On The Road Again

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2012 trip so far: prairie dog, bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mule deer
*Birds we’ve seen on our 2012 trip so far: Western meadowlark, magpie, wild turkey, killdeer
*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2012 trip so far: 1

We spent the last couple days in Eureka getting the rig ready to hit the road again and enjoying last minute visits by friends. We had a 7am appt. on Mon. just down the road to get the transmission serviced and then drove about 30 miles to spend the night in the Harrah’s Casino parking lot in Earth City. John and Rick stopped by for one final visit, and after John left, Steve stopped by. I had asked each one if they remembered where they were 29 years ago that night, and 2 of the 3 got it right…all had been in our wedding 29 years earlier. Shame I couldn’t get a picture with all 3 of them. The next day we visited the family gravesites and then headed to Lombardo’s for an anniversary lunch. As we were leaving, Carmen gave us a split of sparkling wine from Italy to continue our anniversary celebration at a later time.

As we made our way west (and north), we added another state to where The Folly has spent the night by staying at the Walmart parking lot in Council Bluffs, IA. Along the way we also saw a 103 lb. catfish named Bess at the Bass Pro aquarium in Independence, MO, and traveling across I-90 it’s hard to miss the Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose, SD, with its 25 ton, 60 ft. tall Egyptian style bull’s head!









After spending the night in the parking lot of Cabela’s in Mitchell, SD, we had planned to leave early, but Russ had been watching the radar and knew a storm was coming. About 9am it became nearly dark as night and soon the hail started, some of it the size of golf balls! The sound inside the RV was almost deafening, and when it finished about 15 min. later, you could hardly see the black asphalt through the layer of hail. (These pictures were taken before it got that bad.) We waited because about 20 min. later another hail storm came though not as intense. Fortunately the only damage were small dents on the roof and hood of the car, and the rubberized roof of the RV had some nice clean white spots from where the hail hit.

Later that day we arrived at Badlands National Park (www.nps.gov/badl) planning to spend the next week. This was the first national park we had visited on our first trip out west three years earlier, but this time we stayed at the campground inside the national park instead of the KOA down the road. I won’t go into a lot of details here about the park, but you can read more about it at our blog entries from that visit at the following links: Where'sJohnWayne? and JustAMinuteMan.

About 25 miles up the highway is the world famous Wall Drug (http://www.walldrug.com/), a huge tourist attraction with definitely something for everyone. We were so amazed by the place during our last visit (outlined in the above blog links) that we decided to check it out again, but you know how sometimes things just aren’t the same the second time around? Well, that’s kind of how we felt this trip…didn’t seem as big or as amazing but still a fun little side trip. Russ even tried his hand at the Shootin’ Gallery this time!

Once back inside the park we decided to take the scenic Badlands Loop Road back to the campground and were delighted with the wildlife we saw! Besides the prairie dogs (which are abundant) and a few bison, we sat and watched a couple of bighorn sheep that were obviously shedding their winter coats make their way in our direction and eventually passed right behind our car. A few feet further we spotted 3 more that blended so well into the rocks where they were resting that we nearly missed seeing them. We also caught a glimpse of a wild turkey and a pronghorn antelope waiting to cross the road. Though we didn’t do much while here and endured some pretty strong winds at times, it was nice to just relax and decompress for a few days.









Our next destination was Deadwood, SD, most famous for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok, and a place we had never visited before. The entire city is on the National Historic Register and is pretty much a tourist trap now with lots of opportunities to gamble. We stayed at the Deadwood KOA and moseyed into town the next day. There are markers everywhere of where Wild Bill was shot and where his assassin was captured, historic buildings abound, and if you look in the upper windows of some of these buildings, you can even see the “ladies” waiting to show you a good time. We wondered through several of the casinos (some with interesting décor...see below right), and decided to spend a couple of hours playing blackjack at the Mineral Palace. It was a cheap table, the drinks were free, and the dealers friendly and fun. We ended up staying nearly 6 hours and walked away $300 richer…woohoo!!












We ate burgers at Mustang Sally’s (we had been told by several it had the best burgers in town), and then headed over to Mt. Moriah Cemetery. Established in 1877, it’s where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried as well as other notables we’d never heard of like Potato Creek Johnny. The lilac bushes were in full bloom, and though it’s a rather large cemetery with many distinct sections, we were tired and only interested in visiting Wild Bill and Calamity Jane’s sites. The next morning we were heading to our home for the next few months, Mammoth Campground in Yellowstone National Park.