Off toward Glacier National Park

Monday, August 22

We gave hugs and said a huge “thank you” to Paige, Chris, Jay & Virginia Lynne for hosting me and Auggie, and for spoiling the dog. Bear the cat was excited to see Auggie Doggie leave the house, as were the local rabbits that Auggie had tormented for the past few days.

And then it was on the road again. Willie Nelson serenaded us for a bit as we drove.


Big mountains looming up ahead! 

We made it as far as Seely Lake, about 5.5 hours from Billings. We camped on Seely Lake and slept like logs. 

Billings, MT

Tuesday, August 16 – Monday, August 22

We had a great time in Billings.

First, down to business. Wednesday I called the local Chevy dealer to see about the check-engine problem. They could take me Thursday morning at 8.30 am. Great.

I took the van in on Thursday morning and they looked at it and checked the diagnostics. Turned out, I probably didn’t need to have that O2 sensor replaced back in Sioux Falls – the problem was bigger than that. It was my intake manifold (according to Wikipedia, that’s the part of an engine that supplies the fuel/air mix to the cylinders). My engine was sucking air, and it needed to be fixed.

The Chevy dealer needed till Friday afternoon to do the fix. Unfortunately, the warranty on the van only covered a little over 40% of the cost, so it still was a fairly expensive repair. But the Champagne Chevy was back in business, ready to roll.

Let’s hear it for Billings! The van is now fixed. Hooray!

While the van was at the shop, I was able to have lunch with Paige on Thursday afternoon. Turns out the Billings Little League team was playing the South Dakota Little League team that afternoon at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. We had lunch and watched the first half of the game at a local bar – the place was packed. Everyone was rooting for the Billings home team. This was their first trip to the World Series ever. (They won the game!)

That afternoon, I went to the Yellowstone Art Museum to see the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs exhibit, showcasing the annual winning photos since the inception of the Pulitzer Prize in 1942. It was really powerful – brought tears to my eyes many times. Turns out this exhibit is in permanent display at the Newseum … in Washington, DC … where I live. Who knew? (Get out much, Christine? J )

 It was Chris’s birthday. That evening, friends and family came over to Paige & Chris’s house for a party. Nephew Asher played his fiddle, Jay danced, Chris blew out his candles – it was a fun night.

Friday morning, Gigi returned home from Georgia, where she had been for two weeks with Paige’s parents. Gigi and I decided to bike to the Montana State Fair for the afternoon. OMG – we had so much fun. When was the last time I was on the Tilt-a-Whirl??? (Answer: a long time ago.) The Starship didn’t do good things for Gigi’s tummy, so we called it a day, went to pick up the Champagne Chevy and headed home.

That evening, Paige and I went to a book reading of a local Montana author about several Montana characters and life in the state. I have one on order so I’ll have more insight into what life is like in the west!

Saturday we started off with an early lunch in Molt, about 20 miles west of Billings. The Prairie Winds Café is an old hardware store that now serves breakfast and lunch. We were serenaded by a great bluegrass band during lunch (and the French fries were yummy!).

After lunch, Lynne suggested a drive into the prairie to look at some bird-nesting lakes. Lynne knows her back roads! We ended up seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but miraculously the Big Lake Nesting Island suddenly appeared before us, boasting curious birds … and toads! Gigi is a toad whisperer – she can catch anything!

Saturday evening was low-key and I gave the Champagne Chevy a good cleaning to get the “just been in the shop” smell out of it. Wow – it felt good to have it clean!

I went fly fishing on Sunday!

Chris is an expert fly fisher and had organized to go fly fishing with a few friends on the Bighorn River on Sunday. I was able to go along with the group. Who knew that fly fishing would be so much fun!

It was a beautiful day on the river. It turns out that I suck at fly fishing, but Chris tells me with practice I’ll get better. (I was jerky and need more flow. I kept trying too hard to place the fly where I wanted, when it’s better to just let it go. More yin, less yang. Sounds like the whole point of this trip, doesn’t it, Christine – more yin, less yang …)

While we were on the river, I couldn’t help but think that my dad would just pee his pants when I told him I was fly fishing in Montana. (Not sure he actually had a pee accident, but he sure was jealous when I told him on the phone the next day!)

The drive home was exciting, too – a MAJOR thunderstorm came up just as we were getting the boat off the water and hit hard while we were on the road home. Wow. Lightning. Thunder. Really hard rain, falling so hard and fast, Chris could barely see the road in front of us. Powerful weather.

When we got home that night, we watched the news to learn that the Billings Little League team had won their game that day against Louisiana. They are now 2-0 and advance to the next semi-final game, sporting some great hitting and fielding from the team. 

Devil’s Tower, WY / Billings, MT

Tuesday, August 16

We got up and started fairly early, ditching the crappy campsite for an early look at Devil’s Tower National Monument. It was our nation’s first national monument.

Then on the road toward Billings, MT!

Odometer check: the Champagne Chevy turned 22,000 miles on this drive.

The 5+-hour drive showcased more Jack Kerouac/”On the Road”. More stark, beautiful prairie. My first view of oil pumps on the prairie. A red highway (it's what's local, you know). And then … my first glimpse of them … the Rockies! Take a look at them in the background in this photo here …

We made it to Billings about mid-afternoon and went directly to Metra RV Center. I had called ahead a few days ago to see if anyone in Billings could fit me in to take care of this blasted wastewater pipe issue. Metra RV sounded like they could fit me in and order the part quickly if I would just stop by when I got to town. So I did.

Miracle of miracles – Kurt the service man there took a look, said it was only the cable that needed replaced, not the full valve, and he did the fix within an hour and 15 minutes.

We love Billings!  J

Finally!!! This thing has been broken since the Finger Lakes, NY. I am finally, finally fixed. Nice.

Now I’ve just got to get this “check engine” thing looked at. It’s remained on again/off again since South Dakota. Time to get that looked at, too.

When I pulled into Metra RV, Paige called and came to pick me up until the Champagne Chevy was done. It was so good to see her! I haven’t seen her since 2004, when I was in Billings for vacation over the July 4 timeframe. How do seven years pass so quickly?

Once the RV was done, I followed Paige home and said hello to her husband, Chris, and son, Jay. (Daughter, Virginia Lynne (a.k.a. Gigi), was in Georgia till Friday.) Chris’s brother, Andrew, and son, Asher, were in town, and I was invited along to Chris’s parents house, Jay and Lynne Montague, for dinner. The Montague’s were extremely welcoming and fed me very well. And they are very entertaining - what a funny, funny night.  J

The “Wild West” of the Black Hills / Devil's Tower, WY

Monday, August 15

Just up the road from our campsite lay the “Crazy Horse” memorial, a private monument to honor the Lakota Sioux warrior and the home to a museum for Native American history. Work on the mountain was begun in 1948, and Crazy Horse’s head was dedicated in June 1998. Work continues on his horse and body; the work is funded by private donations.

After that, we took a jaunt up another curvy, serpentine road to Lake Sylvan in Custer State Park, and we took a cool hike around the beautiful lake. We had a very nice afternoon.

Then it was on farther north to Deadwood, South Dakota, where “Wild Bill” Hickock was shot dead in August 1876. I did not previously have any idea that the Black Hills were the buzzing center of the Wild Wild West. (So much for remembering my American history!) Here is where gold mining took off, and we read about some colorful characters like Potato Creek Johnny (a.k.a. John Perrett), who was famous for having dug up the largest nugget of gold ever unearthed, at 7.75 troy ounces (whatever a troy ounce is).  The man was only 4’3” – let’s hear it for big things from small people!

“Downtown” Deadwood still looks like a wild west town, and today it’s the center of the Black Hills gaming and casino industry, preserving the “wild” reputation of the place. We walked around, found Saloon No. 10, where Wild Bill was shot, and then we drove up a very steep hill to St. Moriah cemetery, where the likes of Calamity Jane, Potato Creek Johnny and, yes, Wild Bill are buried.  How fun.

We jumped back onto Interstate 90 then and headed west again. We looked at the map and decided we were close enough to Devil’s Tower National Monument that it made sense to go and take a look. We camped at a pretty crappy campsite, but it had a great view of Devil’s Tower.

You can see in that photo that heavy clouds were coming in, and we got a bit of rain. But we mostly got  wind and an amazing lighting show in the distance. We were probably about 20 miles away from the storm itself, but the lightning show was like 4^th of July in DC when you are standing on a hill – you can see all the other regional fireworks shows in the distance, lighting up the night sky. I stood on the picnic table to get up higher and see the sky. Wow! The very cool moments were when lightning struck behind Devil’s Tower and lit it up from behind!  (Sorry, folks, I have no pictures of that. Some times life is better experienced without a camera in front of my nose!)

Black Hills, South Dakota

Sunday, August 14

  

Auggie and I left our campsite Sunday morning and headed west through more of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. Auggie needed a pit stop, so we stopped in Scenic, South Dakota. (Yes, that’s really the name of the town.) We found it scenic … in its own way. There were about six buildings in the town, most of them empty and decrepit. Take a look.

We made our way farther north and entered the Black Hills National Forest. Our destination was Keystone, SD, the home of Mount Rushmore. When I caught my first glimpse, I had a major “Holy Sh**” moment. Wow!

You climb some pretty steep hills on your way up to Mount Rushmore. And you are awestruck by how big it is. And then you naturally think, “How’d they do that?” And after that, “Why?”

90% done by dynamite. Symbol of democracy.

Mount Rushmore was carved between 1927-1941. The sculptor was Gutzon Borglum. Four hundred workers did the carving into the wall of solid granite. Their safety standards wouldn’t pass today’s OSHA standards, but no one was killed in the carving of Mount Rushmore (though there were a few serious accidents.)

On Mount Rushmore, you see the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. Borglum chose these to represent different stages of the first 150 years of our country’s existence: birth (first president), expansion (Louisiana Purchase), development (“trust buster,” Panama Canal, national parks) and preservation (kept North and South together, abolished slavery).

Calvin Coolidge was president at the time Mount Rushmore was proposed, and Borglum didn’t intend to put Coolidge’s head up on the mountain. What an insult, right? So Coolidge was offered a compromise – he was going to sign his name on a dedication statement that was to be part of the sculpture, thereby memorializing his name into the monument forever. With that offer, Coolidge approved federal funding.

But they screwed up! Jefferson’s head was initially meant to be on Washington’s right shoulder, not his left. Oops! They therefore had to readjust the order of the heads, pushing things to Washington's left, which also bumped the dedication statement off the mountain. Sorry, Mr. Coolidge. You just got dissed!

The sculpture was originally meant to have the full busts of the presidents, too. But Borglum died in 1941, it was wartime and Congress no longer thought it prudent to pour more money into Mount Rushmore. And so we have today’s sculpture, as it stood in 1941. Maintenance is done every year. (No, erosion doesn’t really affect the sculpture – it’s granite. They only expect about one inch of loss per 10,000 years.)

I also had the question, “Where does the name ‘Rushmore’ come from?”  Turns out Charles E. Rushmore was a New York City lawyer, who was out in South Dakota in 1885 on a surveying assignment. He asked a local municipal employee what the name of that mountain was. The employee said that it didn’t have one, but that they would call it “Rushmore” from now on.  How bout that – Mr. Rushmore didn’t really have a thing to do with the presidents’ sculpture at all!

We learned a lot this visit! And the first of my “must-see” sites for this visit has now been seen. Hooray!

After we left Mount Rushmore, we took off for Route 16A and the “pigtail bridges” – a series of serpentine bridges and tunnels that run through the Black Hills. Curvy, curvy up-and-down roads and beautiful scenery – weeeeeeeee! I LOVE driving roads like that!  J   (Thanks, Uncle George, for that tip.)

Yep, you guessed it – more bikes up there on that scenic drive. (I tell ya, they’re everywhere.)

Route 16A runs through Custer State Park, which is home to a herd of 1,300 bison. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any bison on our drive through, but we did see some pronghorns, creatures I’d never seen before (they are not antelope, but are often confused with them). This group of pronghorns was really close, only about 30 feet across the road from us. Here is a photo of a male, who didn’t seem to mind us staring at him one bit. 

And here’s Auggie watching that male pronghorn!

We finished our pretty, scenic drive by finding our campsite in Custer, SD. Built another campfire, OD’d on marshmallows and watched the movie, “RV”, with Robin Williams, which we borrowed from the campsite office. I am happy to report that unlike Robin Williams in that movie, I have never been sprayed with waste from an RV sewer. Let’s hope it stays that way!