Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday we drove along the Needles Highway which is a scenic loop road through Custer State Park and the Black
Hills National Forest. It was a very windy road passed a landscape of pinnacles and leading through 3 narrow tunnels.
The final tunnel at Needles Eye, was such a tight squeeze, that Helen had to get out and guide Kirsten through. There
was already glass on the floor from the tunnels last "victim"! But Winnie got us through safely! What a hero!
Afterwards we drove 90 miles east to Badlands National Park and stayed at the campground. On Tuesday, it was so hot
that we got into shorts and T-shirts for the first time in ages and drove along the loop road in the Park. We
virtually had the park to ourselves and it was very peaceful. The landscape in Badlands looks like it belongs on a
different planet - spiky rocks jutting out of flat prairie lands. Some rocks had yellow and pink layers from the
minerals and there were dinosaur fossils from millions of years ago. Badlands is not a spectacular National Park
but it has something about it that gives it a tranquillity and a silent beauty. Its almost like a secret that it
wants to keep to itself. So we decided to stay three nights here, longer than we had planned.
That afternoon we drove a short distance out of the Park to go and see Wall Drug, a very tacky tourist stop with
an interesting history. In 1931, a couple bought a drug store and tried to make a living in this small town in the
middle of nowhere. After 5 years they had almost given up, when the wife came up with the idea of handing out free
iced-water to try and get people to stop. It worked! And now there are 20,000 visitors a day in the summer! And they
still hand out free iced-water and you can still get coffee for 5 cents a cup!
The absolute contrast between Wall Drug and Badlands was not lost on us, but we still spent a fun couple of hours
there and then returned to the National Park, back along the loop road and got a different view. We also saw firemen
making a controlled fire to prevent the Park being devastated during the hot, dry Summer ahead. Later, Kirsten
managed to get a great shot of a rabbit jumping over one of the small wooden posts in the campground to escape
another rabbit who was chasing it!
It was a good job we had taken advantage of the good weather on Tuesday, because on Wednesday the camp hosts came
along to tell us about a severe wind warning (50mph plus) for that afternoon and evening. It was already very windy
in the morning but it soon picked up! It was definitely not a day for driving so we decided to walk to the visitor
centre to watch a video about the Park and nearly got blown off our feet! The sun got hidden behind the sand cloud
that you could see for miles. On the way back from the visitor centre, we saw a paperback book next to the bin, one
that we hadn't read yet. Then Kirsten fetched a chair to dig out 2 others that someone had obviously thrown out!
Well, today was a perfect day for staying indoors, even though Winnie was getting really battered by the wind, and
reading! At least the wind died down just after midnight so that we could get some sleep.
On Thursday it was 25°C colder and down to 5°C. The wind had blown the good weather away! We set off, heading back
West to go back to Spearfish and as soon as Winnie's engine had warmed up, we put the heater on. Then we got a real
shock as we watched a large crack spread across our windscreen. We watched, mesmerized, and powerless to do anything
as it just went further and further in both directions, right before our eyes! When it got 2 feet long it just
stopped. We pulled into Napa, a Nationwide auto parts chainstore, and got an opinion from one of the men who came
out to have a look and said he'd been driving around for over a year with a much larger crack! So we decided to leave
it the way it is!
We went back to the KOA campground at Spearfish for a hook-up for the night, as we'd driven back into the snow. After updating our website at the
library the next morning, we drove back into Wyoming and went to Devils Tower National Monument. It is the core of
a volcano that has been exposed after millions of years of erosion of the surrounding area. It looks like a grey
monolith standing alone, towering 900 feet above anything else in the area, as if it has been thrust upwards from
the insides of the Earth. We went for a short walk around the base and managed to see a porcupine mother and its
spiky, white baby amongst the rocks.
Devils Tower and porcupines.
The next day, we drove up into North Dakota to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (south unit). Again, it was extremely
windy on the drive and we had to keep stopping and switching the pilot light for the fridge back on as it kept
getting blown out. Unfortunately, the video for the park was the most boring one we´ve ever seen and did not inspire
us to go and see anything at all! But at least Kirsten made us laugh trying to park in the visitor centre car park.
There were hardly any cars parked there and she had virtually all of the slots in the car park to choose from but ...
that was too easy for her! She decided to park so close to one of the few cars parked there, that the driver would not
have been able to open his door!
We drove along a very bumpy, 36 mile loop road and watched all the prairie dogs in their dog towns. We could watch them
for hours, they´re so cute. We also walked along 2 of the short trails and spotted a great horned owl and its little white
baby. We also saw wild horses, one of which was a slate grey colour, a prairie falcon and a tiger swallowtail butterfly
with its beautiful yellow and black wings.
