, refrigerator, hot water and heat. Unlike the standard 20 pound propane tanks for a BBQ that are simply exchanged, propane is pumped into a 30 pound tank. It costs $28 to fill. Electric appliances reduce propane consumption but now that we know that propane lasts 3 weeks and is relatively inexpensive the urgency to go all electric is gone.

Our neighbors in Baker’s Hole are a married couple who are avid fishermen and who travel with a large muscled Siamese cat. In nice weather the cat lays out in a screen tent. Everyday people walk their dogs. Pets are totally integrated in the RV lifestyle. Baker’s Hole is a fish spawning area along the Madison River. We watch an otter swimming in the river in the evenings.

Otter in Madison River. Much more rare than elk or buffalo.

A Pet loving RVer.

As Mike wrote in the beginning of this Blog we bought our 5^th wheel from General RV. They have 10 locations in metro Detroit. They are a large 3^rd generation dealer with the capacity to train novices like us. Mike knew fuel mileage mattered so we asked for ultra-light. A 2011 5^th wheel ultra-light weighing 7000 pounds simply was not as homey or cozy as our 2008 weighing 8500 pounds. Did I fall for the oak cabinets honey color, the faux wall paper and nice window treatments? Yup. Did we pay too much ($17,500 before hitching) for 2008 used 5^th wheel? Probably. But we have a dream to live. We made a perfectly imperfect purchase from a safe retailer in order to get started. If living in an RV becomes your dream then we would be flattered to advise you.

Our RV breakfast is just like our breakfast when we worked. Boil water in the kettle, prepare whatever fruit is in season and make toast. We’ve added a couple of eggs for more protein and more physical energy for hiking. I pack sandwiches and fill water bottles and off we drive. Instead of going to work in the office we see the sights, watch movies in visitor centers and listen to ranger talks. We think we do fine without a tour guide. Our biggest need for guidance is to how to avoid road construction. Most days we return to our RV home at the same time we got home when we worked. We keep our e-readers charged and really appreciate the additional books that Sean Thelen gave to Fred who passed them on to us.

We have XM radio in our truck with every station including raunchy humor, 3 NPR stations and Left, a dedicated liberal station. But in our trailer I usually listen to the local NPR station over our Bose stereo. In West Yellowstone we hear only the most unorthodox station from Brigham Young University in Idaho. Local news is scant and not always even broadcast. Robert Segal of All Thing’s Considered was cut off in mid-sentence for the BYU graduation’s invocation on a Friday night and the station was completely turned off the following Saturday and Sunday as far as I could tell. July 24 is Pioneer Day, the day the Brigham Young arrived in Salt Lake City. That day the first tune I heard was Dixie by the Canadian Brass followed by other rousing mostly classical music. No student broadcasters speak to listeners on Pioneer Day.

We have a campsite reserved on August 7 in Glacier National park. Since August is high season Glacier is mostly booked. We stay in 3 separate campsites, 2 at opposite ends of Glacier and one commercial no-name camp 9 miles from the front gate. Now I need to book campsites in Yosemite and Sequoia for next year and avoid the worry.

KOA is the premier campsite brand since they provide every possible amenity like cable TV, swimming pools, dog walks so they cost as much as a hotel. One couple arranges their family reunions in Devil’s Tower, Wy. They explained that the grandparents stay in the KOA for top dollar ($51 per night) while their children and grandchildren camp for $6 in the national parks without electricity and visit the grandparents for meals and to use the facilities, especially the pool.

To briefly contrast a 5^th wheel with a motor home note that when we tow our 5^th wheel we cannot cook. No stew can simmer in a crock pot and the refrigerator is off. Unlike in a motor home I cannot walk back and pour a drink or take a nap. One father with a motor home and children of all ages told them that they’d be on the road for several hours before they even woke up. Motor homes usually tow a car because motor homes are so cumbersome and get such poor fuel mileage. God help the driver when he needs to back up. Our truck has an extended cab which means that it has 4  doors and rear seats for passengers. Unlike in a larger crew cab the rear doors are not independent. Our 2007 Chevy truck is diesel and therefore gets better mileage than a gasoline engine. In cold weather we wait to see the diesel’s glow plug light go out. Unlike spark plugs, glow plugs need warming. Fondness for the truck is growing on Mike.

We pulled into a gas station just a half hour or so after this motor home burned up near Garyowen, Montana. An older lady with 3 dogs just lost her home. I am reassured that due to Mike’s good maintenance and careful attention that we will not suffer such a catastrophe.


Burned up Motor home.

Good Sam’s, an RV motor club forwards to our mail. Our address is
5715 Hwy 85 N. #1014
Crestview, Florida 32536.
Then our mail is forwarded to General Delivery as we request.

Liz’s cell# is now 248-496-7844. Delete 248-431-9586, my former GM work phone.

If you’d like to join us somewhere some time let us know. We will coordinate with you to meet your plane or car. To join up with us know that we follow the warm weather and visit mostly US national parks for now.

Note: This Christmas we will park our trailer in Florida and meet my mom and family to celebrate her 80^th birthday in Disney World in Orlando.

Finally, Yellowstone

We have now been at Yellowstone Park for four whole days. What full, wonderful days they’ve been. Even the drive down through southern Montana and the western side of Yellowstone was like driving through a postcard. We spent one expensive day in a full-service campground (okay, parking lot) right in West Yellowstone (the town’s actual name) before finding a space in a delightful and inexpensive park called Baker’s Hole. The only amenities offered are electricity and outhouses. Never mind, we’re shaded by beautiful pines with nice neighbors and surrounded by squirrels and yellow bellied marmots constantly at play. I first took the marmots to be prairie dogs. They look nearly identical but with very different habits. See for yourself!

Cute little buggers, and all over the place.

I’ve wanted to see Yellowstone since I can remember. I was apprehensive that the reality wouldn’t match the anticipation. No more. This is better than Disneyworld. Strange things happening all around, a beautiful lake with steaming vents right on the shore, bubbling pots of mud, picturebook rivers full of fisherman and presumably trout, mountains on every side, every few minutes a new wonder.

 

After getting established at Baker’s Hole on Saturday morning, we headed right into the park. God bless that Senior Pass! Free, free, free. Not to mention cutting our camping fee from 20 dollars to 14 dollars a day! Almost worth getting old for. I’ll have to try that someday and see.  We immediately ran into a traffic jam. It took 45 minutes for the line to start moving. Later we heard it was due to bison on the road. A lot of bison. Never did see them, more’s the pity. There was a lot more to see, though. The first ten or so miles was the Madison River on the right and alternating forest and mountains on the left. Trout fishermen all over, probably twenty or thirty to the mile. Yellowstone is catch and release, so the trout must be the most sophisticated in the world. I still haven’t seen a fisherman with a fish on the line.

Of course, we had to see Old Faithful right away. We did get sidetracked into Fountain Paint Pot. Hot boiling springs with colorful minerals and algae, bubbling mud pots, desolate looking gypsum flats with steaming vents, bleached dead trees covering hundreds of yards in any direction. Still, there was that famous geyser pulling us away. Walk fast, marvel, take pictures and vow to return. We drove past a lot of other stuff we’ll have to check out later.

Bubbling mud pot.

Some places have a desolate sort of charm.

Steam, get used to it. Also the quaint perfume of sulphur.

 

On to the main event. Old Faithful does not disappoint. There’s a lodge, a hotel, visitor’s center and lots of natural features besides Old Faithful itself. We had time to walk the half mile or so around the other thermal features in the area. These things never seem to occur one at a time, but in clusters. Maybe I’m wrong, be sure I’ll be investigating that. It’s obvious when Old Faithful is about to erupt. People begin streaming from the hotel, visitor’s center, parking lot, picnic areas etc. and start jostling for a good spot on the laughably few benches near the geyser. Meanwhile, it teases us with false starts for several minutes. There’s no question when it begins for real. A powerful roar and hot water shoots 150 feet in the air for 3 or 4 minutes. That’s it, show’s over for another hour and a half or so.  Now the long drive  -back to our campsite. By the way, Yellowstone is big, 40 miles east to west, 60 miles north to south. The speed limit is anywhere from 25 to 45 mph, so getting home took well over an hour. Stopping to see the occasional elk or bison didn’t speed us up any.  We also hit West Thumb, on the south shore of Yellowstone lake, a spot of more hydrothermal activity including Fisherman’s Hole. That’s a hot vent right in the lake, handy for paddling right up and cooking your catch without even leaving the boat. No longer legal, of course.

The crowd gathers

Anticipation in the air,
I never got a still of the eruption but a damn fine movie.
I'll come back for stills, I promise.

I don't know if this is algae or minerals

One of the West Thumb pools.

Fisherman's Hole

Hot, clear water

Next day, we decided to take the northern loop and see Mammoth Hot Springs and come back by way of Norris Geyser Basin. A mere 80 miles or so at 45 mph max. This is mountain driving at its best. Nice wide roads – mostly – twisting up and down some gorgeous scenery.  The first stop was the travertine cliffs somewhere between Norris and Mammoth Hot Springs. You’ll have to get used to my saying “gorgeous”, “breathtaking”, “beautiful”, “stunning” and other such words. Trust me, they all apply. Mammoth Hot Springs was mostly just a visitor’s center and the usual hotels and campground. Somewhere after that we saw a road sign for Blacktail Plateau Drive that promised to take us to a scenic spot. Just 6 miles of narrow unimproved road, one way no less, 4 miles up and 2 miles down. The scenery was great though I was too busy negotiating the road and Liz too busy with the grab bar to get any pictures. Strange thing was, there was too much traffic to stop for photo-ops. You’d have horns honking in no time. Just after that came the petrified tree. So far as I know, the only one in Yellowstone. There had been three but souvenir collectors had chipped the other two down to nothing before the 1940’s. Hence the solid steel fence.

Yes, I think the sky is always that blue here.

Travertine Cliffs

Petrified Tree. 50 million years old. We saw one in India that was 20 million.

The Norris Geyser Basin contains, among many other spectacular thermal shows, the world’s highest geyser, the Steamboat, at over 300 feet. Forget scheduling a visit during an eruption. Its period varies between 4 days and 50 years.  Whattheheck, all the other stuff was very cool, especially the Minute Geyser, a sad story indeed. Before the 1920’s this reliable little geyser erupted about 15 feet just about every minute. Visitors would toss in coins and rocks for luck. Finally it got so plugged that now it’s just a hot spring, pushing out a steady flow of hot water about a foot high.

Steamboat Geyser

Minute Geyser, victim of tourists

Yesterday, we decided to take it easy. We replenished a propane cylinder and took in the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, a very narrowly focused zoo with only grizzlies, wolves and  bald and golden eagles on display. The reason for refilling propane is that our furnace actually comes on at night with nighttime temperatures dropping to the low 50’s. Great sleeping weather. Days are between 60’s and 80’s with quick rainstorms common in the afternoon. Eat your hearts out!

The raven is stealing an orange quarter.

One of the staff had this cute little Kestrel (sparrow hawk)

Here I thought I knew a lot about Yellowstone. It never dawned on me that it has the most magnificent canyon this side of the Grand Canyon. We had seen the north and south canyon loops on the map but had no idea what that signified. The Yellowstone river cuts one hell of a swath through 20 or so miles of mountain and it makes one magnificent sight. We took the whole day on the north road and will return later for a day on the southern one.



Even a pretty nifty waterfall

Osprey's nest. Look close, there seem to be two chicks in it.

Not quite on the Grand Canyon's scale, but 'twill suffice.

More than one person had told us we hadn’t given Custer State Park enough time and had missed the best parts. So we went back to the Black Hills. Stayed a full week. We’d actually only seen the plains portion, albeit with its fascinating collection of animal life.  Somehow we’d missed the most fascinating part, the wonderful mountains and rock formations. Not to mention viewing Mount Rushmore framed by a road tunnel. The Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road are fascinating. We kept finding excuses to drive them again and again, though a couple of the tunnels are exercises in masochism, mirrors on that massive truck just inches from scraping either side. We revisited Jewel Cave, this time taking the traditional tour, complete with kerosene lanterns. We also took in a play at the Black Hills Theatre, just blocks away from our campsite which was also walking distance from a pretty little lake. Since our campsite was primitive and our generator won’t quite pull the air conditioner, it was very welcome. Lots of activities were offered including a canoeing class (big deal, here’s the canoe, here’s approximately how you paddle, go have fun) and nightly presentations by the park staff. One night it was a 50+ year old Marlin Perkin’s Wild Kingdom (go ask your mother or grandmother) presentation filmed at Custer State Park.

Liz at tunnel. See Mt. Rushmore?

That's right, a truck bed full of antlers.

Yet another breathtaking view (yawn).

Eye of the needle, right along road.

George Washington profile from inside Custer State Park.

Along Needles Highway, naturally.

Liz, neat formation

Panning for gold. Only found tiny garnets.

We finally decided it was time to pick up stakes and get to Yellowstone but with a stopover at Devil’s Tower. Paid a fairly exorbitant fee at the Devil’s Tower KOA but watched “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” with the tower itself in the background. Next night, we drove a mile and camped in a much more reasonable site (6 bucks a night!),in the National Park. Absolutely no amenities like water or power but we’d just taken care of our needs the night before.  Devil’s Tower is absolutely enchanting, but once you’ve seen it and hiked the paths around it, you’ve pretty much done it all.

Dramatic enough for you? Just before a hailstorm.

Just for scale, there's a climber up there.

Somewhere in this picture is what's left of a ladder installed 1895.
I can't find it now either.
Hint: it's made of 3" dia x 24" sections of tree branch pointed at one end and driven into cracks.

Tonight, we’re at yet another exorbitant KOA halfway to Yellowstone. Top up the water, empty the waste tanks, take a shower, and take off early in the morning!

The Badlands and Black Hills

We stayed in the Badlands until the 6^th, my birthday. If you don’t know which one it was, that’s too bad. The Badlands was more than interesting. It was also more than hot, but I understand that was pretty much a national condition.

July 1^st was hot enough that we just went out for a while in the morning and then pulled the TV from its home under the bed, tried out the DVD player and veged out under the AC. Nice every now and then. By Monday we got to feeling guilty and needed groceries so it was back into Wall, the only town in easy driving to actually have a grocery store bigger than a mini-mart. Then we hit Sage River Road, through the Badlands National Grassland north of the park and west and then down back to our campsite. Lots of wildlife. We missed a couple of prairie dog towns until we figured out what we were looking at. Once we had the trick of it, they were all over. Cute little buggers. We stopped at an overlook after seeing what we thought was a buffalo. Sure was. He spied us and came galumphing up a path to the overlook. By the time he was at the overlook, we were in the truck. Those things are huge! A couple of mountain goats finished off the wildlife portion of the drive.  There was still a bunch of geology to witness. The Badlands are mostly soft stone, melting away like a sugar cube in the rain. They’ve only been around for a half million years and in another half million they’ll have been reduced to prairie once again, present conditions continuing, of course. This brings up an interesting difference in the attitude of rangers. Almost nowhere do you see signs directing you to stay to the path to protect the environment. Quite to the contrary, you’re encouraged to climb anything you feel capable of. Minding the rattlesnakes, of course. Come winter, hard rain and snow will peel off another layer of hill and everything will be fresh and new with a little more sand at the bases of the features.



Prairie Dogs in Badlands



Lone Bison Bull who came when called. So we hurried away.

The Badlands

That was so much fun we decided to try again on Tuesday, this time off to Sheep Mountain in the southwest area of the park. Not quite as much wildlife this time but even more of those unearthly hills and canyons. Sheep Mountain had a great lookout and we met a couple of thoroughly unreconstructed 60’s radicals. He had served time for refusing the draft and she is still (at 75) substitute teaching in the village of Interior, population 67, just down the road from our campsite in the state park. After some interesting conversation we decided to continue past the lookout on a two-track. Posted warning; 4-wheel drive and high ground clearance only. Cool, we qualified. Lots of fun, tempered by the fact that this was our only transportation and must be cherished. Take it slow and easy and enjoy that giant diesel torque at 5 mph. Stop and look down 50 or more feet into v-shaped canyons with dry riverbeds way down there. Steer a little further from the edge and say hello to yet another prairie dog.

Badlands National Park with finger pointed to Sheep Mountain where we drove off road for dramatic view.

Yet another dramatic view. Yawn.
I've got hundreds of these now.
Great to see, impossible to adequately describe.

Sunset over The Badlands

The 4^th of July and town of Interior was having a rodeo. We couldn’t miss this, though we had no idea of what to expect. I’d call it the equivalent of Spartan Speedway, only with horses, calves and bulls and stuff. It was fully featured with bucking broncs, bulldogging, calf and steer roping, bull riding and barrel racing. According to the program this is one of the oldest rodeo's in South Dakota and in the 1920’s was considered the #2 rated in the entire country with excursion trains coming from Chicago filled with people. The announcer also made sure to point out this or that competitor was a former world champion in various events. Later that night they actually had fireworks. In fact, they seemed to have 3 or 4 town’s fireworks. They just went on and on, often at a pace that made it seem like a finale, only to slow down a little and then pick up to finale pace again.

Note: Fireworks were rare this year due to fires due to severe forest fires. Thus, Interior did have several town's fireworks and their fire departments.



Calf Roping



Bulldogging



Saddle Bronc Riding



Our View of Rodeo Audience from Stands

Laundry piled up so we wandered into Wall to use the laundromat. Also a chance to publish the blog, internet and 3-G being nonexistent in the state park, even a phone signal being a sometimes thing.  After that, a trip to the Missile Command Center. Absolutely nothing to see, the silos themselves are many miles away, launch controls also miles away in a different direction and all tours to be pre-scheduled. Oh, well. 

 On the way was also a real homestead complete with soddy house. The family who’d lived there fulfilled the required 5 years to get their free 160 acres starting about 1910 and then hung on until the dust bowl years of the ‘30s. The family still owns the land, though. The Badlands was no place for the Midwest-style family farm, being far better suited to large cattle farming (50 or so acres for every cow-calf unit) and hardly enough water even for that.  The day was blistering so back to  the trailer to stress-test the AC. Finished the evening drinking wine and shooting the bull with a couple of free-spirited ladies on their way from Vermont to California.



19th century finery on the Prairie

The Brown family's soddy

Your typical pioneer woman

Their 1910 Model T, bought used.

On my birthday, the 6^th, I got to pull the trailer again as we moved from the Badlands to the Black Hills. We thought that after the 4^th the rush would be over. Shows how wrong you can be. We were able to get a site in the state park, but only for two nights. This place is full of tourists! Something about a couple of mountains that got carved on. The RV camps outside the park look more like parking lots than actual RV parks. We’ll probably move on down south of Wind Cave where there’s less pressure.

Okay, Mount Rushmore is pretty darn cool. We spent the entire afternoon and evening admiring it and walking the trails, but only after seeing Crazy Horse. Well, Crazy Horse’s face and right arm that being the only part finished. It’ll take another 50 or so years to finish him up. Meanwhile, the original sculptor’s family is making a pretty decent living with the welcome center (viewing is free, parking costs 10 bucks per person). Actually, it is pretty impressive and pretty damn massive. All of Rushmore could be carved on the area between Crazy Horse’s and the rest of the mountain and his arm alone will be 200 feet long. They’re just starting on the horse’s head.



Obligatory "We were there" photo

Look, you can see right up his nose!

Crazy Horse

As usual, I got lost and ended up in an unauthorized area.

Sunday we hit the Woodcarver’s Museum (Okay, it’s a real tourist trap but still interesting and worth the 8 bucks each entry) and then took the Wildlife Loop through the park late in the day and were rewarded by sight of a herd of buffalo, maybe 100 head. A few antelope and the usual prairie dogs (cute little buggers) rounded out the trip. On the way back we came upon a lone bull buffalo walking on the right side of the road, against traffic. As we stopped for him, he crossed in front of us and merged into a gap between cars, two ahead, two behind, all of them moving at a walking pace and proceeded on his way. We were simply too amazed to remember the camera.



One of dozens of scenes at the Woodcarver's Museum,
most of them animated.

Lots of buffalo

Our time at Custer was up the next morning  so we hitched up the trailer and drove the entire lash-up to Jewel Cave. We’d wanted to do it Sunday but it was so crowded we had to make a reservation. This is only one of several cave systems in the Black Hills, but second longest in the world at 163 miles and counting. Its major feature is lots and lots of dogtooth and nailhead calcite with a few stalactites and stalagmites with a few bacon strip formations. Also a constant 49 degrees cool. Just the thing for a summer day. Then a couple of hour drive to the KOA near Hot Springs. Nice place, even has trees for shade and a pool.



Okay, that does it. No more cave pictures.
One simply cannot capture it properly!

One cave just won’t do, so in the morning we hit Wind Cave. At a hundred twenty or so miles, only the sixth longest in the world. In the words of our guide, not even the longest in the county. Major features are boxwork, a formation caused by cracks in the limestone infused with a more solid material before the limestone begins getting eroded away and low, very flat ceilings, in some places resembling a really good plaster job. Neither cave has much in the way of stalactites or stalagmites, there not being much moisture seeping through.

One more try. This is an example of boxwork.

I was worried that the Mammoth Site would be some kind of tourist rip-off. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Hundreds of Mammoths caught in a sinkhole  smaller than an acre some 27,000 years ago and dozens of volunteer paleontologists make a heck of a science show. Highly recommended, especially if you are entranced by ancient bones.



Height of luxury, digging up fossils indoors!

Liz experienced some tooth twinges and needed a dentist. She located one in Rapid City with an open appointment of 8:40 on Wednesday. It's only a short hop from Hot Springs to Rapid City and we figured on just squatting in a Wal-Mart parking lot for the night. Since we got into town by 10 AM there was plenty of time to see what sights were available. Well, look at that, Ellsworth Air Force Base is just down the road and has a museum. While not nearly as extensive as Wright-Patterson in Ohio it does have a B-1b on display as well as a B-29 and a B52 along with a smattering of warplanes from WW2 through the present. Remember our turning down the Minuteman site as too much trouble? No problem, it's all right here. This is where they trained all the crews so the stuff is right on the base. Okay, just the deactivated training stuff, as if anyone could tell the difference. Great way to kill a few hours, especially coupled with the geology museum at the South Dakota School of Mining and Technology, whose logo happens to be a yellow M on a blue field. The museum is a flagrant case of mislabeling as its highlight is a stunning display of dinosaur age and older fossils.

B-1b

B-52



B-29

Looking down the Minuteman silo.

Launch Control, behind glass.

Plesiosaur (sp?)

Mosasaur

Good old Triceratops

We intended to make a cheap night of it with a stay in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Dern thing was posted! So were all the other lots in town. Apparently they don't like squatters here. No choice, hit the local KOA. Well, at least it's nice here, has wi-fi and tomorrow morning we'll be close to Liz's dental appointment. Meanwhile some people we met informed us of some sights we'd missed at Custer State Park.. So tomorrow, we'll postpone Devil's Tower for a couple more days in the Black Hills.