Author Archives: judy lawless

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We didn’t see Yogi Bear, but we Did See Old Faithful

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Day 14 – Wed

I didn’t think I’d take any more pictures until we got to Yellowstone, but the scenery through the hills of Wyoming were impossible to ignore!

We left the campground at 9:30 am and arrived at the gate to Yellowstone National Park about an hour later. The scenery through the park is impossible to describe. Probably the many pictures we took won’t really convey the magnificence either. The one “black” spot on the beauty was the massive area where forest fires of past years have left nothing but naked tree trunks standing.  There is evidence of new growth beginning, though.

We knew we wouldn’t be able to see even a fraction of the 2.2 million acres of park, so we took the lower half of the circle, catching some of the highlights. Our first stop was at West Thumb Geyser Basin, an area that percolates with geysers, hot springs and mudpots. The steam coming off of one geyser created a sauna effect and steamed up our glasses as we stood over it, on the wooden path. We stopped to photograph a herd of buffalo; we ate lunch beside beautiful Lake Yellowstone. We reached Old Faithful just in time to catch the end of an eruption. We enjoyed ice cream (I think this is becoming a bad habit!) while we waited the fifty minutes for the next one.  This time we had front row seats. It was exciting to see, but we also enjoyed just as much the many smaller geysers and ponds that surround the area. This was our last stop and we made our way out the west side of the park at about 7:30 pm. Along the way we crossed The Great Divide, and the border into Montana.

We stopped at the city of West Yellowstone, just outside the gate, for information. We hoped to find a campsite in the city so we could catch the IMAX film. There were no RV Parks that could accommodate us,  so we continued west for about eight miles to Lion Head RV Park. It was nine o’clock by the time we had dinner, but we had a great day. Tomorrow we’ll continue south-west.

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Plans Derailed Again!

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Day 13 – Tues.

We didn’t travel far today. We arrived in Cody at ten this morning, where we stopped for gas. We had intended to keep on going to Yellowstone, but we saw the Buffalo Bill Historic Museum and it looked pretty interesting. Bronze statues are everywhere in Wyoming it seems, and the path into the museum is no exception. I snapped pictures of conversing cowboys on horseback, a wolf howling at the moon and Buffalo Bill himself. We decided not to pay the $15 each to go into the museum, but looked around the gift shop. We were amused at the notice going into the building that listed the things that would have to be checked at the museum entrance. The list included firearms. You know you’re in redneck country when …

From the museum we went across the road to the Visitors’ Centre and learned of all the things that could be seen in the town, including a rodeo at night. I’d never seen a rodeo and thought I’d like to. We decided to stay. We found a cheap campground at the edge of town, the Gateway Motel and RV Park. It was full hook-up and that’s about it, but that’s all we needed. We unloaded the bike and went to the Walmart, almost next door, to pick up a few odds and ends that we’d needed, and after depositing them back at the RV, we rode downtown to see the sights.

We went to the Irma Hotel for Iced Tea. The Irma was Buffalo Bill’s Hotel back in the day. It still has much of the original decor and atmosphere, but commercialization has made it disappointing. We wandered through a few shops. I saw lots of beautiful clothing but too expensive for my budget. We purchased tickets for dinner and a “cowboy show” at the Cody Cattle Company, and for the rodeo. We toured the Old West Miniature Village and Museum. By then the temperature had reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit according to one sign, 94 by another. Whichever, it was HOT! Time for a DQ treat.

When we got back on the bike it was sputtering and backfiring, so we left it at the campground and walked the half mile from there to our evening venues. The “chuck wagon” buffet consisted of Caesar salad, beans, beef, chicken, baked potatoes, coleslaw, corn bread, applesauce and brownies for dessert. I thought it was good; Jim wasn’t impressed. He was, however, very impressed with the music. It was good old cowboy music, performed by the Martin Family. It included singing, yodeling, and some amazing guitar and mandolin picking by Jim & Jeanne’s son, Ryan Martin. It was a great hour of entertainment.

From there we walked a little further up the road to the Cody Night Rodeo. I enjoyed watching the bucking horse riding competition, until Jim told me how they got the horses to buck (if you don’t know, don’t ask). The calf roping competition had me silently cheering for the calf. I did enjoy watching the barrel races. A few competitors were very, very young, but managed their horses well. The clowns added some comic relief. So now I’ve seen a rodeo. I don’t think I’ll need to see another.

Tomorrow we WILL get to Yellowstone! Stay tuned.

Addendum:

Jim and Jeanne Martin of the Rockin M Wranglers have performed together for audiences all around the US for over 18 years. Their son Ryan Martin has joined them for their current seven-days-a-week gig at The Cody Cattle Company.

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Moments That Take our Breath Away

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Day 12 – Monday
We did sit outside on the KOA deck and watched Close Encounters. Once the sun went down the temperature dropped by about thirty degrees, I think. By the time the movie was over I was shivering uncontrollably. We were both cold enough to turn on the furnace before getting into bed!

Today was sunny and warm again, without being too hot. We left Devil’s Tower with the intentions of heading southwest, towards San Francisco. But after looking at the map and seeing that it would be only about 100 kilometres longer to go northwest to Yellowstone first, we both agreed that it would be a shame to miss it when we were that close, so we changed our route.

We took I-90 to Gillette and on to Buffalo. We thought we might reach Cody tonight, close to Yellowstone, but somewhere between Gillette and Buffalo the transmission made a few hiccups, which concerned Jim. To be safe, we stopped in Buffalo to have it checked. The young fellow checked the fluid and said it was good, but the transmission probably needed servicing, maybe even a flush. He could do the general service for about $150 (but might not get to it today). He suggested we go to Sheridan to a transmission specialist. Because the hills were already starting to slow us down, we’d planned to take the more southerly route to Cody, the one with the lowest grade climb. Going through Sheridan was just the opposite. We debated what to do and drove past the exit to Sheridan. It turned out to be the right choice. We had no more issues with the transmission even during the climb through the high hills of Wyoming. Perhaps it just needed a cool down. We did have to take the hills very slowly though as our motor home isn’t a powerful one. As a result, we’ve stopped for the night in Grey Bull, an hour or so short of Cody. Soon after we were set up in our site, another motor home pulling a big bike trailer parked next to us. Jim got talking to them and learned that they had taken the more northerly route, through Sheridan. The driver said, “I’ll never do that again! I overheated my engine a couple of times!” This confirmed the wisdom of our decision.

Despite the slow drive, the hills were breathtaking; blue/grey and pink rock, high peaks, deep canyons. I thought of the sign that Jim’s daughter had given us and wished I’d brought it with us for the RV: “Life isn’t about the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away.” We are certainly experiencing many of those moments on this trip. We are truly blessed.

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Nemo, Wonderland and Paper Sculpting

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Duck!

Day 10 – Friday
In case any of you were worried, we didn’t get blown away in the high winds. 🙂

Today we didn’t travel as far, but we saw plenty. We left late afternoon, taking Vanocker Canyon Drive south out of Sturgis towards the little hamlet of Nemo. Along the way we saw a sign for Wonderland Cave so decided to stop for a look. The road in was a gravel road and three and a half kilometres long, but it turned out to be worth the trip. It’s a much different type of cave than the Luray Caverns that we enjoyed in Virginia, but still intriguing. The passages are low and narrow and are far below ground. I didn’t realize how many stairs we had gone down, until we had to climb back up! Jim counted 122 steps! Everyone in the tour group was panting by the time we reached the top, except for Jim, probably the oldest person there. 🙂

By the time we got to Nemo we were starved so we stopped for lunch. This is another popular destination for bikers as it’s at the junction of Vanocker Canyon Drive and Nemo Road or South Canyon Road, both winding passages through high rock cliffs and pine trees. The weather was sunny but much cooler. For the first time since our arrival here, I wore my leather jacket.

After lunch we continued on Nemo Road towards Rapid City in search of the creators of some amazing paper sculptures that we had seen on the internet before leaving home. When we found the right address there was no sign to indicate that it was the studio we were looking for, but as we approached the door Patty Eckman opened it and greeted us with a smile. She welcomed us in and gave us a tour of the studio, showing us how the paper and moulds are made and how the finishing touches are done. She had only a couple of just finished products on hand. They don’t sell from their studio, but have displays in many art galleries throughout the US. She recommended that we continue into Rapid City to the Prairie Edge Gift Shop and Art Gallery. That we did.

What a beautiful gallery this is, and the work of Allen & Patty Eckman in even more unbelievable than what we saw on the internet. Jim took lots of pictures and we just had to purchase the video that tells their story.

While in Rapid City we parked our bike in the special designated parking area along with several dozen other bikes, and strolled down Main Street, taking pictures of the bronze statues that adorn nearly every corner. Then we enjoyed quiche, salad and fresh ice tea while sitting in high cast-iron chairs at an iron table, outside a small café. It reminded me of Paris.

We got back home just before it started to rain. Another perfect day!

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Spearfish Canyon – a Biker’s Paradise

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Biker's dream

Day 9 – Thursday
Today wasn’t quite as hectic. We spent the morning taking care of business and laundry so it was early afternoon before we got out on another bike tour. This time we went back to Deadwood to see it in daylight and stroll through the downtown. From there we continued on to Spearfish Canyon. That is a biker’s dream ride, lots of turns through pine forests and enormous mountain cliffs. Before starting though, we had to stop at Cheyenne Junction for a bite to eat. Since it was a little too early for dinner, we decided we’d have dessert first – an absolutely delicious piece of homemade Mountain Medley Pie with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with raspberry sauce. Mountain Medley is a combination of rhubarb, black berries, raspberries and apple. Mmm. Other patrons were stopping at our table and drooling over it.
We stopped for some groceries once we got through the Canyon, at the city of Spearfish, and then came on home to make dinner. A half hour after we arrived a big wind storm rocked the motor home and Jim had to scurry to put up the awnings. We were very happy that we’d decided to come home early tonight.

As I publish this, the wind is up again. Could be rocked to sleep tonight. 🙂

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Mount Rushmore, Mount Crazy Horse

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Day 8 (Wed)
I was a day late, but I finally managed to call Mom to wish her a Happy 96th Birthday, before riding into Sturgis for the pancake breakfast sponsored by one of the churches (still haven’t got the grocery shopping done). We returned home to take care of a bit of business and then we got on the bike and took off for the day. We had to go to Rapid City to mail a package, but after that we put troubles behind us, riding up the twisty road towards Mount Rushmore. It was a beautiful ride. We stopped at the Gas Light Bar & Grill in Rockerville for lunch. I had one of the best salads I’ve ever had – chicken, walnuts, cranberries, shredded cheese and lettuce with raspberry vinaigrette. It was huge. I felt badly when I couldn’t eat it all. Jim managed to finish off most of his seafood salad, which he thoroughly enjoyed as well. Rockerville is a ghost mining town containing old abandoned shops, a bank and a few homes. Other than a few occupied homes, the Gas Light is pretty much all that’s there, nestled in the valley between the north and south sides of Hwy 16. We wouldn’t have found it if it hadn’t been recommended to us by a fellow biker who’d shared our table at breakfast.
Next stop, still along Hwy 16, was Keystone, a wonderful town whose historical downtown has been preserved in the manner of the gold rush days. It too was packed with bikers. We spent an hour or more poking through the shops and taking pictures before carrying on to Mount Rushmore.
The climb through the mountains was amazing, the sheer rocks naturally carved into some interesting works of art. And then the famous faces of the four Presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, came into view. Awesome! We spent another couple of hours touring the National Park Information Centre and taking pictures. From there, we had to go see Crazy Horse, an on-going sculpting project commissioned by the Lakota Indian tribe back in 1948 as a monument to Chief Crazy Horse. The original sculptor is dead, but his wife and kids are carrying on the dream, all paid for by donations, draws and sales at the commercial outlets and museum. Government funding was turned down by the family. It will be many more decades before the project will reach fruition. The contributions made by the thousands of bikers who would visit this week, would make a big difference, as acknowledged by the “motorcycles only” designated parking.
It was after six when we left there. We opted to take Hwy 385, stopping in Hill City for dinner. Here the entire downtown business part of the main street was closed to all vehicles except bikes, and bikes there were! The sun was setting when we left and the reported 100 degree Fahrenheit temperature earlier in the day was quickly dropping. Watching for long-horned mountain sheep, we saw some scaling the rocks to our left and stopped to take pictures. They seemed curious and began to descend towards the road. Just as curious were other bikers and people in cars who began to stop too. There was some concern then that the sheep would cause an accident when a couple of them scurried across the road in front of a car and a bike. As we drove off, we warned approaching vehicles to slow down. It was dark by the time we reached Deadwood, so after a quick tour of the main street that was busy with biker activities, we continued on our way, arriving back at the camp at 9:45 pm. It was a great day, but exhausting, especially after I stayed up late posting pictures to Facebook. 
Before we left on this trip I’d just finished a book by Nora Roberts called Black Hills. It’s been interesting seeing The Black Hills that she writes about and the area towns, like Deadwood.

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How Many Geeks Does it Take?

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Day 7 (Tues)
After discovering that the device for getting onto the internet, which we bought the night before, just wasn’t going to work, we headed back into Rapid City with computer packed into the saddle bag, expecting to get help quickly from the computer geeks at Best Buy. The first geek couldn’t do it so he called the sales associate from the mobile phone department. He could do it through the phone help line, if only he could get through to them. He was on hold for twenty minutes, when another geek, the head of the department suggested that a different device would work better for our needs and could be installed very quickly by her. It was more money, but we decided it would be worth it if it was going to work. So, we made the exchange. That wasn’t a simple process. A monthly invoicing system had to be set up because, unlike the previous device, a one month prepaid card couldn’t be purchased. Our having a Canadian address made that process complicated. It took about an hour just to set up the account. Then, it was back to the geek desk. A half hour later, the geek was still trying to get this device to work. In the meantime, the head of the mobile phone department came in (he’d sold us the original device) and he tried to help with first the account set-up and then the device set up. We left for lunch. When we got back, the head geek had left for the day, leaving the problem with yet another geek. Another half hour passed before it was finally discovered by the mobile phone fellow, that the battery hadn’t been installed in the device! We thought that was the quick fix, but no, it still wouldn’t work on our computer, but it did work on theirs. So, after wasting four hours of our day, we left with computer and device once again stashed in the saddle bag. Jim decided he’d like to take a back route home, and it was a lovely ride, until we ran out of gas! Fortunately a kind lady who lived nearby went home to get us enough to get us to Sturgis and a gas station. Once we were finally back in the RV Jim went to work on the computers and internet device and he got them both working. At least the day ended better.

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At last, Sturgis!

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Days five and six
On Sunday we took our time getting ready to leave the campground. I did some laundry; Jim repaired a window screen that had become loose, and I finished blog and Facebook postings. While I sat outside completing these tasks, I watched streams of motorcycles speeding past on the I-90. By 10:30 we had joined them, but the bikes ruled the road. With a couple of stops along the way to refresh, we arrived at our campsite around 4:00 pm. The day was another very hot one reaching temperatures in the upper nineties. Our poor old motor home began to protest when we stopped to register. She didn’t want to start again. But we managed to slowly move her to our campsite and backed into place. We did our nesting; electric hooked up, table and chairs out, awnings pulled to provide some shade. We started a list of things we should purchase the next chance we got, like a sewer connector, a new door blind and stamps to mail cards. After a frustrating evening of trying to get and stay connected to WiFi, an internet stick was added to the list. Hence the reason no news got posted that day.
Today (Monday) we took the bike into Sturgis, list in hand. Lots of luck! There were lots of interesting sites and lots of pictures to take. Beer could be bought at nearly every corner; if you wanted a souvenir t-shirt or cap or any biking paraphernalia, you had hundreds of shops to choose from. But nowhere in sight was there a computer or mobile phone store, or a grocery store. Our list had to be discarded for the time being. We just parked the bike and enjoyed the show. The streets were line with bikes of every shape, size and description that you could imagine. Granted the majority seem to be Harleys. At least the loud pipes on our Virago blended right in.
There were bikes customized to look like cars; there was a bike that looked like our Venture, but it pulled a coffin for a trailer, painted to match the bike. The licence plate read “X-wife”.
The people riding the bikes and walking on the streets were just as varied. Jim especially enjoyed photographing the buxom women who equally enjoyed flaunting what they had. It seems that pasties are the only top covering required in this state. We saw people dressed in caveman/warrior garb, women in bikinis, old people, young people, an extremely tall woman, probably seven feet.
We stood in the crowd for the daily group photo. If you look really closely you can recognize Jim’s hat in the crowd.  Well worth the $10 we paid for a copy. We poked through several of the shops, had pulled pork for lunch and ice cream cones for dessert. We visited the Knuckle Saloon for a cold drink and a listen to some excellent guitar picking and songs by Rogan Brothers Band. By 4:30 the sun and the walking had done us in so we found our bike and decided to look once more for the Post Office. By the time we did, it had closed and there seemed to be nowhere else to buy those stamps. Some suggested we might try the grocery store and told us where to find it, but it would mean another slow ride through town. We came back to camp.
But the desire to get internet connection to complete some business and post our updates led us to get on the bike again and head sixty miles east to Rapid City. There we found the internet stick we were looking for and an Ihop where we finally had some dinner. It was nine o’clock by the time we finished eating, time to return to camp. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll get that list taken care of. Tonight we’re still struggling with internet while enjoying some live music coming from the beer tent.

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A different kind of “camping”

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Yesterday was a very long day. We crossed the border at Sarnia. It took nearly an hour to get across the bridge and through customs. Once across we stopped along the way at various rest stops, trying to find information about camping, but there was none. Jim thought he’d like to get as close to Chicago as we could before stopping. Finally, at nearly 9pm we found a campground near Michigan City, Indiana. We tried to call to book a site, but the number was out of service. That didn’t look good. We made our way down a tree-lined road, in the semi-darkness to find it. It did exist, just under a different name, but when we reached the gate there was a sign “Camp Site Full”. Now what? There were no others around that anyone knew of. We made our way back to the Blue Chip Casino. We’d heard that most casinos allowed overnight RV parking. So we “boon-docked” it once more. Of course having felt that we should patronize the casino for a little bit, at 10:15 pm we stood in line to get our membership cards and off we went with $20 each in hand to find the five cent slots.

It wasn’t long before the smoke accosted my eyes and nose. I’d forgotten that that’s the one thing I don’t like about travelling in the US, there are still no No Smoking laws. Oh well, I thought, if the usual scenario takes place, my self-allotted crazy money would be gone in fifteen minutes and we could leave. 🙂

Wouldn’t you know it, it lasted twice as long! Jim and I managed to lose our last nickel about the same time. We packed it in and headed to bed in the RV. I can say it definitely isn’t a camp site that I’d choose again, if given the chance. Not a lot of quiet; lots of lights. There was a nice breeze blowing through the windows and vents though, giving us some relief from the severe humidity of the previous night and day.

Jim insisted we should take advantage of the free gift offered to new members once they’ve garnered 200 points (by betting $40, including winnings re-bet), so we each came away with a case of coke! Oh well, it was a bit of fun and worked out alright.

Tonight we are in an actual campground for the first time since we left home. We put in over 500 kilometers, but we managed to arrive here, at a KOA near Austen Minnesota, before dark. The I-90 is a good road in some states, a terrible one in others. We did a lot of bouncing at times. Making our way through Chicago with our 44 foot rig (32′ rv plus 12′ bike trailer) was interesting to say the least, as was weaving between pylons on the various sections of highways where road work was being done. I was finally inspired to take some pictures, although it was difficult to keep the steady hand needed to get quality shots. 🙂

Throughout the day we were overtaken by many many bikes, some being ridden, many more being towed behind trucks or motor homes. A quick glance around this camp ground indicated that there might be a few here as well.

Tomorrow we should reach Sturgis, where I expect to gather some much more exciting material for these posts.:)