MUDDSCAPE

For Memorial Day, 2022, I will surrender my pen to one of America’s great heroes.

From remarks by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to West Point cadets at the United States Military Academy on May 12, 1962:

[The American soldier] needs no eulogy from me or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast. But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements. In 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people. From one end of the world to the other he has drained deep the chalice of courage…

Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation’s war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice…

You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.

This does not mean that you are war mongers.

On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Tippy salutes our troops and our nation.

Do you know the way to Santa Fe? Dion Warwick would say! Well, not exactly, but now you can’t get that nasty ear worm out! I’ll make up for it by gifting one of our sunrises (yes, we’re up that early).

We found a smart place to put one of the twin rocks we featured yesterday. Someone’s gonna be surprised!

Not really having a plan for touring, we started out at the Farmer’s Market, which is just on the outskirts of the old downtown. It runs year-round on Saturdays (yay!) and Tuesdays. We weren’t pleased to see every single street blanketed with parking meters (greedy capitalists!), but at least relieved that they were smart, internet-accessible ones, and not just the old school quarter-gobbling clunkers. We need those quarters for the old school laundromats. On our whole trip, this is the first place we have found a laundry that takes credit cards. Astonishing that America’s RV parks haven’t caught up with the 20^th Century. Of course, we don’t need to do laundry while we’re here because we did that in Cheyenne, thus lowering the weight of the rig by a few dozen quarters. Smart, right?

We discovered there is a regional passenger train running north-south through town, called the Rail Runner, that has a depot at the Farmer’s Market. It runs as a “commuter” line all the way to Albuquerque and beyond, including the airport. I wonder if it takes quarters.

Wendy dressed all in clothes that our daughter-in-law Dana gave her, and insisted I get this picture as evidence. I have no idea what the sculpture represents, but doesn’t Wendy look great?

The farmer’s market was very crowded as soon as it opened. There were obviously lots of tourists wearing t-shirts from all their stops. There was also almost every type of leafy green you could think of, and many you can’t think of. Lots of other produce too, and turquoise jewelry everywhere. You would never guess we’re having an inflation crisis with everything being disgustingly over-priced. I know that lettuce is getting expensive, but tiny bags of lettuce leaves at $9? Really? Who needs this stuff to survive? The only thing we found of interest at the farmer’s market, which is something we always seek out wherever we go, is the Ice Cream Store. In this case it was the Taos Ice Cream Store, and as luck would have it, they also make donuts! For me, it’s a true Two-Fer, as these 2 things are the keys to my nutritional philosophy. The donuts were expensive, but you can’t really put a price on philosophy.

We’re not much for art galleries, farmer’s markets full of super over-priced stuff, or museums. This seemed to be a lot of what Old Town Santa Fe is, so we opted for a nice walk through all of it, and really appreciated the grand church that abuts Cathedral Plaza. We went inside to sit and ponder for several minutes. It was fantastic. No interior photography, so we’ll treat you to the exterior.

What Santa Fe does have is some very good food. We stumbled across La Fogata (translation: the campfire) who had very authentic street tacos (shrimp, barbacoa, al pastor) and chili rellenos, and a very tasty and spicy bean menudo that we absolutely loved. And the restaurant was, in the southwestern style, very colorful inside.

They delivered our silverware wrapped up in a napkin, with one of those paper rings around it that have one sticky end like a PostIt note. You’ve all seen them. From experience, I know to carefully remove mine and pass it over to Wendy so she can render one of her “idle hands” creations by tearing the papers into strips and looping a chain out of them. She usually gifts them to a server.

Tippy thinks Leonardo was a really smart guy.

The post today is in 2 parts. First, I’m going to provide some updates and kudos.

Kudos: Thanks to Linda & Dan for the coffee cups you gifted us at Orcas last summer. We use them every morning and think of you as we sip.

Thanks to Wendy’s BFF Robin, who gifted us two tubs of road trip snacks, which we snarfed our way through already and have resorted to buying bulk and refilling.

Debbie & Tommy, thanks for gifting us the kitchen towels with the Camper theme. They alternate with our other mundane ones. I’d put a picture but they’re in the laundry!

Updates: We decided on a collection theme for the trip, Magnets. At each major stop we visit the gift store and get one just the right size to fit on our stove hood. We have tried to keep a “Car Theme” going, and have been reasonably successful.

We have been faithfully painting and inscribing twin rocks with quotes every day, and leaving one in a prominent spot along our path, usually at our RV campsite. May 27 was our arrival in Santa Fe, and we will find an appropriate spot for one of these.

Co-Pilot Wendy will provide the basic blog content today. I’ll give my fingers a rest from this tiny, cramped laptop keyboard!

MOTHRA STRIKES

Picture taking is my domain for our blog, Warren is the witty writer. I’m deviating this time because I have a story to tell. After We stayed at the worse stop (so far) of our trip at a Pueblo Colorado KOA (never our favorites rv parks). We were parked on dirt, next to busy Interstate 25 and very close to the train tracks. Luckily it was a short overnight and we were up early, and we did get a little sleep despite the racket.

The 5-hour drive to Santa Fe was wrought with bumpy roads, dust storms, smoke from nearby fires and howling winds that rocked and pushed our high-profile rig. We arrived at Santa Fe Skies RV Park, which is filled with large, high-end rigs that tower above us. It’s a beautiful resort, overlooking Santa Fe and we have the best view in the park. We walked the ¾ mile path that surrounds the park and marveled at the numerous scrap metal sculptures created by the owner. As the cloud cover cooled the air, we sat outside on our shaded patio and sipped our mocktails of Cran-Raspberry Juice and diet tonic. A lovely cool breeze suggested a storm approaching but the rain evaporated before falling on us. We watched the colorful sunset, watched a couple of our favorite shows and hit the sack.

All was well as I got comfy and started reading until a large moth landed on my book.

Warren, my hero, jumped up and captured it with his hands and opened the door and let it out. He walked back into the bedroom and another large moth was flying erratically but it turned out to be TWO large moths. He promptly caught one and came back for the other.  But wait, there’s more! One more moth in his hands and finally they were gone. It was quite a show for me as he jumped from one moth to another in the buff (how he sleeps) saving the day…again!

And here’s a link to a panorama from our RV site, also provided by Wendy. Perhaps the best campground we’ve stayed in so far, on the heels of Pueblo KOA, which was hands-down the worst. https://rumble.com/v16fjo2-santa-fe-skies-view.html

Tippy is recovering from all the hoopla.

You are probably wondering about the title. Maybe you are asking yourself “What the heck is a Norcold?” If you have ever owned an RV, even a boat with a refrigerator in it, you have very likely owned a Norcold. And if you have been in the RV-owning business for longer than 4 or 5 years, you have likely had to have it fixed. We went to the extreme a couple of times, in both our boat and our previous 5^th wheel trailer and replaced one outright. They are expensive because they have the “Norcold” logo on them, the outright major manufacturer of these devices for RV’s and boats. You can buy a similar device for your dorm room from 10 different manufacturers for about 1/10^th the price, but they won’t work in your 12V machine.

So, imagine our disappointment Thursday night on arrival in Pueblo, after a very long travel day. The light on the front of the Norcold was off. “Strange” I thought, “who turned off the fridge?” The answer: nobody. Very shortly the light started blinking red, an indication that it was trying to restart itself. It has an “automatic” mode where it can select one of 3 energy sources to run on, propane, 12V electric, or 110V electric (if you are plugged into shore power).

I had just plugged us into shore power, so I immediately thought it was just having a little bit of trouble transitioning from the 12V power it uses while we are on the road to the shore power at the RV park. But it didn’t make the transition. So, I started checking around, pulling off the exterior panel to see if wires had fallen loose, or was something leaking, or WTF? Nothing. Wendy, being slightly more creative than I, began praying, which, while I felt “it couldn’t hurt”, didn’t really think it was helping. I ran out of ideas, and instead decided to sit on the portable massage chair (Wendy named “him” Raul, which I have always thought disloyal of her) to iron out the stiff back muscles. While I was sitting there getting pummeled by shiatsu mode, Wendy asked for a tutorial on how to “kick the fridge back into gear”, redneck trailer trash (which we now temporarily are) talk for restarting it. I simply said, “you just touch the button next to the little light”. She touched it, and it came back on. Just like that. I take back the part about thinking prayer wasn’t helping. Clearly (and you can try to prove me wrong if you want), God fixed my Norcold.

This was the third problem to present itself at this campsite. You read previously about the shattered plates. Every stop more shards creep out from under the sofa slide. This stop, one got caught under the slide and carved a little cut into the top of the laminate floor. A little dab of super-strong clear glue fixed that right up.

Problem #2 happened as I was hooking up the flexi-hose between the holding tanks and the sewer dump outlet at the site.

The connector between the hose and the outlet came apart. It’s a snap together thing, but wouldn’t snap back together, and there was no way I was gonna pull the Geronimo Handle (the thing that opens the valve between the holding tank and the hose) if the hose wasn’t going to stay sealed into the outlet. I’ve had that happen more than once, and it ain’t pretty or sweet-smelling. Wendy, ever creative, again saved the day by microwaving a bowl of very hot water, and when I heated the 2 plastic parts in it they went right back together.

So, we got away clean on 3 problems. It won’t last. Trust me.

That was the end of the day. Early in the day we departed the last super-cold morning location we will likely see on this trip, Cheyenne Wyoming, which was a nippy 36F at dawn. We were overjoyed to be driving straight south toward much warmer weather and celebrated a bit by making 2 stops as we neared Denver. The first was in Loveland, a northern suburb, that has a Lovelocks feature at its municipal community center. Thank you again Wendy for the research on “things near our path”.

We bought a lock (the purple one of course), borrowed their engraving pencil, and immortalized our love on the wire, just on the right side of the heart-shaped O. I thought it would be romantic to throw the key in a river, thus sealing our love forever, but Wendy, for some reason unknown to me after being locked in a small box for almost 3 weeks now, wanted to keep it.

The second stop was only an hour south, at the Stanley Marketplace in North Aurora. We were diverting around Denver to avoid traffic, and this was only a couple of miles off the route. They have an ice cream store there called Sweet Cow, with legendary good ice cream.

This Thursday Throwback from Tippy has always been good advice.

Our drive through the plains and back into the Rockies went well (except for that Kimball Grade thing). There were plenty of wide open spaces, and we had ample road snacks, an absolute MUST for road trips.

We arrived at the Cheyenne RV Resort in mid-afternoon and had some time before dinner to take a walk-through of Cheyenne proper. We imagined it, as a prominent cowboy town, to have a charming and authentic downtown section that might also present us with an opportunity to sample the local ice cream. Huh.

Cheyenne is Wyoming’s largest city (population approximately 500,000) and its capitol. One would hope that would make for a good walking city tour, a chance to stretch our legs and treat our eyes and ears to something besides a striped stretch of asphalt. We parked close to the State House, figuring that might be a good epicenter for our quest. There is pitifully little content online about how to tour Cheyenne, and now we know why. First, we arrived at about 4:30PM, and the city rolls up its sidewalks promptly at 5. Second, when we asked a local for suggestions about finding some “historic features”, she thought long and hard and replied “there really isn’t anything other than a few buildings about a mile south”. We walked that mile south and did find a few buildings, but not something we would call interesting. Still, better than Deadwood.

About the most interesting thing we saw were large boot sculptures scattered around town, each commemorating some event or person.

To spice up this short post a bit, I have an update on how well our trailer has fared so far. Well, not so much the trailer itself, but the contents. On our transit from Coeur D’Alene Idaho to West Glacier Montana, a highway work crew had diverted traffic eastbound onto an offramp and back up the onramp so they could repair an overpass. I noticed a little late that the cars and trucks in front of me were not negotiating the bottom of the offramp too well, and discovered, at about 20 mph, that there was a pretty sizeable dip in the road. We hit that baby and nearly caught air! When we arrived at West Glacier, we noticed some broken Correlle plate fragments. 2 small dessert plates had jumped out of an overhead cabinet when the door opened and smashed to smithereens on the floor. The cabinet door closed all by itself. We swept it up, initially thinking it was a single plate, but as we opened and closed the sofa slide over the next few days, more shards kept appearing out from under it, thus leading us to count the remaining plates and arriving at the correct damage assessment. If this is all we suffer from bad roads, more power to us!

After our overnight, we’ll head south with our sights set on Carlsbad Caverns for Memorial Day. And here’s some good advice for planning walking tours.

We bugged out of Rapid City wanting some flatter land to tow through, so we drifted south and east toward the promise of the Great Plains. Our target was Alliance Nebraska, where a colorful local by the name of Jim Reinders reproduced the ancient temple of Stonehenge using cars instead of rocks. It’s a to-scale model, with precisely placed elements matching the original complete with an eastward facing portal that directs rays of the sunrise onto a specific fender of a specific rusty hulk on a specific day, which is implied but not specified. That’s not important. What is important is WHY he did it. When asked, he answered “Why not?”. So, there, in a nutshell is what’s important today. This is what counts for excitement in Nebraska.

A historical plaque informed us that the temple was completely assembled over 6 days during a large family visit in the summer of 1987. By his calculations, “we were able to reduce the time of the original Stonehenge construction by 9,999 years and 1 week”, thus imparting some sort of obtuse historical victory to the Reinders Clan. There are also a few other art exhibits constructed on the site.

Bonus Update on rocks for Rushmore and Crazy Horse: we did commemorative painted rocks in honor of our 2 main attractions. They are planted in Rapid City SD and Alliance NE, and their twins will live in our Florida garden.

The remaining ride to Cheyenne was predictably flat until we turned west at Kimball and began a long 60-mile uphill grade toward the Rockies that consumed well over ½ tank of gas (estimated mileage about 6 mpg). You could practically hear my wallet screaming. We were rewarded, however, with some very stunning landscape views, like Scott’s Bluff, which just rises out of the flat plain.

We will next have a walking tour visit to Cheyenne, the capitol of Wyoming and its largest city with about ½ million population.

Tippy is an elephant of high character.

Due to our early start at Mt. Rushmore (we had plenty of parking choices), we finished up at Crazy Horse before 11AM. We took advantage of the free afternoon to make a detour to Wall Drug, about 50 miles east of Rapid City. It seems like a long “detour”, but with 80 mph speed limits on the interstate, it goes pretty quick. Especially when driving the truck without our house attached.

The internet tells us that Wall Drug, like the Kardashian’s, is famous for being famous. Started in 1931 by Ted and Dorothy Hustead, Dorothy’s genius idea to offer free ice water to travelers on the nearby highway, advertised via roadside signs, started them down the path to monster tourist attraction. If one sign worked well, thought Ted, why wouldn’t a hundred signs work a hundred times better? Soon, signs were appearing everywhere, and when they started their program to offer free signs simply by asking for one (a program that persists to this day), they started appearing all over the world, driven partly by American GI’s being deployed all over said world during WWII. The only requirement to receive a sign: post the mileage to Wall Drug and send us a photo. I’ve seen them all over the US, and as you drive there on Interstate 90 you can see 3 or 4 every mile.

Here’s one far flung fan:

Main Street in Wall South Dakota is totally dominated by Wall Drug. Filling a city block, there are other symbiotic businesses lining the block across the street that try to compete selling pretty much the same stuff but can’t compete with the prices. The only benefit they offer is a lower crowd density, and tattoos. There are many parking lots surrounding the “downtown core” which is primarily Wall Drug. But we must have a large supply of parking karma in the bank because we parked directly in front of one entrance, the Café, where we enjoyed a Buffalo burger and hamburger for lunch. The onion rings were fantastic! And the free ice water was as good as it can be. We passed on the 5-cent coffee, which is offered through an honor bar (“Place nickel in slot prior to serving yourself”).

You can imagine the scene if you can picture about 15 Disney gift shops packed into a building that covers a city block. Resisting the temptation to empty our wallets to benefit the Husteads, we bought a magnet, something we have been doing everywhere on this trip. Then we hightailed it out of town, but not before posing with our two new Besties of Wall.

Our second day of touring was reserved for Deadwood. I had visited 40+ years ago and still had fond memories of the authentic old West gold rush town. In those days, it was still burnished by its birth in 1874 out of a gulch full of dead trees and a creek full of gold. Main Street had the famous saloons and brothels maintained to help impart a sense of the lawlessness and excitement that was Deadwood in the late 1870’s. Wild Bill Hickok arrived here and within a few weeks was gunned down while holding a hand of aces and eights, the “dead man’s hand”. Calamity Jane is buried next to him in the local cemetery. I’m a sucker for old American history, and this place in those days fed that rush.

Today’s Deadwood is a pretty severe disappointment. Main Street is still there, although it has been transformed by a plague of major hotel/casinos that have discovered the new gold: trading history for profits.

These monster establishments literally cast shadows over the original town, blotting out the past so completely that the new town fathers have resorted to a few well-placed historical signs and daily re-enactments of street gun fights (only in the summer season) to remind their craps and slot-playing customers that this was once a wild western place. One may as well visit Reno.

We truncated our Black Hills Deadwood tour early and drove in silence back to the rig. On a brighter note, we used the extra time to catch up on our rock painting and blog writing!

Tippy is a huge Elon Musk fan.

Fresh out of Sturgis, we got settled into Rapid City South RV, aptly named for its location on the highway to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, our main attractions for the area. This is a 3 night stop for us, a chance to really recharge the batteries and do some touring. We’re still seeing profuse evidence of a very conservative population, up to and including whole stores devoted to Trump 2024 (yes, many of these folks seem convinced), heralded by billboards on the highway. It’s a notable observation, not because of the political sentiment, but that folks can apparently make a good living off of it. Who‘da thunk?

With 2 whole days to tour, we planned the first as a Mt. Rushmore to Crazy Horse round trip. We realize that there isn’t a lot to do at Mt. Rushmore other than staring in awe at the mountain, and then emptying your wallet in the gift shop (we didn’t). We had each been there before, at least 40 years or more earlier. And boy has it changed. I remember it being a single parking lot, very crowded, with limited parking for longer or larger rigs. And the Visitor Center was a single building affair with a large veranda at the back for viewing the sculpture. From the parking lot, to the veranda, ooing and awing, then a quick stop in the very small gift shop, back to the car was about a 20 to 30 minute deal. But the National Park Service budget has been very kind to them. There is now a 6 level parking structure, with elevators and ramps and a Disneyland-like crowd funneling system to get everyone to the front of a massive Visitor Complex that has at least 4 buildings, including an ice cream store, a restaurant, a gift shop, restrooms, and a Greeting Center. It’s still just the same few minutes to oooh and aww, but the hike from the parking to the viewing plaza, which is enormous, can take at least 15 minutes, if you don’t count the 15 minutes it takes to pay your automated kiosk parking pass.

Wendy remembers the thrill of the “first sight” as you drive into the monument on the windy mountain road.

And you can get some pretty nice views without even going into the “complex”.

Once in, and parked, and paid (the monument itself is free, parking is paid at $10 per car, $5 for seniors), you have to hike through the canyon of buildings, catching ever increasing glimpses of the faces as you progress through the “Sculptors Plaza”(Gutzon Borglum is the man) and the “Walk of Flags” where all of the states and territories of the USA are represented.

We knew it would be a quick stop, and we intentionally arrived a little before it opened at 8AM to give us plenty of time to get to Crazy Horse, where we were assured there was much more to do. We snapped the obligatory selfie and hit the road for a 25-minute drive to our next stop. On the way there, we found a very interesting view of George Washington from the highway.

Crazy Horse is a different deal. It has no affiliation with the federal government, the creators intentionally refusing federal funds as a way to stay clear of bureaucracy, intrusive oversight and regulation. As a result, the progress toward completion has taken many decades, and will likely take many more decades until it is done. We were both there the same 40 plus years ago, and although it has changed significantly (better parking lots, roads, and a museum/visitor center, some carving progress), it still gives off the same vibe that it used to. The aura of the place draws deeply on the Native American intention to honor their ancestors through the stone embodiment of Crazy Horse.

Just like Rushmore, you get an early tease before you arrive as the mountainous land gives way to a flatter valley.

We had been using our National Park Service Senior “Forever” Pass ($10 when we bought it 6 years ago, now $80) frequently to get into Glacier, Yellowstone, Custer, Devils Tower, etc. But we had to fork over $12 each to get into Crazy Horse. It really seems worth it. The story of the Lakota Tribe finding and hiring Korczak Ziolkowski, the polish sculptor who had assisted Borglum with Rushmore, and then negotiating the agreements and strategy for the development, is a powerful tale of the marriage of intent, desire, talent, and perseverance to achieve something deemed impossible to most. The result very adeptly captures and projects all that went into it onto the viewers.

For the best experience, we recommend the $4 one-hour bus ride to the base of the mountain. The raw power of the stone, and the effort required to tame it is easy to miss from a distance. And, as a bonus, our Lakota native driver, whose birth name translated to “Crying Boy” but he goes by his “white” name Gary, provided a non-stop diatribe about his family, his girlfriend’s family (a different tribe, not Lakota fans), Crazy Horse’s family, and his work history for the last 20 years. If you listened with a very open mind, you could cull quite a bit of Native American history and sentiment out of his narrative. We found it very entertaining and left him a nice tip. He had very authentic hair. He told us his favorite Lakota joke, giving us a sense of Native American humor. As a setup, the Lakota are considered, simultaneously, the low life of Native Americans, and the fiercest warriors. So, the joke goes as two old natives, a Crow and a Lakota, sit talking: Says the old Crow to the old Lakota, “We used to raid your villages and steal your women and your horses.” The old Lakota considers this for a while, and then responds “When we raided your villages we saw your women, and that’s why we only stole horses”. A little pee might have come out.

Next post: we reveal our Deadwood Day, and our bonus side trip, Wall Drug!

And here’s a tip from Tippy, a big Miles Davis fan.

I can’t believe I skipped one of our “unplanned but then planned” side trips. We originally endeavored to drive basically straight east from West Yellowstone, traversing Yellowstone National Park and exiting through the East Gate, proceeding down Highway 14 through Cody Wyoming and into Ranchester. But we discovered on our trip to Canyon Center (the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone), that the road through to the East Gate was closed in places because it wasn’t yet plowed, and we had no idea how long it would be until that changed. So, we “re-routed” and backtracked north to Interstate 90.

Wendy’s doctor had heartily suggested that we visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, previously known as Custer’s Last Stand. Our new route brought that into play, and it was a perfect stop for lunch.

But first! In response to the massive appeal by subscribers for help locating the mystery climbers of Devil’s Tower, a clue:

Now, back to the battlefield. This National Park Service monument has its own off ramp from Interstate 90, so there isn’t much of a detour from our BTE. It isn’t a big site, either in size or in infrastructure. There was parking for maybe 75 cars and about 6 or 7 RVs, and the gift shop would be crowded with more than 40 people. But the relatively small size of the site belies the large impact it can have on you.

In June of 1877 George Custer and 276 other members of the 7^th Cavalry Regiment were wiped out by several thousand tribal warriors when they foolishly attacked a large native encampment without waiting for reinforcements to arrive. The treeless landscape is bleak, and when we were there, it was cold and windy.

Standing atop the hill that Custer and his men died on, the vastness of the space and image of what it might have looked like with 2 to 3 thousand attacking warriors coming at you, it is easy to imagine the fear and dread those men felt in their final moments. It is a powerful moment, and we’re happy to have taken advantage of it. If you are ever in the neighborhood, it’s a highly recommended stop.

And here’s a bonus Tippy.

At 550 miles, it’s too far a reach to get from West Yellowstone Montana to Rapid City South Dakota in one drive, so we overnighted in Ranchester Wyoming, a suburb of Sheridan. This is Coal Country, as the many trains pulling hundreds of coal cars will attest. Our small RV park for the night, the Lazy R, is basically someone’s large back yard with about 20 sites cut into it. It really imparts the feel of staying in a very small town just like you lived in the neighborhood. We took a walk after getting set up, through the neighborhood, and found a delightful little gang of girls selling lemonade for $1 a cup. In my day it was more like $0.10, but my day is long gone. These little capitalists were entertaining, one of them waving a large cardboard sign and shouting her head off “Lemonade, L E M O N A D E ! !” so loud we could hear her a block away. No cars or people around, mind you (except for the guy driving the lawn tractor down the main drag), but they were doing the best they could, so we happily paid them 5 bucks for 2 cups. I did notice their money jar was crammed with bills, either “tip bait” put there by Mom, or they had successfully fleeced the entire population of Ranchester at their going rate.

Beside the train whistles (and I’m being polite here, a diesel engine horn isn’t the quaint steam whistle of years gone by), we also were serenaded (again) by propane heaters in the night, whooshing and throbbing like a 747 jet engine as they rhythmically turn on and off several times an hour. Al Gore should up his game and include a message about electric heat in RVs. It would improve our life considerably. But the drive and the very fresh cold air induced sleep, in spite of it all.

As we penetrate the heart of the country southeastwardly, the change in weather, scenery and pace of life is mirrored in the politics on display. Houses and businesses displaying American flags are everywhere. “Biden did that” stickers are stuck on lots of gas station pumps. The local minimart had a placard on the front door declaring “Coal Guns Freedom”. A sign along the road reminded us that President Reagan once allowed “We don’t have inflation because WE are living too well, we have inflation because GOVERNMENT is living too well.” A bumper sticker on a truck advised “Have you noticed that there have been no news stories about people who have lost their businesses or livelihoods?” I think that the vast interior reaches of this country are like this, unseen and unheard by the coastal denizens because our media complex doesn’t find them interesting or noteworthy. They only really get to be heard every 2 or 4 years, and it will be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Lest you all think that living in this tiny box on wheels is a sacrifice, be assured we are doing just fine! Wendy, the irrepressible baker, made some Snickerdoodles, and we killed a houseplant, just like in a real house!

RV living is by nature a little cramped, and your toes, shins, elbows, and knuckles need some time to learn the limits on movement in it. The payoff: cleaning the bathroom in 3 minutes without taking a step (same with the kitchen). Our relatives in Florida, Glen and Donna (Daniel’s other grandparents), purport to have one-upped us on the tiny living space and volunteered to meet us in Nashville.

The drive from Sheridan to Rapid City was planned as an express route, but Wendy has found she can occupy her time as co-pilot by researching things we are passing near on our route. She found 2 “bonus” side-trips on this leg. The first was about a 40-mile detour, paralleling our planned route (nicely done Wendy!) to Devils Tower in Wyoming. I had never been, and she insisted that I just HAD to see it. She was right. It has stunning views from every angle and distance. In the right-hand picture, there are 2 climbers at the bottom of one of the vertical grooves. HINT: in a future blog post, I’ll reveal where!

The Native American story is that the tower was created by the Great Spirit to save 7 sisters from a bear that was chasing them, raising it from the earth beneath their feet. The bear, still pursuing them, created the “scratches” on the walls as shown in this authentic depiction. I know I’m a storyteller, and occasionally take a little poetic license, but this one tops my best. Vindication.

While Devils Tower is famously known for the starkness of its being, lesser known is that it is also home to the National Prairie Dog Monument. This small, 2-acre field has seemingly thousands of prairie dogs, who I suspect have all been trained to pose for photos. Here’s a wide shot of the field, and a close up of the same spot. Point a camera and they all snap to and freeze in perfect Prairie Dog Poses!

Bonus side-trip #2. I’m a car guy. When traveling to Rapid City South Dakota on Interstate 90, one comes temptingly close to Sturgis, the center of the universe for bikers since the start of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 81 years ago. That first event drew less than a dozen bikes and riders. Last year was the 81^st Anniversary, and it drew about 525,000 participants for the actual week of the rally in August, and another million seasonal visitors. I love cars and motorbikes, but not as much as I love ice cream. We went to Sturgis. To Emma’s Ice Cream Emporium on Main Street. Where we parked the truck and trailer parallel in a row of “head in only” parking spots, taking up ½ a city block of parking, and got our ice cream. Then we hightailed it out of town before the sheriff got wind of it.

And Lacey has another friend, meet Blaze. Blaze was gifted to us by a tenant at Peoples Storage, and his magnetic feet make it easy for him to “hang around” the rig. He has secret stash compartments all over him.

As a note to our replacement managers, Debbie & Tommy, here’s what we back up to at Rapid City South RV Park. We just can’t escape!

Ladies and Gents, Tippy.