MPH Travels: How the West Was Won

Changing Landscapes and National Treasures – 14/06/10

We got on the road early this morning. We got up at 5am and were on the road before 6. We continued west on I 90 for another 130 miles, before turning south too enter the famous South Dakota Badlands National Park. Along the way we finally saw a roadrunner walking along the side of the road. They’re not really blue, you know.

We stopped in at an old trading post to use the restrooms and discovered the Minuteman Nuclear Missile Historic Site next door. So many people drive across this country and forget that there used to be thousands of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silos concealed below the rolling meadows and farm belt. There are still 500 active ones today. It was a really interesting diversion.

The Badlands themselves are something else entirely. Imagine: for the past week we’ve been looking at nothing but farmland and suddenly we’re in this mud and rock landscape that looks like something from another planet. We had heard that it feels vaguely like walking on another world but the sensation is quite acute when you get away from other people. We were lucky that it wasn’t very crowded today. It has been a bit drizzly (as was yesterday) and the muddy landscape is very treacherous to walk on. This difficulty in walking requires the adopting of a peculiar flat-footed gait and this just adds to the sensation that you are noplace on Earth. It was awesome. We drove all the way through the park and it was simply beautiful the whole way. It is not teeming with life but we saw wild goats and prairie dogs. They look kind of like big gerbils but they wave a longer tail that they wag like a dogs, and they yip like a small dog. Guess that must be where they get their name.
As soon as you leave the park, the landscape turns back to rolling prairie again.

We rejoined I 90 at the town of Wall, where we stopped to look around the famous drugstore, Wall Drug. This place was opened in 1931 and has been growing ever since. It is not just a drugstore but a collection of adjoining stores and museums that pay honour (and money) to all things western.
Cowboys, Indians, outlaws, lawmen, animals and fossils. It’s all there. I wanted to buy the Tyrannosaurus Rex skull for $15800, but Pia wouldn’t let me, so I settled for a prehistoric shark’s tooth.

After having lunch and a good look around Wall, we hit the highway for Rapid City. We turned south in Rapid City and immediately we were in the black hills. They got the name from the Indians who thought they looked black rising out of the green meadows in the distance. This appearance is because they are covered (thickly) with pine trees. Suddenly the landscape had changed again and it looks like Colorado. It’s all steep hills and cliffs and pine forests and fast-running rivers. The roads are all narrow, full of switchbacks, steep, cross many beautiful bridges and pass through stony tunnels. It’s possibly the most breathtaking scenery by far.

In the early afternoon, we passed through the magnificent small town of Keystone (I’ll bet the local police hate that name) and continuing into hills, found the Spokane Creek Campground. It’s stunning. It’s unseasonably cool at the moment and it may dip toward freezing tonight, but we hope for the best.

After booking into the last space in the campground, we drove over Iron Mountain on the twistiest, most stunning road. There were deer roaming through the steep woods and all the winter snow is gone. The speed limit is only 25 and that’s fast enough. There are a lot of hairpin turns and several places where the road goes down a vertical drop by means of a spiralling, corkscrew bridge, made of wood. There are also three narrow, stone tunnels and two of them perfectly frame Mt Rushmore in the distance. It was deliberately designed that way by a genius.

Before long we were at Mt Rushmore itself. It is really breathtaking. There are a small number of places in the world, I reckon, that you simply cannot believe when you see them with your own eyes. The pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx are one. Mt Rushmore is another. We just stared at it for ages. There is a visitors’ centre and museum at the base and we looked in there. It was really one of the best experiences of the trip. Just before we left the weather started to close in and we saw the mist roll in and create a ghostly image around the faces.

Tomorrow, we hope to return (it’s only 30 minutes away) and visit the studio of the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum (also on site) and do one of the hikes up the base of the mountain. Awesome. It’s all weather dependant, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

Presidents and Close Encounters – 15/06/10

This morning we left the campground after a great breakfast and returned to Mt Rushmore. The weather was great and we had a look at the monument in sunny daylight. We walked the Presidential Trail, which leads right to the base of the monument. The artist’s studio was closed today, though. On a closing note, Mt Rushmore is not only stunning. It is humbling. It is a great credit to the artist and his subjects and to the whole nation.

I reckon Australia should do something like this to Ayers Rock, eh?

We hit the road, headed west on US16 and although we had been told that the Crazy Horse monument was well worth seeing, we just looked at it from the road. It will be awesome when it’s finished.

We passed through the town of Custer, named after General George Custer, who I ran into walking out of a gas station as I was walking in. Seriously, George Custer.

We crossed the Wyoming border on US16 and within an hour or two, we were parked at the side of the road staring a bit dumbstruck at the Devil’s Tower.
We went into the park and hiked around the tower itself. It is just amazing. There were people climbing it, too.
We had a mild heart attack when we nearly stepped on a bowl snake. They’re harmless, but are marked a bit like a rattler and this one was about 5 feet long.
An elderly man from South Africa who was passing by thought that a pair of Australians running from a snake was hilarious.
The Devil’s Tower is just a stunning form that is hypnotic to stare at. It has a real aura. I wanted to bring it home with me.

We drove through the late afternoon and rented a log cabin for the night in the town of Buffalo, Wyoming.

We just grabbed Mickey D’s for dinner and I had a chat with a couple of heavy haulage truckers outside. We talked shop awhile and they warned us that everything was more expensive in Canada (which we had already noticed in Ontario). We’re not really sure about that leg of the journey yet. Our hope is to go north from Yellowstone into Canada and drive west to Vancouver. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Tomorrow, we hope to follow US hwy 16, also known as ‘Sweet 16’ to Yellowstone. Tonight, though, we are wasted.

Animal Matters: Today we saw wild mountain goats at Mt Rushmore and more prairie dogs at Devil’s Tower.