Mammoth Hot Springs

We're camped at Mammoth Hot Springs Campground, got here Sunday.  We couldn't get connected on the computer and phone we normally use but we're having better luck on Linda's tablet.  But typing is harder without a keyboard.  I was getting desperate to get a post up before we lose our audience.  Thanks for your patience.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse but not too cold.  It rained some every day so far but there have also been breaks with some sun.  Some roads in Yellowstone are closed for construction but one important one for us between Mammoth and Norris opened today after a two week closure.

Yesterday, Monday, we drove east to Tower Junction and to Canyon Village and the falls. We saw lots of scenery, falls, canyon, bison and elk.  But we were hunting Moose.  We had Moose on our menu.  But we saw none.  We even waited at Hayden Valley for the creature but eventually gave up - THEN...

On our drive back to camp about dusk, a mile west of Tower Junction, a bull moose darted out of the woods right in front of us.  I had to brake pretty hard to miss him.  The picture is below.

The speed limit is 45 and I was under that, about 38.  There were 4 cars stacked behind us, we were in the lead.  Two cars had passed us earlier.  I mention this because I think that if our speed was higher - and it was dusk - we could have had an accident.  If timing was different one of the cars that passed could have had an accident.  So we will be traveling very slow and cautiously around here.  But I don't want to encourage anybody to pass either.

To reinforce this point, about 15 minutes after the moose a bull elk did the same thing - right in front of us.

A few pix mm of the day...

At camp.

One sided elk at Mammoth.

The subject moose.

Little Big Horn Battlefield

Friday we  arrived at Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monumnt in Montana.  We got here about 3:30 and set up at the 7^th Ranch RV campground.  This is really nice and reasonable too.  Their season ends October 1 and they’ll shut it down then.  There aren’t very many campers here now.  The place is well kept, the spaces actually have some space between them, there are bathroom and shower and laundry facilities and they are also well kept and clean.  It’s about 5 miles from the battlefield.

It was hot Thursday and Friday.  I know it was 90 on Thursday and must have been the same yesterday.  They set both all-time record high and low for September this month.  Earlier this month it snowed here.  I don’t know if the record low was a low daily high or an overnight low.  Either way, we were told it was two records.  It’s supposed to get much cooler this weekend with possible rain and thunderstorms.

We went over to the battlefield site and visitor center after we unhitched and had time to watch the film and walk around a little.  There is a memorial to the 7^th cavalry on “Last Stand Hill” that has been there since 1881.  It honors the men of the 7^th cavalry who died here in battle and lists their names.  

Here’s a factoid:  42-47 percent of the 7^th cavalry were from foreign countries and many didn't speak English.  They had joined the army for their own personal reasons.  According to the Ranger Talk, economic pressure on new immigrants was severe at that time and many joined up for the paycheck and a chance to begin their lives in the west.

The Indian mrmorial is much newer, erected in 2003, to honor the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians who died here.  We thought it was incredible.  It tells their story and why they fought at Little Big Horn. 

7th Cavalry Memorial on Last Stand Hill

7th Cavalry Memorial

Custer's view from hill toward river

Typical Indian Marker in red granite.  There are many of them for the 40-100 Indians killed.

Indian Memorial

Indian Memorial

Scene from the Indian Memorial

Scene from the Indian Memorial

Scene from Indian Memorial

Scene from Indian Memorial

Scene from Indian Memorial

The Caves and Devil's Tower

Thursday we broke camp at Wind Cave and drove to Jewel Cave National Monument in South Dakota and Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming.  We camped at a KOA at Devils Tower.

Jewel Cave and Wind Cave are 20  miles apart, approximately.  They are both better described as cave systems.  Both have miles and miles of unexplored openings.  They are  like  a webwork of tunnels and crawl spaces and could be connected.  So far they haven’t found a connecting passage between them. 

Each cave, all caves I guess, form from limestone, water and geological happenstance.  Even though these two caves are close together and share a lot of  similarities, they are also very different.  The so-called boxwork formation is common in Wind Cave but not in Jewel Cave.  The Nail Spar is throughout  Jewel  Cave but  not  in Wind Cave.  See the pictures.

I don’t think any  words need to be added to the pictures of  Devils Tower except  to say  the orange colored ones were taken  at sunrise.

Yesterday,  I mentioned  a few things about our  trailer experiences so far.  There is another you might find funny.  Even though we have a kitchen sink and hot water, washing  dishes and pots and pans is hassle.  Space is just small.  So it makes it easier to pre-clean everything and we found a good way to do that is to let the dog lick it all clean first.  Then a final washing is easy.  But everything has its price and now the dog won’t eat dog food anymore.  So we’ve had to stop that and go back to manual dish washing.

Devil's Tower from a distance

Devil's Tower at Sunrise

Devil's Tower at Sunrise

Nailspar formations of Jewel Cave

Boxwork formations of Wind Cave

Trailer Life

No pictures tonight.  I had thought that some of you might enjoy some comments about the RV trailer life on the road.  It's been fun so far but not without it's little problems.

First, our trailer is 16 years old.  You saw the damage to the shell and walls.  That has held  up well  so far.  I discovered that they used staples in the construction of this thing - even the walls.  Yes, some of the staples were pretty big alright but I thought that was a funny way to build it.  I used screws and a lot of them.  Even the big 2X8's were screwed into the steel frame with only 4 screws each.   I used 11.  As we drove across the washboard dirt road across New Mexico a couple of the shelves in the kitchen fell down.  Yes, they were stapled into the wall too.  So we had to take  everything  off the  shelves and screw them  back on.

Also, across the same rough road, we lost the  outside vented  panel that  covers  the  refrigerator  works.  It was  unsightly so we stopped at a Home Depot and  bought  a thin marker-board panel and I  had it cut  to  size.  Then I  made some  vent holes and screwed it on.  The  refrigerator quit cooling!  OK - the only thing that happened was the  added panel.  So  I made more vent holes.  Guess  what?  It still  wouldn't cool.  So I threw that thing away and we are just  going  with it all exposed.  I  don't even  care, as long as it keeps the food cold.  I'll see about  getting a replacement panel when we get  home.

I checked all the systems before we left and everything worked or got fixed.  But our first night of dry camping the fresh water pump wouldn't pump.  It worked before we left.  So we found an RV place and bought a new pump.

Right now, we seem to be in good shape.  I found that you have to have a good attitude about it and be ready to accept and fix some little problems along the  way.  We just left after 3 nights of dry camping (no electrical power or water connection) and we were able to cook, shower, keep our  groceries and ice cold and have hot water and generally stay comfortable.

We check tires, brakes and lights before we leave every campsite.  I double check that the hitch is engaged and locked and we do a walk-around and look for opened vents on top or the TV antenna up or anything else that could cause a breakdown.

I just thought you might enjoy some of that trivia.

Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse

I apologize to all for not posting last night - again, could not get connected where we were camped.  This is Tuesday's post.

We found a campsite Monday at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.  It’s close to several attractions including Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument.  Wind Cave is an attraction itself.   We took the Ranger led tour of Wind Cave this morning. 

It seems that we have rarely passed a cave tour, we like them.  Most have stalagtites and stalagmites from mineral-laden dripping water but this one is different.  It doesn’t have any of those.  It's a dry cave. The Ranger described it as being like a kitchen sponge.  It has thousands of passageways and levels, many explored and mapped but many more unexplored.  You can see what he meant because everywhere you look from the main tour route – to the side, up and down – you see openings leading off into the darkness.  It also has unique geologic features found in few caves in the world.  Don’t pass it by if you are ever in this area.

Yesterday though, we drove to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monuments.  We were at Mount Rushmore in 1993 but it is completely changed.  The Presidents on the mountain are the same, of course, but the parking and visitor area leading to it have been re-built to accommodate more visitors.  There is the Presidential Path that takes you to different vantage points below the monument for completely different looks at it.  The pictures kind of show what we mean.

The Crazy Horse Monument is a work in progress.  It is colossal, bigger than the faces on Mount Rushmore.  It has been in work since 1948 and privately funded.  At the present rate of progress, they estimate it’ll be another 60 years before it’s completed as designed.

 Crazy Horse was a revered Sioux Warrior during the Indian Wars of the 1860s and 1870s.  He fought Custer’s 7^th cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  The monument and museum tell the story of the Plains Indians through artifacts and pictures as well as the story of the sculptor and his family’s dedication to the project.

The mountain scene is of Crazy Horse on horseback pointing his arm and finger in the direction of sacred lands saying, “My lands are where my people lie buried.”  Only his head is completed but you can see where the arm and horse will be.

In the picture of the mountain carving with the model note the position of his finger and the horse’s mane.  This will change in the actual carving.  The hand will be rolled over and the mane will have hair coming up to the extended finger to support it.  They are afraid that, without the extra support, the finger could break off.

Mount Rushmore through a highway tunnel.

The Shrine of Democracy

A view from the Presidential Walk

Washington in Profile

Jefferson

Roosevelt and Lincoln 

Crazy Horse - 1/34 scale model

Mountain Carving and Finished Bronze Model

Crazy Horse from close-in bus tour with telephoto lens

Fort Laramie

We couldn't get online to post last night so here is Tuesday's post.

First, Happy Birthday to our 4year old grandson, Jesse!!

Today, Monday, we visited Fort Laramie and the site of the Oregon Trail in Guernsey, Wyoming near Fort Laramie.  The significant part of the Oregon Trail site is the preserved wagon ruts.  Thousands of wagon wheels, fitted with iron tread, cut into the soft sandstone and preserved the actual trail.  You can read the plaque in the picture that explains it and see the picture of the ruts.

Fort Laramie is a National Historic Site.  It has a history that began in 1834 as a buffalo robe trading post but later was bought by the U.S. government to be used as a military fort.  It became the largest and most important military post in the northern plains and served as a base for military operations against the northern plains Indians.

After the Indian Wars it was largely dismantled for the building materials and otherwise pretty much fell into ruins.  Some buildings survived and have been restored and re-furnished.  A tour shows how the fort soldiers lived.   There is the bachelor officers quarters, the married officers houses and the commissary among others.  The one I found the most interesting was the cavalry barracks.  You can see the bunks, foot lockers, stacked rifles, uniforms and head gear in the picture.

Also, there are pictures of  the Platte River Bridge at Fort Laramie that spans the North Platte River.  It was built in 1876 and is still there in good shape.  You can’t drive over it but you can walk across it and go underneath it.  Note the rock filled log ice breakers on the upstream side to protect the pilings.

Plaque

 The ruts in the rock.

Fort Laramie

Fort Laramie

Inside the cavalry barracks.

Platte River Bridge plaque

Bridge

Platte River Bridge and ice breakers

September 21

I didn't give this post a very good name because it was basically a travel day, not much sightseeing.  We left Estes Park and drove to Fort Laramie, Wyoming.  We are there tonight at a little RV park in town.  This is pretty nice and very reasonable compared to Estes Park.  Linda is doing some laundry as I write this.

Fort Laramie is a National Historic Site and there are things to see here so tomorrow we will see them.  I'll have pictures of  what we see on the next post.

But the day wasn't a complete waste.  We drove by the Fort Collins Budweiser Brewery and wondered if they had tours on Sunday.  Linda checked that online as we drove and found that they did so we made a 180-degree turn and toured the brewery.

I had toured the Budweiser brewery in St. Louis  once but Linda has never done that.  It is a big operation, big cooking vats, big big fermenters and big aging tanks.  Here's a little factoid about the amount of  beer in one of the aging tanks and there are many of them:  If you drank 12 oz. from it every hour - equivalent to a 24 can case every day - it would take 166 years to empty one tank.  That's a lot of Bud!

Here are a few pictures of yesterday's drive on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain NP and a few from the brewery.

Above the timberline

Also above the timberline on Trail Ridge Road

A Beaver pond-made wetland area in Rocky Mountain NP

Another view along Trail Ridge Road

Hops growing at the brewery.  This is just a little example garden for the benefit of tourists.  The hops are little cone-like fruits of the plant.  They are supported on rope or wires and they grow tall like this.

On of the large aging tanks at the brewery.

Rocky Mountain Eye Candy

Today we went to Bear Lake, got there about 7:45.  The parking lot was filling fast.  There are a lot of people here.  We planned this trip to be after school started thinking we would miss the crowds but that isn't so this weekend.  It turns out that this is a very popular time to come to Rocky Mountain National Park because the Aspen trees are so colorful and the elk are in rut.  Also, there is some kind of festival in Estes Park.

There is free shuttle service to Bear Lake and a large parking lot where you  pick up the shuttle.  This is inside the park.  By 9:00 the parking lot was full and the shuttle was the  only way to go other than circle the  parking  lot.

We walked around Bear Lake then hiked up to Alberta Falls.  The scenery is just grand.  It would be beautiful any time but the yellow and orange Aspens really showcase it.

Then we drove Trail Ridge Road to Grand Lake on the west side of  the Continental Divide.

Here are some pictures:

The Friendly Blogger

Linda at Entrance Sign

Aspens on the Mountain.

Just Aspens.

 More Aspens

Bear Lake

Alberta Falls

At Alberta Falls

Linda in the trees.