Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday, we spent the day driving along the north road of Yellowstone. We could only drive to the Eastern edge of
the National Park as the rest of the road was still closed until mid-May. But we had a wildlife day, and even though
it snowed most of the time, we saw bison, elk and golden eagles. We met a couple from Oregon who come here every year
to watch the wolves and coyotes. They told us there was a pack of wolves in the distance, but even with their powerful
telescopes they were hard to pick out.
During the evening, we caught up with our website diary and then drove for about 7 hours east through Montana before
heading south, back into Wyoming and finally found a free campsite in Bighorn National Forest after going through about
12 miles of road works. The spot was quite muddy when we parked up at 7pm but the next morning everything was frozen hard!
It was only 3°C inside Winnie which means it was at least -3°C outside!
We left just after 8am in the sun and underneath a bright blue sky. Fifteen minutes later, we were in thick fog waiting at
the road works for the "Follow me" van to take us through. We felt really sorry for the people on traffic duty at the road
works, having to stand outside in the freezing temperature.
We continued east, and at about 10-30 am it started raining and never stopped. When we got to Spearfish in South Dakota we
decided to go for a hook up as it was so cold and wet. This turned out to be a very wise decision, as the hours of driving
rain had finally leaked through our alcove window and we spent 6 hours putting our electric heater to good use drying Winnie
out! We have never had that problem before, but then, we´ve never had so much rain before!
We spent the rest of the week in Black Hills National Forest and the surrounding area as there is so much to see here. On
Thursday we drove along one of the scenic byways and went to the Presidents Park - large plaster busts of all the 43 American
presidents in chronological order along a forest walkway. We spent nearly 2 hours going from George W. to George W. reading
all about each president. Most of them, we´d never heard of! But it was really interesting, especially the trivia. For
example, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (2nd and 3rd Presidents) both died on 4th July 1826 which was the 50th anniversary
of Independence day; Andrew Johnson (17th President) never went to school; Ulysses Grant (18th) got arrested whilst President
for speeding in his horse carriage; Franklyn D. Roosevelt (31st) served the King and Queen of England with hot dogs (they
were most definitely not amused!) and his dog bit the British prime minister! Gerald Ford (38th) was the only vice-president
and President who was not actually elected to those positions by the people. And finally, George Bush senior (41st) said
"I am the President of the United States of America and I´m not going to eat broccoli any more!" So to distinguish between
father and son we now call him Broccoli Bush!
For just $4 (£2-50) we had a lot of fun until we got chucked out because they were closing and had to rush through the most
interesting bit for us - namely the presidents in our own life time! Afterwards we drove to a little town called Deadwood and
pulled into one of the many casinos to ask if we could park overnight on their car park. The answer was no, but we still
tried our hand at the wheel of fortune and came away with $15. Then we drove south and stayed at one of the free National
Forest campgrounds that are free until mid-May when the season starts.
On Friday, we went to Mount Rushmore National Monument - the famous carving in the rock of the four Presidents Washington,
Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. We drove up to the entrance barrier where we were told that there was a parking fee of $8
and our National Parks pass didn´t cover it! We thought it was a real cheek to charge for parking when you can actually see
the Monument from the road and the visitor centre and everything else was closed because it was out of season! So we refused
to pay and Helen asked if she could reverse back out. But the man on the gate lifted the barrier and told us to drive through
and out the exit. Which we did…only it took us an hour longer than it should have done, because we parked up anyway, seeing
as we were already there (!!) and went for the famous "nostril view" of the famous men!
After another free camping night, we went to a Geological Institute to see lots of dinosaur bones and replicas and other
fossils and then we went to see Crazy Horse. This will be the largest monument in the world - when its finished - if its
finished! After Mount Rushmore was finished, the Indian tribes wanted a Monument for one of their heroes and asked Korczak Ziolkowski
(Polish) who had helped on Mount Rushmore to build Crazy Horse in 1947. He started work in 1948 after finding the right
granite mountain to build it into. When finished it will be 563 ft high and 641 ft long - the four Presidents Monument fit
inside Crazy Horse's head! Korczak died in 1982 but his wife and children decided to carry on. The face was unveiled in 1998
on the 50th anniversary of the monuments dedication and it won't be finished in our lifetime! But we still want to come back
to see how they´re getting on!
Our last stop for the day was Jewel Cave National Park where we went on a 20 minute tour (free with a National Parks Pass)
to get an idea of the cave which is the 3rd longest in the world. On Sunday we went to the 7th longest cave in the world -
Wind Cave - and the first to get National Park status in America. We went on a one hour tour and saw some amazing formations
called boxwork - the stone in the cave forming fragile box-shaped patterns. 95% of the worlds boxwork formations are in this
cave. Fortunately we took our torch with us so that we could see a lot more of the cave.
We parked up for lunch and watched the really cute prairie dogs in one of their "dog towns".
Cute prairie dogs.
Then we drove into Custer State Park and saw a bison calf that had only just been born, we must have missed it by only a few minutes. The calf was still wet, could hardly stand and the afterbirth was still hanging from its mom. We spent hours just watching all the newly born orange bison calves, taking photos and video, and some of them came up really close to Winnie. They probably thought he was their mom!
Bisons at Custer State Park.
