Wall South Dakota & the Badlands - Trip back to Florida

As we leave the Black Hills, Ray and I reflect on how beautiful this area is and how much more we would like to have seen. We will be back for sure if we ever get in this direction in our travels. But not during the two weeks before and after Sturgis Annual Rally. We would certainly explore the small towns that abound around Rapid City, especially Belle Fourche, located at a “beautiful fork” in the river that gave the town its name. Significance is that the US Coast and Geodetic Survey officially designated a point 20 miles north of Belle Fourche as the Geographic Center of the Nation. On my list of must-see places next time will be the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, home to America’s largest wild horse herd! Located at Hot Springs, SD.
Saturday, August 04 - We drove 55 miles from Rapid City, to Wall, South Dakota on I-90, a colorful western town. We arrived at Sleepy Hollow Campground. The park is reasonable and we have 50amp service. There are not many people in the park, surprisingly.
The Badlands area is a wonderland of water chiseled spires, ragged ridges, rugged canyons and prairie. The lower prairie lying along the flood plain of the White River is a sod-covered expanse dotted with scattered buttes. The upper prairie varies from great grassy flats to gentle grassy undulations. And there is "The Wall" standing between the two, serving as a barrier to north and south going traffic. "The Wall" is a rugged strip a half mile to three miles wide and nine miles long with a succession of tinted spires, ridges and twisted gullies.

From "The Wall," the name of the town of Wall, South Dakota is derived. Wall was established as a railroad station on the C&NW Railroad in the summer of 1907.

The Wall Drug Store is known as the "free ice water store." Glasses and thermos jugs are filled by the thousands every day at the "free ice water store" for the visitors in town!

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The Badlands: Rt. 240 takes drivers amidst the National Park’s most dramatic rock formations. Badlands was originally proclaimed a National Monument in 1939 and later became a National Park in 1978. The reasons for the park’s special significance include: spectacular vistas and scenery that inspired the first description of the "badlands" landform; it contains rich fossil remains of early mammals; it was the birthplace of the science of vertebrate paleontology (the study of fossils); it contains the finest remnant of mixed grass prairie in the U.S.; and it contains places of spiritual and historical significance to the Lakota Sioux nation. Pictures do not do this incredible land justice.

This is a fossil dig and when we walked the wood path, the heat was unbearable.

Tuesday, August 7 - Left at 7:30 am to travel from Wall, SD on I-90 to Adrian, Minnesota, Adrian Campground. The land is far from flat as there are rock formations off in the distance that look like remnants of the Badlands. The wheat fields run for miles. Most of the fields have already been harvested and the bales of hay were everywhere. We drove 330 miles to Adrian, and set up for a one-night stay. The park is large with grassy sites. But, the flies were bad.

Wednesday, August 08-09 - At 7:30 am we started to drive another long day across south Minnesota on I-90. We encountered a group of firefighters preparing to walk over the mountain to another huge forest fire. Traffic was held up for awhile as they unloaded their men and equipment to their staging area. We are still at 1,600 ft. elevation. Took lots of pictures of the changing landscape. We crossed the border into Wisconsin and we started seeing green hills, trees, and farms.

We arrived around 2:30 and set up our home on a beautiful site looking out over the Petenwell Lake. Petenwell County Park, WI has very nice RV sites on the lake. We are in a county park and a lot of small trailers, campers, etc. are set up for the summer retreat for families. The lake is beautiful and the bugs are out in full force, but the heat is not bad at 88 degrees. We found out our site is reserved for the weekend, so we have to leave on Friday instead of Monday. We drove into the small towns of Adams/Friendship for groceries, had lunch at a local restaurant. Took pictures of sunset on the lake.

Friday, August 10 - We left early (7:45) to drive from Petenwell Lake County Park, Wisconsin to arrive at Sugar Creek RV Campground in Crawfordsville, Indiana. There are corn fields everywhere. We are now encountering a lot of big cities and a lot of traffic since we are parallel with Chicago, 109 miles to our east. At noon, we are in Illinois on I-39 south. Cornfields look taller and healthier, so we believe they must have had more rain here. At 2:30 pm we crossed the Indiana border heading east. Stopped at a very small campground in Crawfordsville, but we have 50 amp service. Site size is good. Hot weather and flies hanging around. We stayed inside until late in evening.

Saturday, August 11 - We drove 125 miles from Crawfordsville, Indiana to Thousand Trails Indian Lakes campground near Batesville, Indiana. A very large park with nice sites. We are on a cul-de-sac and a lot of trees behind us to give us shade in the afternoon. Paved streets with grass and gravel sites. As we drove the surrounding areas, we saw so many fields of corn and soy beans. We kept buying the sweet corn along the way since it tastes incredible. Also saw a lot of old barns. Sunday, we went into the town of Greendale where a new theater was showing the Bourne Ultimatum. Was a great movie. We kept watching the weather channel and saw that we are getting out of the Wisconsin/Minnesota area before the huge front of rain hits. We extended our stay here until Thursday since the park is so pleasant and it is only hotter as we move southeast.

Thursday, August 16 - Left Indian Lakes in Batesville to drive over 300 miles to our one-night stay at Soaring Eagle RV Park in Lenoir, Tennessee. Park is reasonable at $24 a night, but asphalt parking lot and no ambiance whatsoever. Across Hwy. 275 South, we crossed the Ohio River. There was a lot of road construction along the way. And then we crossed the Kentucky state line. Kentucky is full of hills and wide roads mostly in good condition, and green trees everywhere. At 11:30pm, we crossed the Tennessee line.

Friday, August 17 - Left Soaring Eagle RV Park in Lenoir, Tennessee on Rt. 40 to I-75 on our way to Atlanta, Georgia and a small RV park in Cordele. Arrived around 2pm. The park (PA approved) is in very poor condition, without any defined sites. Had to look for our own site up on a hill with red paint on the electric connection box. The heat was unbearable, so 50 amp service was a must. Overgrown grass and stagnate pond. Mostly permanent residents in small trailers. Not a pretty sight. We had a major storm that night with lightning and thunder, and winds rocked the coach. The good news was that we were on high ground.

Saturday, August 18 - We left Cordele RV Park, Georgia at 8am. We crossed the Florida line mid-morning and the sky was a white smog and I could barely make our some white clouds in the sky above. The sun was trying to peek through.

We encountered our FIRST problem on the road that required us to remove our TOW.

Ray wanted to get diesel gas and realized at the last minute that the station was impossible to navigate the RV with the tow. We had to turn into a Best Western in Gainesville to turn around through their driveway. There was a concrete post that made it impossible to maneuver and Ray had to disassemble the tow so I could drive the truck out to a side street to reattach the tow.

We arrived at Grand Lake RV & Golf Resort, Orange Lake, FL. What a breath of fresh air to finally locate a park that is not only free of dirt and dust (paved sites), but there is a lot of room between neighbors. The golf course is on premises and very busy, even though it is HOT at 98 degrees. The park is not full this time of year so we got a great rate. They say in the season this park is hopping with all kinds of things for visitors to do. We are on a concrete site which is rare, but the grass sites are not that bad. Satellite, cell and Internet is all working.

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Lionshead RV Resort in West Yellowstone, MT

Sunday, July 22 - We left Fairmont RV Park, Anaconda, Montana around 8:00 am after first filling up with diesel at the Flying J. Took I-90 and crossed a huge mountain range, the famous Rocky Mountains. We climbed up to 7,500 ft. elevation. The diversity of the scenery was amazing. Where we passed through valleys there were huge horse ranches spread out and mobile homes or shanties were the norm; a few nice ranch-style homes sprinkled here and there. We see a haze in the distance and can’t figure out what it is. Ray turned onto SR 191 south (a scenic drive). We saw cliffs that looked like granite and have large veins of coral color running through them. Every bend we take is another beautiful scene. We arrived at Lionshead RV Resort in West Yellowstone, MT around noon. We like the park with mountains all around us and lots of room at our site. There is a mountain stream at the back of the park where we take Mitzy to run around.

We saw several families of these critters running around the park and looks like they love to set up camp under the permanent RVs. Really cute.

Tuesday, July 24 - We used Buffalo Tours to see the lower (south) loop of Yellowstone National Park. They somehow canceled our reservation and when we called they picked us up within twenty minutes. The driver, Jay, was good at bringing up the finer details of the park and we sighted many wildlife, either up close and personal, or very far away (the grizzly bear). The stops were sometimes too long, but with twenty people to satisfy, it was necessary. We were gone from the park for eleven hours and Mitzy had to stay home. She did great, but we were so concerned since we have never left her alone over five hours.
Yellowstone National Park is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. Over 10,000 geysers. One-third of the park was burned in 1988. Borders Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Bald Eagle sighted on the trip. Very far away.

Nineteen years after being scorched by fires, Yellowstone National Park continues to experience lush, new growth. The fires covered about one-third of the park and extended eastward onto thousands of acres in Cody County. Remnants can still be seen of the fires, but what is evident now is the new growth of trees and other plants. 1988 was the driest summer in the park’s written record of weather statistics covering 112 years. Some plants rely on the fires to continue the reproduction, such as the Lodge-pole pine; requires high heat to open its cones and release seeds.
On our tour of the south loop, we were able to see and learn a lot. The first
Mud Volcano area filled with turbulent and explosive mudpots, including Mud Volcano and Dragon’s Mouth.
Norris Geyser Basin has the hottest, most dynamic geyser basin in the park, which includes Steamboat, the world’s tallest geyser, and Echinus, the world’s largest acidic geyser.

We came upon a traffic jam and took his picture from the bus, a massive Bison (aka Buffalo, or Tatonka).

Of course Old Faithful is the world’s largest concentration of geysers. We did not walk the many trails that pass hundreds of geysers and hot springs. We had our lunch in the main dining room at the Old Faithful Inn which is undergoing a major three-year renovation. It has the same look of 100 years ago. The Inn sits in one of the country’s most active seismic zones.
Old Faithful’s eruption length and height, and the time between eruptions varies daily and yearly. An eruption lasts 1.5 to 5 minutes; the average interval between eruptions is 92 minutes. The height ranges from 106 feet to more than 180 feet, averaging 130 feet. 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of water are expelled per eruption, depending on t he length of eruption. Just prior to eruption, water temperature at the vent is 204°F. It’s one of more than 300 geysers in Yellowstone. Geysers are hot springs with narrow spaces in their plumbing, usually near the surface. Old Faithful Village and Dining Room --

Three hotels serve the Old Faithful area: The Old Faithful Inn, a historic landmark hotel completed in 1904, the Old Faithful Lodge Cabins and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, the park's newest hotel, built in 1998 and Snow Lodge Cabins.
West Thumb Geyser Basin has boiling springs including the famous Fishing Cone, discharge their waters into chilly Yellowstone Lake.
Canyon area you view the colorful Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and the Upper and Lower Falls from overlooks.
Yellowstone Lake - Lake Yellowstone Hotel is one of the park's classic hotels, built in 1891 and restored to its 1920s splendor. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Lake views from the lobby Sun Room are excellent.

Wednesday, July 25 - Day Two: We saw Elk again, bald eagles, and bison. Also, Gibbon Falls with its 84 ft. drop at 7,700 elevation.
Tower Falls
We were amazed by the Yellowstone River and the white rock made by sulphur.
Mammoth Hot Springs was too much for us to walk, but took picture from the scenic drive above and through the Upper Terraces.

Yellowstone River plunges 308 ft. over the Lower Falls. Hot Springs have weakened the rocks downstream and you can see several geysers spouting into the river. The park's riverbeds drop abruptly in more than 100 locations. Upper Falls formed at a junction of lava flow and glacial lake sediments - one dense and hard, the other brittle and easily eroded. The Continental Divide runs through Wyoming from the northwestern corner to south central border. Some rivers in Wyoming drain into the Pacific Ocean, while others flow into the Atlantic Ocean. Wyoming also has the Great Divide Basin, in the Red Desert, from which no streams flow to either ocean. Wyoming has a cool climate which varies due to the diverse topography. It snows and rains in Wyoming, producing annual precipitation ranging from 5 inches to 45 inches. The hot temperatures we are experiencing are highly unusual for this time of year. Wyoming is second only to Colorado in mean elevation, and offers many scenic attractions, notably Yellowstone National Park and Devil's Tower.

Picture at the Upper Falls of a Bald Eagle with her fledgling eaglet.

Wyoming's diverse terrain, produces diverse minerals, crops, and stock. Wyoming is able to mine oil, natural gas, gold, trona, soda ash, uranium, and coal. Primary crops in Wyoming are wheat, oats, sugar beets, corn, potatoes, barley and alfalfa. Wyoming is ranked second in the United States in wool production. Exceeded only by California and Texas in sheep numbers. We didn't see too many sheep from the roads we traveled.b:if cond='data:blog.pageType !="item"> >

Fairmont RV Park - Anaconda, Montana

Friday, July 20 - We left Wolf Lodge in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho around 8:00 AM and drove I-90 across Idaho’s narrow north part of the state to Fairmont RV Park in Anaconda, Montana. Located in the great outdoors of Southwest Montana, nestled in the Rocky Mountains near the historic cities of Anaconda and Butte, surrounded by Forest Service and wilderness experiences. It's Montana at it's finest. The beautiful Fairmont R.V. Park is just a few minutes from the continental divide. The drive over showed a lot of diversity in the land and the closer we got to the park, we saw the area become higher in elevations and yet surrounded by even higher mountains.

On the side of the interstate about five to six feet a way from the coach ,in major traffic, there was a moose just eating away at the grass and not the least bit bothered. What a photo-op, but missed it. We passed OVER Wallace, Idaho, known as the “Silver Capital of the World”. the only place on earth where more than a billion ounces of silver were mined in 100 years. Wallace is also known for the fact that every downtown building is on the National Register of Historic Places, which is why the government finally had to go over instead of through Wallace in order to complete the Interstate Highway system in 1991.
We arrived around noon at Fairmont RV Park in Silver Bow County, Anaconda, Montana, at 5,100 ft. elevation. Park is nicely spaced for RV sites, and mountains surround the area and driving in we saw a lot of cows grazing in the valley. In one section, there are teepees for rent and they sleep 4-6 people. They are built according to the Indian specs using Lodgepoles inside.

Saturday, July 21 - We drove around 16 miles to Butte to investigate the history and were we surprised. Of course, since Butte is a mining town, the most obvious thing about Butte today has to be the dozens of abandoned mining rigs that dot the skyline around Butte. Some of these rigs are just a stone throw away from downtown, with most of the rigs being less than 4 miles as the crow flies away from downtown. These mining derricks, which are black in color and often rise 200 feet in the air, make a definitive statement about what drove the Butte earlier in the 1900’s.

One of the neat things in Butte are all the “ghost signs”. “Ghost Signs”, in case you’re wondering, are old – often very old – signs painted on the sides of buildings (a cheap version of a billboard). Most of the businesses these signs promote are long-gone now, yet the signs remain – promoting strange and long departed businesses. These signs add a certain mystique to Butte which is sort of hard to explain until you visit and see them for yourself – especially since these signs are often 70 years old or more. I was gratified to learn that Butte is making an attempt to preserve these “ghost signs.”

The Copper King Mansion is a 34-room Victorian mansion built from 1884 to 1888 as the Butte residence of William Andrews Clark, one of Montana's three famous "Copper Kings" who helped establish the fledgling Montana territory through their business ventures.

Butte began as nothing more than a bunch of mining camps back in the early 1870’s. a fire in 1879 burned down the entire central business district. Following this disaster, the Butte city council passed a law that required all new buildings downtown (known as "uptown Butte") to be built from brick or stone – most of which still stand today and what help make Butte such a historic and unique city. It was the 1950’s, though, that really began to change things for Butte. The Anaconda Mining Company, to reduce the costs involved in the labor-intensive nature of underground mining, began to shift to open strip mining. Thus, instead of tunneling down for the copper, entire hillsides were instead simply removed. The legacy of this strip mining is that two towns and countless homes that were once located “on the hill” were completely destroyed. The Anaconda Mining Company in 1977 merged into the Arco company. ARCO then ceased all mining operations in Butte in 1983 (although they still ended up paying for the Superfund Cleanup that followed). Strip mining operations resumed in 1983 when Montana Resources began active strip mining in adjacent areas near the Berkeley Pit.

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Wolf Lodge campground in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho

Wednesday, July 18 - We packed up and drove from Yakima, WA on I-82. Road was great, and I-90 was fine until about 20 miles, then the roads were under construction and the rains started. Not good driving conditions for a car, let alone an RV. The hillsides have no vegetation except sage brush. Granite hillsides and lack of rain. We did encounter beautiful streams along the way.

We arrived at Wolf Lodge Campground in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho and found a pleasant surprise. The park is laid out with tons of space between sites for either an RV, group campers in Tepees, or groups with tents. There were several groups around us with kids and chaperones for summer recreation. The Coeur d’ Alene lake is very close to the park and several groups would leave with tubes and lots of other water toys and one would assume they went to the lake. The park allowed camp fires so the smell of wood fires was in the air at night. A river also surrounds the park but did not see swimming.

Coeur d’ Alene is a beautiful city and the lake is absolutely remarkable. A lot of activity and spectacular yacht basin.

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