Mt. Coolidge

From Heartland RV Park, Hermosa, SD

On our way to Custer, SD for lunch, we spotted a tall mountain with lots of radio/TV antennas on it.  We didn't think too much about it until we came to a road to the summit.  Nothing more fun then taking a gravel road with no guard rails up the side of mountain.  When we hit the top, we found a fire tower and multiple equipment buildings for various broadcast, cell, and other transmission antennas.  I suppose we should have worn our tin foil hats, but you know how that goes.

There was a nice observation platform by the fire tower so up the steps we went.  I have not resized these images so to see full resolution, click on them.

The view from the top of the observation platform on the fire tower.

The Needles are on the far left; Mt. Rushmore is just above and to the right of the telephone pole by the propane tank.

The Needles

Mt. Rushmore

Crazy Horse (just to the right of the center hump)

My best guess is that we were 5+ miles from any of the features.  The haze was a little worse than normal (thought to be smoke from Washington forest fires) and cut down on the contrast a bit.  I was also shooting without a tripod or mono pod which made it interesting at 500 mm.  I might try this again on a clear day.  Pretty amazing view.

Custer State Park

From Heartland RV Park, Hermosa, SD

If you enjoy the outdoors and seeing wildlife, then Custer State Park is a must.  While animals can be found almost anywhere, certain times of the day are better.  Normally early or late are your best bets.

Our official greeter - the black footed prairie dog.  Abundant and cute, they are concentrate in a fairly large colony near the Wildlife Station on the Wildlife Loop road.  Ask the rangers how to get to their area.

The big draw of Custer State Park is, of course, the buffalo (actually they are bison, but let's not get too technical).

They can be found anywhere along the Wildlife Loop Road and tend to move quite a bit during the day.

This was a pretty large herd that saw before we got to the Wildlife Station.  They seemed pretty stationary to us at the time.

We visited the Wildlife Station to see the exhibits, talk to the ranger, use the pit toilets (got to love those!) and so on.  We got directions to the prairie dog town and off we went.

And smack in the middle of the prairie dog area was this prong horn antelope.  I always thought of antelope and naturally skittish - not this one.  We were out of the car looking at the prairie dogs and a twitch.

Meanwhile, back at the Wildlife Station, the bison had come to visit.  The whole herd, so it seemed, had taken up residence around the station and created quite a bison jamb.

We were up a side road when we got stopped by this young lady.

At least we thought it was a female since there was a calf close by.  Mary wanted the window rolled up.  I'm not sure why since glass doesn't really offer a lot of protection against 1500 lbs of wild bison.

Of course, the calves are the cute.  Bison have created these scrapes all over the areas they roam to rub in.  The dust and dirt helps protect them from insects and apparently they learn to roll in it at a young age.

The bison herd is managed by the state and every Fall there is a large round-up.  Since bison pretty much do what they want, it must be quite a sight trying to get these big stubborn animals into a corral.

How about 1 ton of prime bison?  These boys are big and pretty much go anywhere they want.

The one sighting you can almost always count on are the wild donkeys.  These are not native to the area but are descendants of donkeys that were used as pack animals and escaped.  They are also very popular with the tourists as you can actually touch and pet them - unlike bison who would just as soon kill you.

And as we left the Wildlife Loop road, more prong horns - including the two young ones following mom.

Go early or late and enjoy the animals.

Back home again in South Dakota

From Heartland RV Park, Hermosa, SD...

We have returned (along with our neighbors Kris and Bill Osborne and Steve and Karen Fischer) to South Dakota.  Neighbors is the proper term as we are all at the same campground and only a few file folders apart at America's Mailbox, our legal address and mail drop.

When we were here last July, we had gotten everything taken care of except having our wills redrafted.  Our short stay also didn't give us much sightseeing time as we would have liked so this Summer seemed like an ideal time to take care of sightseeing and the wills.

If you have never been to Rapid City and the Black Hills, do plan to come.  There is so much to do and see here, that it is rather astounding.  Rapid City holds free concerts every Thursday night.  For a write up on "Summer Nights" see Steve's post.

Another excellent venue in Rapid City is the Journey Museum.  Both Kris and Bill and Steve and Karen have blogged about it and instead of repeating everything, here are links to their posts.  Kris and Bill on the Journey Museum; Steve and Karen on the Journey Museum.

We have been here two weeks as I write this and plan to stay another three.  We have even managed a side trip out of the area to Scottsbluff, NE (I had a diabetes program there) which I will blog about later.  However, each day has been go, go, go and we need a short vacation.  Here's a list of places/things we have seen to this point:

1.  Custer State Park
2.  Mt. Coolidge
3.  Sturgis
4.  Lead (Deadwood is just too commercial for us)
5.  Wind Cave National Park
6.  Hot Springs, SD
7.  Vore Buffalo Jump
8.  Devils Tower National Monument
9.  Scottsbluff, NE

As you can see, we haven't been back to Mt. Rushmore, Needles Highway, Iron Highway, the Badlands or any of the other "biggies".  Maybe in the next couple of week.

I plan to write short blogs about most of these trips.

Westward Ho!

July 20th from Hermosa, SD

(want larger images? - just click on them)

We spent a fun week in Lincoln, NE before moving on West to our home state of South Dakota.  I always had this impression that Nebraska was long, flat, and boring.  I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong.

We picked Lincoln because it was 1) close to an airport; and 2) Mary said there was lots to do.  Since I was going to be gone for three days doing a couple of diabetes programs in Louisville, it was a good thing she was right.

Our first excursion was to the SAC Museum which is about halfway between Lincoln and Omaha.

This is an SR-71 - this was, and still is, the fastest aircraft ever built.
When you consider it was designed in early 1960's, pre-super computer,
you will begin to understand how special it really was.

The museum is a good look back at the Cold War era and our nuclear deterrent.  Nebraska was the home base to the Strategic Air Command.

Right down the road from the museum was the Nebraska Wild Animal Park.  We thought this was your basic commercial drive through park but it was not.  It is run by the Omaha Zoo, pretty inexpensive and very well done.  We unfortunately didn't plan ahead for this one and left the good camera in the motorhome.  These are the best we could do with our iPhones.

Bald Eagles

Bison (see, South Dakota does not have a lock on these)

Sand Hill Cranes

White Pelicans

There were also Elk, deer, bears, wolves and more.  Maybe the best deal in wild animal parks in the US.

The next visit was to the Nebraska State Capital.  We had a great tour guide who showed us the workings of a pretty unique building.  The current building is actually Nebraska's third capital building.  The first two were not made of materials that could withstand the harsh winters.  The current building, which was built around the second building, is made out of Indiana limestone - just like the buildings in much of Washington, DC.  It is also the second tallest capital in the US.

One of the many mosaic murals in the building

Our last night in Lincoln was spent at a ball game - The Salt Dogs (named after the local creek that runs behind the stadium).

As you can see in the photo, it was a dark and stormy night.  Nice ball park but attendance was way down because of the impending bad weather.  As it turned out, no rain delays and the game went 9 innings with the Salt Dogs winning in the bottom of the ninth.

Next stop - North Platte, NE

Because Nebraska is soooo long (or wide depending on your viewpoint), we decided to break it into segments.  North Platte seemed like a good jumping off point since it had a couple of things it is famous for.  Starting with, Buffalo Bill Cody who maintained a home in North Platte that served as his family home when he wasn't traveling with his Wild West Show.  Buffalo Bill was a mega-star of his era and you will find towns and museums all over the west that reference him.  His ranch on the north edge of North Platte is known as Scout's Rest.  His house was a favorite stopping off point for other stars, dignitaries, and royalty of the era.

The other major draw in North Platte is the Union Pacific Railroad.  The UP was the founder of North Platte as it turns out that the area is exactly half way between Omaha and Denver which made it kind of a natural for a rail and locomotive servicing area.  Today, the UP's Bailey Yard is the largest rail yard in US.  The view below is about half the yard and shows the locomotive repair facility and the eastbound hump and classification yard.  Trains, with cars destined for specific areas, are "built" in the hump yard which uses computers and gravity to sort incoming rail cars into outbound trains.  There is a westbound equivalent as well.  The whole yard area is about a mile wide by 4-5 miles long.

All the locomotive power today is diesel powered but steam engines are still everyone's favorite.  This is a 4-6-6-4 Challenger that sitting in the North Platte city park.  Fueled up and ready to run, it weighs over a million pounds.  It looks like you could fill it with water and light the fires and take it for a run.  UP still runs one or two steam engines for special excursions.

Sidney, NE

Last stop on our Nebraska journey was Sidney.  In the past, it was a merging point for cattle trails and also the Oregon and Mormon trails.  Today, it is home to Cabelas Sporting goods.  We stayed in the Cabela's campground and enjoyed the short walk to the store.  We did take advantage of their huge Summer sale while we were at it.

The sunset photo above was taken at the campground.  The general direction was towards Scottsbluff, NE where a large thunderstorm was brewing.

The picture above was taken on our way north to South Dakota.  See, Nebraska isn't all flat.  Actually, this area is part of the Nebraska National Forest.

Next stop - Hermosa, SD for a couple of weeks.