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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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Bikes, bikes and more bikes; and corn!

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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.:)

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First Stop, Woodstock!

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It’s amazing how much time it takes to move from one home to another! It took us until 3:30 pm today to finally leave the driveway. After a precautionary stop to have all the tire pressure checked, we were finally on the highway by 4:30, just in time for a real downpour.
We made another stop in Whitby at Princess Auto. Jim wanted to change the hitch ball to one that was a better fix. By that time it was going on six and since the traffic in Toronto would be bad, we stayed in the parking lot and had some dinner. Forty-five minutes later we sailed through Toronto. We’ve decided to call it quits for the night. We’re at a gas station/truck stop in Woodstock.

We should get an early start tomorrow, and have some more interesting stories tomorrow night. 🙂

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On the Road Again

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Well, after some set backs, it looks like we will finally be on the road again tomorrow morning. We’ve got everything working again in the motor-home. We’ve got a bike and a trailer to pull it. What more do we need? Oh, campground reservations might be good. 🙂 I’m waiting for Jim to take care of those, but he’s out for a ride tonight. It was just way too hot and sticky for my liking so I’m holed up in the basement with a fan on me. Thank goodness the RV has a/c. It looks like this heat wave isn’t over yet!

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More Wandering

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I don’t know when/if we will return to our Rving adventure. Some preparations are being made, but no date has been discussed. The dream seems to be fading.

In the meantime, my mind does lots of travelling as usual, so fast that I can’t catch up with it long enough to write a blog.

We did take a road trip in the car this past weekend — a visit to our nation’s capital, Ottawa, where my son is settling in. We enjoyed the sunny weather on Sunday, beginning with a big breakfast at Broadway Restaurant and then an enjoyable visit at the home of my nephew. In the afternoon we decided to check out the Turkish Festival that was taking place in Confederation Park. There was music and dance demonstrations on the stage. We watched a marbling demonstration – the art of painting on water. What an interesting process! We learned about Turkish shadow puppets and we enjoyed some Turkish culinary delights.

Isn’t it wonderful that Canada has such a diverse population, that we can learn about far away countries and mix with their people without ever leaving home?

From there we wandered along the Rideau Canal, watching grand vessels navigate through the eight locks to the Ottawa River. We strolled up the hill to get a birds eye view, while being serenaded with some CCR by a busker along the path. We continued past the lookout areas until we were on the walk in front of the grand old hotel, the Chateau Laurier, which overlooks the canal and the majestic Parliament Buildings.

I’d forgotten what a great city Ottawa is. I lived there for eight months during college days, when I was too young to appreciate it and left for the big city of Toronto.

Since I first drafted this blog two days ago, progress has been made!  We MIGHT be heading out on Sunday or Monday for an extended trip, first stop Sturgis (South Dakota) Motorcycle Rally.  We just have to find a trailer for the motorbike, and then hope that the campgrounds aren’t already booked up. If we go, it will be exciting. Stay tuned!