July 24, 2010 by steve.

Well, home for a little less than a month, and we’re already headed out for a weekend trip to Rainbow Springs State Park just west of Ocala, Florida. After our long trip out west, we’ve decided to try and spend the next few months close to home with short drives. Of course if feels weird to hook everything up and head out for a two hour drive. For some reason it feels like I should be driving for six to eight hours before stopping. Also, since it’s summer, we’ve decided to try and visit springs and beaches until Halloween.

Rainbow Springs State Park is separated into three sections. There is the spring head, the campground and the tubing area. You are only actually at the springs at the spring head, which is the source of the Rainbow River which runs by the campground and the tubing area. As a camper, you get access to all three areas, but you have drive to the tubing area and the spring head.

The spring head is located near the intersection of FL-40 and US-41. It was originally a tourist attraction until the mid-70’s. So there are walking trails that take you by the old zoo area and by a number a man made waterfalls that were featured in the gardens. You can also swim in the springs, nice cool refreshing water at 72 degrees F. The water is very clear, and a great place to swim on a hot day. The only drawback is that the access to the swim area is off a large dock platform, and you can’t really stand up in the water once you get in. So there is a large crowd of people trying to hang onto the dock. If you move away from the dock, the crowd thins out, but you have to tread water or swim.

The tubing Area is located about a mile and a quarter south of the campground entrance to the park. For day visitors that want to tube, they park at the tubing area and take a tram up to the campground river access. If you are staying the campground, you can tube down and take the tram back (the tram has a fee that is not covered by park admission or camping fees), or you can do what CurbCrusher gang did: I drove down to the tubing area first thing in the morning and parked the toad and rode a bike back to the campground. There is not a lot else to the tram area other than the parking lot and a boardwalk that leads to the river. Tubing on the river is pleasant as the entire Rainbow River is an idle zone for power boats, so there is not a lot of worrying about getting run over.

The campground is located along the Rainbow River between the head springs and the tubing area. It is at most a quarter mile walk from the campground to the river bank. At the river bank, there is a marked off area for swimming and a tube/canoe/kayak launch point. The tram from the tubing area drops folks off close to the river bank, so there are not a lot non-campers wandering around the campground. The campsites are full hookup with 30 and 50 amp, water and sewer. There are two or three pull-thru sites and most sites wide and of good length. There is very (VERY) little shade in this campground, and on hot days you can hear every single air conditioning unit running all day long as the rigs sit in the sun. The bathhouses are fairly new and clean and comfortable. There is a store/office, a game room and a small pool that are available at the campground. You can also rent canoes, kayaks and tubes from a concessionaire located by the river bank.

We had a great weekend at Rainbow Springs. We tubed the river on Saturday morning, a trip that took about two or two and a half hours. The rest of the time we relaxed and enjoyed the company of our fellow Florida Pop Up Camper club folks that showed up. We did take some time to head up the head spring and enjoy the gardens and the spring water for a couple of hours. We also found it very refreshing and relaxing to just sit in the river near the campground and enjoy the cool water. Pictures, as always, are in our Flickr account.

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June 18, 2010 by steve.

While I have gone back and edited some of the Yellowstone posts to include pictures, I thought I’d do a mass picture linking here for the Flickr sets that have Yellowstone pics.

Yellowstone - Grant to South…

Yellowstone - Fishing Bridge…

Yellowstone - Canyon Village

Yellowstone - Norris to…

Yellowstone - Mammoth Hot…

Yellowstone - Fishing Bridge…

Yellowstone - Firehole Canyon…

Yellowstone - Madison to Old…

Yellowstone - Fountain Paint…

Yellowstone - Old Faithful to…

Yellowstone - West Thumb…

Yellowston - Midway Geyser…

Yellowstone - Old Faithful…

Yellowstone - West Thumb to…

Yellowstone - Fishing Bridge

Yellowstone - North Entrance

Yellowstone - Norris Geyser…

Yellowstone - Old Faithful to…

Yellowstone - Grand Canyon of…

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June 18, 2010 by steve.

Well, we made it home 57 days after starting. Of course I got a couple of quick trips home over the course of the trip, but Lady and Little CurbCrusher slept in their own beds for the first time in two months.

We slept a bit late, and left Cloudland Canyon around 930 in the morning. We headed east on GA-136 until we got to LaFayette, Ga. where we headed south on US-27. I had intended to follow US-27 to just south of Columbus and then head over to Tifton on US-280 and US-82 through Albany, and thus avoid Atlanta. When we crossed I-20 there was a mini mutiny, where my passengers insisted that we should take the fastest way home. The compromise ended up being to use US-27ALT from Carrolton to Newnan, then follow GA-16 over to I-75. It took about four hours to go from Cloudland Canyon to I-75, and we covered about 200 miles. I was pleased with avoidance of Atlanta, but I think my passengers thought I was taking them on a scenic trip, and they just wanted to get home.

Down I-75, we crossed back into our native state, Florida. Then onto the turnpike and down to Orlando. It took us 12 hours to make the trip from Cloudland Canyon, comparable to our 11 hour trip from three years ago. So, the final leg of our trip is complete. We traveled 6,862.4 miles in the motorhome and made a big loop pretty much all the way across the country. A wonderful trip, and we’ll probably put some more thoughts about it in some future post. Right now we have an RV to clean up.

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June 16, 2010 by steve.

Well, almost 60 days and we are all still here and blessed to have had a great family experience traveling around the country. Today was a day to enjoy the Cloudland Canyon State Park in north-west Georgia. We visited this park back in September 2007, during one of the worst droughts in modern times. Of course what is Cloudland Canyon known for? Its waterfalls. And what do waterfalls need to survive? Rain.

We started the day with a visit to both the falls, which are creatively named Waterfall #1 and Waterfall #2 on the hiking map. The waterfalls are at the end of about a half-mile trail, straight down. I’m not sure why they post a distance on the trail, the distance is not important. What is key to surviving the trail is the fact that there are more than 400 stairs on the trail. They are both very pretty sights, and worth the stair climbing. One nice thing about this trip is that both waterfalls were active. On our last trip they were little more than drips. Once we get the pictures posted, I’ll post some comparisons in the blog.

Following the waterfall hike, we headed back to the RV for lunch and a nap (at least CurbCrusher napped, Lady and Little CurbCrusher played on the computer and sat outside and read.). The nap was important as we needed to be rested for our trip to the Canyon Grill located a couple of miles from the park. Truth be known, this is the real reason for our stop in Cloudland Canyon. On our last trip we discovered the Canyon Grill, and had such a great meal, we knew we wanted to come back some day.

The Canyon Grill opens at five in the afternoon Wednesday through Sunday, so we showed up at the door around five-fifteen so that we wouldn’t look too eager. Once again we had a great meal, Little CurbCrusher enjoyed the chicken strip appetizer and a sweet potato, Lady CurbCrusher ordered the ground fillet, and I had the pork tenderloin. As with our first trip, I can’t say enough good about the food, the portions, the value and the service that you get at the Canyon Grill. We sampled the deserts, Lady CurbCrusher had the short cake with strawberries and pecans, while I had the amaretto brownie sundae and Little CurbCrusher went for the vanilla bean ice cream. Everything is homemade, and Little CurbCrusher said the ice cream was better than Blue Bell (our gold standard (actually homemade ice cream of the kind cranked out on Aunt Pansy’s porch at family holidays is the gold standard, but sadly that doesn’t happen anymore and I’ve replaced that with Blue Bell)). I was not thrilled with the amaretto brownie, but that’s because I really don’t like the taste of amaretto, however it was the only chocolate option on the desert list. But if you put enough ice cream on the brownie before eating it, it kills the amaretto taste, and you just get the two best taste: homemade vanilla ice cream and chocolate.

Back at the campsite, we sat around fat and happy. We started a small fire in the ring to complete our last night of “real” camping. If we stop tomorrow night, it will be more of a place to sleep, not camp. This is the second time we’ve been to Cloudland Canyon, and I hope it’s not our last. This is a great park and a great place to be. I took one last walk around the camping loop after dusk, and the fireflies light the sides of the road like beacons, and it is just a peaceful, easy feeling (hmmm. That sounds familiar for some reason :-)). The only negative thing about this park is that it is so far from home, and that you pretty much have to drive through Atlanta on I-75 to get here. I think we may try running down US-27 and then over to Tifton tomorrow to see if that drive is any better.

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June 16, 2010 by steve.

Well Lady CurbCrusher tired of writing every day, and we’re only a couple of days from home. So it looks like I’ll have to take over the day to day blog for the last couple of days of the trip. We’re still on a limited bandwidth wi-fi, so no pictures until we get back home.

We woke up in Jellystone Mammoth Cave, not only the worst RV parking (yes even worse than the Walmart parking lot back in Winslow) on this trip, but the most over-priced and overrated also. Imagine if you’re going to build an RV park, so you find a nice steep hill. Then when placing the RV sites you have a choice, you could put them parallel to slope of the hill, so that one side would be up and the other low, or you could put them perpendicular to the slope of the hill so that the front would be lower than the back. Or, you do what the Jellystone people did and put them on about a 45 degree angle to the slope of the hill so that there is no way in Hades that anyone will be able to level their RV. Then you have a choice where to put the sewer outlet, you could put it on the downhill side, since stuff flows downhill, or like our site geniuses at Jellystone have done you put it on the uphill side. The site was so unlevel, that even after moving the RV around on the site, we could not dump gray water from the tank, because the site tilted the motorhome away from the dump valve. I guess this is what happens when you let a cartoon bear design an RV park. All in all I was terribly disappointed in Jellystone. I’ve seen Jellystone campgrounds next to the roads I’ve traveled on for a long time, and always thought the concept was a great one, leveraging the most famous cartoon bear and his cartoon National Park with a campground. So I was really happy to be staying in a Jellystone campground, even a the premium price that Jellystone Mammoth Cave charged. As noted the sites were awful, there is no other way to describe it, and the atmosphere and environment were not much better. The campground was dirty, the sites close together. Our advice to you echos what we kept hearing in Yosemite and Yellowstone on this trip: STAY AWAY FROM THE BEARS. Yogi just can’t pull off a campground.

Once we got out of the campground, we headed south on I-65. We recovered some ground, the 35 miles from Bowling Green to Cave City, and then headed out of the state of Kentucky. We looped around Nashville on TN-155 and changed over to I-24 headed toward Chattanooga. Somewhere along the way we stopped to fill up and eat lunch. There are some hills to climb in this area, but I pulled up the elevation on the GPS and it seems that highest we got was about 2000 feet. Of course that’s nothing now that we’ve crossed the Big Horns at 9666 feet and the Continental Divide a couple of times at 8000+ feet. Just outside of Chattanooga, we headed south on I-59 for a few miles. We exited at Trenton and headed up GA-136 to the Cloudland Canyon State Park. We visited this park back in September of 2007, enjoyed our stay here and thought this would be a good last stop for our GART.

So here we are a little over 6000 miles and some 55 days into our Great American Road Trip. We’re about 600 miles from home and haven’t decided if that’s a one or a two day trip. When we leave Thursday morning we may very well get about six hours into the trip and decide that it’s time go ahead and get home, or we may just stretch it out one more night. We are one day ahead of our original schedule.

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June 15, 2010 by LadyCC.

If you are reading this blog please add a comment at the end. Let us know how we are doing with it and if there’s something you would like to see us change or add. My writing is usually several weeks ahead of CC’s ability to add the links and pictures. So check back later as well.

CC and I wanted to go on the earliest cave tour Mammoth had so we get there early and buy tickets for the 8:45 am tour of the Frozen Niagara. It lasts 1hour 15 minutes so it’s longer than I wanted but the shortest they are offering today. We end up with Ranger Mike. Actually he turned out to be a pretty good cave tour guide. He let us know lots of info and kept the tour moving along well. It was 53 degrees in the cave so by the time we came out the outside weather was very humid and muggy feeling. Mammoth is in the process of building a new visitor’s center so they have nothing on display right now. There is no movie until the new center opens. Just cave tours and hikes. The bookstore is also very small with not much in it right now. PTCC worked on the Jr Ranger while we waited to go on the tour and then finished it when we got back. We also walked down to the original opening. It was a nice blast of cold air coming out so we stood there for a few moments and enjoyed the natural air conditioning. There is a cave tour that starts from there but it didn’t run today, only on weekends. After leaving the natural opening we walked a short trail down to the cemetery of cave guides and looked around. Since we didn’t want to hike the trails there wasn’t anything else to do so we came back to Jellystone for lunch and then we took off for Hodgenville and Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace.

At the first stop we made we saw Lincoln’s Boyhood home in KY. This was where he lived from age 2-7 years old. They are in the process of updating a tavern that was built on the property after the Lincolns left so there were no inside of buildings to see. They have built a replica cabin on the property to show how small a place his family lived in when he was young. There is a creek called Knob Creek which we walked down to and PTCC cooled her feet off. We could walk all the way across it today. There was a story that Lincoln almost drowned in the creek because he could not swim and had to be rescued by a friend. It was hard for us to believe it since it was so shallow today. We then walked around the farm and property.

After seeing his boyhood home we drove to the Birthplace and watched the movie while PTCC worked on her Jr Ranger here. This will be her last one for our GART. I think she has earned about 25 or so badges on this trip.

They have a small museum here that has the family bible, the boundary oak tree ring, and a replica cabin interior to view. Some of Thomas’ types of tools are also displayed as well. After seeing the inside we walk down to the Memorial Building, which once again is being renovated. It houses the cabin that was believed to be from Lincoln’s property here but has proven to be just another old cabin. But the parks department has kept it as a representative of a pioneer cabin. Then we walked to the spring that the Lincoln’s used when they lived here called Sinking Spring. It is in a hole in the ground much like a cave. It was so hot today that that spring water that was hitting the rocks below was creating steam, since the rocks were in the sun and very hot. That was the extent of us seeing sites today.

CC decided to drive back by 31E and not the Interstate. So we got to see a lot of farms and rural areas on the way back to Cave City. PTCC wants to have Kentucky Fried chicken in KY so we will have that for dinner tonight to make her happy. Maybe we will hit the pool and slide when we get back because it is so hot today.

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June 14, 2010 by LadyCC.

We leave early, of course so we were able to dump our tanks. We get on the road so we can go through the center of St Louis while everyone else is in bed or at church today. We make it out of Missouri before most people were up. Into Illinois we travel but we cut straight across on I-64 and there were no major cities so we got through IL in about 2 hours. Then into Indiana were we gassed up about 25 miles in and then after another 25 miles we drive to the Lincoln Boyhood Home NHS. This is where Lincoln lived from 8 years old until he was 21 years old. It is also where his mother was buried.

We pull in and the only RV parking they have is back ins. Since we can’t back in with the toad attached we pulled up to the curb. I went inside to get PTCC her Jr Ranger book so she could work on it while we ate lunch. After we ate we went inside and the movie was starting so we watched that and then toured the displays inside. On one side they have a large room with a fireplace and the other there is an auditorium much like a church set up with pews.

Back outside there is a trail to follow to see Lincoln’s mother’s grave and his father’s farm that has been reconstructed. We walked the path and it led to the area that the original log cabin was built, the CCC had reconstructed the fireplace and footings. They had an interpreter inside the cabin who told us a little about the set up of the farm. We walked inside the smokehouse and carpentry shop that Thomas Lincoln had. There was also a small chicken yard, sheep, goats and a kitchen garden. We walked down the path until we came to the well they used for water. And then we walked the other path back to the RV which had 12 stones that played roles in Lincoln’s life. Some of them were the stone from his birthplace, where he worked when he left home, Mary Todd Lincoln’s home, and the place where he stood when he delivered the Gettysburg Address.

After we finished the walk we got back in the RV and headed out. We thought we were going to stay at Singing Hills RV park tonight but I saw a Jellystone park on the same road that it was on so I asked CC if he wanted to camp there. Mostly because they had a waterslide. He said he always wanted to try a Jellystone but they were never where we camped so we decided to stay there. So about 2 hours later and finally in Kentucky we stop for the night at the Cave City Jellystone.

After dinner we changed and got to try out the huge waterslide. Unfortunately by now the sun is setting so it was not as hot as it was earlier and the bugs were out and biting while we waited to go down. CC videoed his ride and then took pictures of me and PTCC as we went down since he received his Olympus water camera back from the fix it place. This was a good opportunity for him to use it to see if it still works. After the slide ride we went to the pool but it was very crowded and no one seemed to follow the rules posted on the walls of no jumping, running, diving or horseplay. I had always seen the reviews of Jellystones so I kind of knew what to expect but it is very crowded and golf carts are whizzing by pretty quick without looking around them. Kids and adults walk in the center of roads so it is hard to maneuver large vehicles here. Most of the sites are very unlevel as well since it is built near a mountain. We are about 20 foot away from the sewer hookup and it is uphill from the RV. But we won’t be here most of the day tomorrow as will we be touring Mammoth Cave and Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace.

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June 2, 2010 by LadyCC.

We get up and out by 8:30 am so we can view Sioux Falls. We have readied the RV so we can make a quick departure when we get back. We drive about 10 minutes down the road and we are there. It is a little cold out this morning, something in the 50’s or so. The falls are quite beautiful as all the rocks around them are pink quartz. The water was churning up and creating a lot of foam on the rocks. In a way it looks like someone cut chunks of rocks and placed them here. PTCC asked me if it was natural or man made. The falls drop about 100 ft over the course of the run in the park and then meander downstream. We walked all along one side and took lots of pictures in the overlooks. As we were walking a train came along the bridge that goes over the river and we waved at the engineer. We then walked back to the visitor’s center. It had just opened at 9 am, the building has an observatory area in the top that you can walk out on and overlook the falls. We walked around the deck and took pictures then went downstairs and looked in the gift shop. CC wanted one more opportunity to take shots of the other side so we walked to the first overlook and then left.

We go back to the KOA and finish disconnecting and head out. We had a very uneventful day of driving. One thing we noticed was that Iowa and Nebraska both tear up their roads completely when they are working on them. In FL they just scrap off a layer or two and repave it. We had many miles of one lane road several times over the day’s drive, because the other side was essentially a dirt road. We paralleled the Missouri River in Iowa for about 80 miles finally crossing into Nebraska closer to Omaha.

Not too long after we passed through Omaha we arrived at Mahoney SP. The first thing they want from you is $$ for a parking pass. We had to pay $30 for both vehicles. The first one was $20 and the second was $10. If we had paid by the day it would have been $72. Either way it is a rip off. Most states only charge you for 1 vehicle since they know you are camping and not driving both. But NE charges you each and every day you stay even if your vehicle never moves. They should just add that cost to the camping fee and be done with it. The park is great though. We only have an electric hookup so we stopped to dump and load water before going to our campsite.

We are in the Lakeside Campground which is supposed to have wi-fi but we can’t get it, so CC is leaving the mi-fi with us. Our site is in full sun which is OK since we have been freezing since we started this trip. We checked out the bathhouses and they look really old with only 2 showers which seems weird since only 5 of the 150 sites have FHU. Pretty much everyone has to use these baths, so there will probably be a wait on the weekend.

We finished setting up and took PTCC over to the theater for a Jr Naturalist photography class. I think she really enjoys taking pictures. AmberLee was the instructor and spoke about how to frame pictures and look for unusual things to capture in the shot. PTCC took about 45 shots and AmberLee loaded them on her I-Pad and told us some of them will make it on the bulleting board or webpage for the park. Then we came back to the RV for a minute and then went to find a grocery store. This was a comedy of errors as CC didn’t want to get the GPS and his phone wasn’t giving good directions today. PTCC refused to let us buy milk at a convenience store because she thought that was yucky for some reason. So we ended up in Gretna at a very small grocery store. We will find a Walmart tomorrow when we take CC to the airport in Omaha.

We get back and make dinner and then go for a bike ride- first down from the campground where there is a small rock garden with a stream and then up to the lodge. It looked like they had a really good buffett. PTCC and I will probably try it since they have theater packages for dinner and a show on the weekend. They have a theater that shows several melodramas over the summer.. They sound like a lot of fun to see. The park also has several playgrounds, water park ,rock climbing, craft house, indoor playground, and a marina.

We all went to get showers and found them really weird. First there were no doors just flimsy curtains that didn’t cover the door openings and then the shower had a button you had to push to start the shower. It would only turn the water on for about a minute or so and you could not adjust the temperature at all. Then as you got out of the shower there was a fan attached to the ceiling that blew on you so you got chilled. We have to use them but I don’t think I’ll like it much. We came back after showers and planned our day for tomorrow. We’re trying to do some things so CC gets to experience something since he has to leave tomorrow.

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June 1, 2010 by LadyCC.

We leave Rafter J this morning and push on to Sioux Falls, SD. We have only 2 stops to make before reaching Sioux Falls today: Minuteman Missile NHS and the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. It’s just as kitschy as Wall Drug was but it’s a must see for us. We’ve already driven the portion to Minuteman because that’s where we started our Badlands tour. CC wants to top off at the Conoco that is next door to the Missile site. So we arrive at Minuteman and find out that is pretty much a short movie to watch and some displays in the office. I got my stamps and PTCC did a very short Jr Ranger book and received a patch. We read the outside displays and found out if we had wanted to do a tour they will only let you if you call a week in advance and they only offer it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On the tour they take you down in a silo and show you the missile launch facility. Since we didn’t book in advance we just finished reading what was there and left.

Once back on the road, since I knew it was going to be a mind numbing day so I watched a movie in the back with PTCC. CC kept getting off and on the road since SD DOT had several overpasses closed to work on them so he had to take the exit and get right back on which is how they diverted traffic.

200 miles later we get off I-90 for the Corn Palace. We got a great tour of Mitchell first since the directions drive you by everything they have in town before you arrive there. Once there we take our pictures and if you want they have a movie to watch about how it came to be. They show the same movie in the lobby and gift shop though. They sell popcorn and drinks just like a movie theater. On the walls are the pictures of each year’s theme and design all the way back to 1895(?) Some years are much more elaborate than others. In the center of the palace which must be used as a theater and basketball court is a gift shop selling everything to do with corn that you could imagine.

After our stop in Mitchell we find an easier way to get back to I-90 and move on to Sioux Falls. CC and I had talked about staying in Vermillion Lake SP in Canistota but as soon as he heard there were falls in Sioux Falls he had to see them so we will stay in a KOA there.

About an hour later we arrive in Sioux Falls and pull in to the KOA. This is the priciest KOA we have stayed in to date. $53 a night. The state park was less than $20. But CC gets to see his falls in the morning. I’m just glad we have changed to the central time zone. It means we are getting closer to the end and home. We all play a game of mini golf and eat dinner then relax for the night.

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May 31, 2010 by LadyCC.

Today we are off for the Badlands. It is about an hour and a half from where we are staying but a lot of it is on I-90 so it goes by quicker than driving the MH. In the MH we only do 62 mph because that’s the sweet spot for towing for us. But in the car we feel like we are flying because we can go 75 mph. So in no time we are turning off the road on Hwy 240 for the northeast entrance to the Badlands. First we see a sign for Minuteman Missile Site so we stop there knowing it is closed on Sundays. They have very specific hours for this National HS. We check the hours and leave because we know we can stop off on Tuesday as we go through to see it then.

We continue down the road and see the entrance sign for the Badlands. If we had to pay it would be $15, but we bought the annual park pass back in September 2009 because we knew we were coming on this trip and we were at Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine for Labor Day camping.

So we get waved through and head into the park. The first turnout was jammed packed so we skipped it and stopped at the next, which had a boardwalk running uphill to get you closer to the rock formations. These are pretty neat. It is kind of like looking at huge sand sculptures without a beach nearby or what the Grand Canyon would look like if all of the canyon was above ground. The rocks and sand had many varied colors. Today we saw oranges, mustard yellows, pinks, greens, greys, an whites. After a few turnouts to take pictures we stop at the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. PTCC starts working on her Jr Ranger here and we all go in to watch the movie they have. There is also a nice museum with displays explaining how the Badlands were formed and what animals live there. After looking around at everything PTCC has finished her booklet and takes it up to the desk for her badge. We then look in the bookstore for CC’s pin but there is no postcard here. Then we go outside and have our lunch at one of the picnic tables with these strange wind blockers attached to them. After eating we get back in the car to do the Badland Loop Road tour. Parts of it will be bumpy because they are working on the road but not today or tomorrow so we won’t be stopped like at the other National parks we’ve been to. It is very dusty and dry here though so we really can’t keep the windows open for too long taking pictures. PTCC even tried to stand up through the sunroof to take video but the wind was so strong she gave it up.

The road itself is about 35 miles long and we stopped at the Fossil Exhibit Trail and walked the boardwalk here. They have displays of fossils in Plexiglas cases so you can see where they were discovered as you walk along. Then we stopped at the White River Overlook which is the only water around and it isn’t that close by. Some of the rock formations looked similar to the needles we saw yesterday leaving Custer SP. One of the scientists in the movie we watched said it gets to about 112 degrees out here in the summer. It feels warm enough today at 67 degrees as we ride around the loop.

There is lots of prairie grass out here that the pioneers used to make their sod houses from. Now there are bison herds, antelope, foxes, black footed ferrets and prairie dogs all living in the grasslands. We saw the bison herd from far away but didn’t see any other animals here except birds. Wish we had time to spend walking the trails but after 2 days of up and down stairs in caves my knee can’t take the hills here.

We come to the Yellow Mud Overlook and the colors are striated and beautiful. There are gorgeous yellows, greens and oranges all mixed in together in the formations. We finally come to the end of the road at the Pinnacles Overlook. We can walk out here on the rock formations. What is surprising here is as you look down into the canyon you see conifers. They are nowhere else in the park but in this one spot well hidden from the road. If you don’t stop here you would not know they were down there. We then exit the park on Hwy 240 and continue in to the most famous city in South Dakota: Wall.

Of course we have to stop here, everyone does. We’ve been reading the signs since we drove into the state of South Dakota. So here we are. It takes up nearly a city block, with a soda shop, cafe, and too many to name shops. We first stop for a refreshment. CC and PTCC opt for a milkshake and a root beer float but I saw the sign that said pie so I grab a slice of apple pie, and a refreshing glass of ice water. Which is how the owners got people into this small town. They put up signs on the highways advertising free ice water at their drugstore. People came and when they did they bought other stuff. It is now in the 3^rd generation of the family.

After we finished out treats we walk around and look at all the shops. PTCC bought a t shirt and we bought some fudge to eat on the way back home. They really seem to have everything you need or never knew you needed. In fact this past winter they added on what they are calling a “backyard area.” That makes them about 3 blocks deep.

Now we are heading back to Rapid City to pick up a few supplies and eat dinner out. We stop at our favorite place: Walmart. Then we look for a place to eat. CC wants to try something local so we head back towards Hill City. We get into town and need to fill up so he does and then goes in to ask around about a restaurant. We end up in the Slate Grill where I get a sirloin and CC tries Buffalo for the first time. PTCC and I had it before in Washington, DC at the American Indian Museum there. He said my steak was better. The buffalo wasn’t as tender as it could have been.

We arrive back at the Rafter J and take a walk and PTCC heads for the playground. Then we download pictures and find out that both of us are out of room on our hard drives. We are going to have to dump some picture files to CC’s external drive so we can still download more since we have 20 days of travel left to document.

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