The Traveling Dugger's Part Two

Welcome back to the saga that is the Traveling Dugger's.

I was told that I forgot to mention all the hikes that we went on in the Badlands, so before we jump into Custer State Park in South Dakota... we went on several hikes in the Badlands. Seriously though, all along the road there are viewing areas where you can pull off and get pictures and most of them also have footpaths that are short (a few feet) and trails (miles). We walked most of them and got to see some of our first deer and this is also where we saw the Big Horn Sheep. Most of the animals are molting right now, so they look like they have mange, but oh well, it was still really cool.
It was a good trade; some of the animals had already dropped their babies for the season like buffalo, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, and deer, so we got to see a bunch of babies. I’ll take a new baby and a mama with molting fur any day of the week.

We also went on another big hike that was about five miles long. We got to see all kinds of different scenery and the views from across the grasslands were amazing. There was actually a part of the trail that required them to install a ladder into the rock.

Before we left the Badlands we traveled to a town called Wall, South Dakota to go to Wall Drug. www.walldrug.com Here’s a brief history on the success story of Wall Drug. In the 1920’s in order to drive customers to their store in the middle of nowhere, the husband and wife that owned the store began advertising 'free ice cold water'. They did this by placing 10x10 sign all along the interstate far away, so you were seeing them for a long time before you were even remotely close to his store, and it worked. Now Wall Drug is like an indescribable collection of stores, all under one roof. It is still owned by the same family. There is a chapel, restaurant, several shops, operating drug store, kid’s play area out back, but most importantly, and the entire reason I had to go, is pictured below. They have a giant jackalope you can get a picture taken with. This one is for you mom and dad. I hope you are proud.

Now we're on our way to Custer State Park. This park is beautiful, and huge. There were roads that we could not even drive down in the motorhome because they were literally carved through solid rock and we would not fit. We did a lot of wildlife viewing here as well; this park is known for their buffalo. In the summer and spring they have as many as 1500 buffalo, and we saw most of them. This is also where we saw the most baby buffalo.

We did the obligatory visit to Mount Rushmore. I think the powers that be, whoever they are, play up, and talk about the sculptor that designed Rushmore a lot. Yes I know he is the one that made the models that Rushmore is designed after, and he is a talented sculptor, but it is the men that climbed that mountain, and hung from baskets with the dynamite and the hammers, blasting and hauling the rock that I think should be celebrated and talked about more. Here’s what I think is amazing, that those men carved and blasted those faces up on the side of a mountain with no technology or advanced safety equipment. The reason I say obligatory is that with a little research on your own you can read up on Mount Rushmore and find out your history about it, without actually having to go to the monument itself. You can see the faces from miles and miles away; same thing with the Crazy Horse Memorial. We actual skipped that after Rushmore. We did go out and buy National Treasure 2 and watch it that night though. That was a fun movie.

In Custer we also did one big hike, called the Sunday Gulch Trail, about 2.4 miles. I was very excited about doing a good, hard hike.This one was not very long and it promised varied scenery , beautiful gulches and a creek following the trail. This trail was what is considered a "strenuous" hike. In retrospect, I think they should add "extremely" prior to that, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Here, at the beginning, is where we got started on the wrong foot, so to speak. The trail heads were not marked super clearly, so we started following the blue arrows on trees, which was fine, except, that we basically followed the trail backwards. We would not find this out until the very end. The trail was, in fact, beautiful, with deep gulches, water flowing everywhere, but as everyone except me, probably figured out ahead of time, there was ALOT, I mean ALOT of uphill climbing. There was way more uphill climbing then downhill, I don't care if that's not possible, I was there, and I know it's true!!! I like to hike, I even like hills, I DO NOT like to climb a mountain, or gulch in this case, like a goat. To compound matters, the rangers were cleaning out the forest, so there were downed trees. One of the more cool aspects of this hike was that we followed a stream or creek most of the way. In some parts the stream was literally coming through the rocks. I don’t mean little rocks, like “oh let’s skip these rocks across the water”; I mean like crush a Volkswagen if they happen to land on you, boulders. Of course, for a good half mile or so we are climbing over these boulders in order to get to the top, while the water is pouring all around over them. It does make the hike more interesting and beautiful, and since at that elevation I can barely breathe, I couldn’t complain even if I wanted to.
For anyone that’s been hiking before, you know that during a hike your feet get hot and sore. So you can imagine us walking next to this beautiful, crystal clear mountain stream for several hours and know the desire we felt to take our boots off. We restrained, it just seemed like too much effort, only to have to put them back on again to continue hiking for a couple of hours. We restrained until we reached the waterfalls, that is.
The waterfalls were awesome; they came straight out the top of the rocks and crashed down into the stream below. As you can see, it also flows through a small rock cavern to get out to where you can see it. To even get to where we are at we had to hop bare footed about 20 feet through the stream. For those of you more astute readers, you may have noticed I said “hop” instead of “hike” or “walk”. Why you may ask? The water was so cold. I am talking Titanic cold. My feet and legs physically hurt from being in it for 5 seconds to take that picture, I may have cried, a little. On the plus side, my feet did not hurt from the hike anymore, so I guess it was all good. As it turned out when we finally reached the trail head ,after what seemed like hours and hours and hours of climbing,(Dugger's word was complaining here, but since I am typing, I get to pick). As I was saying, As we finally got to the front of the trail there was a very large sign posted TRAIL CLOSED FOR THE WINTER. That would have been very good information to have, and it would explain why we had to turn into mountain goats climbing over downed trees.

The last thing we had to do before leaving Custer State Park was see what they call the Begging Burros. Back in the day, the ancestors of the current burros used to haul people and supplies to the top of Harney Peak. When they closed the company, they were given a gold watch and all the grass they could eat in the near limitless pastures of Custer State Park. Translation – they just let them go into the forest. Now the current burros accost tourists on the road. The joke is one or two will stand in the middle of the road in order to stop traffic and the rest of the herd will move from car to car to car looking for junk food. (It kind of sounds like what the firemen do when its time to collect for MDA, just kidding, honey!) We had only seen two of the burros hanging out by the buffalo herd earlier in the week, and I wanted to see the rest of them. We did not have to look too hard. They even suckered us into feeding them. However, I didn’t have junk food. They had to suffer with banana chips and unsalted cashews and I don’t think they minded. They were so cute and soft, and did not smell like I thought they would. Now, we are going to get a burro. I think we will call her Becky. Yes, Becky the Burro. It’s perfect.

Next stop, Deadwood, South Dakota. It is the resting place of Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. It’s time to do some laundry, we plan on dry camping, for the next couple of weeks, so we want to start fully stocked. For those of you that don’t know, dry camping means you are parked with no electricity or septic or water hook ups. The motorhome has everything you need; you just run everything off your generator or batteries and LP. It just requires a bit more planning. The sites are way cheaper if you dry camp.

The first thing we do is find the KOA and do three loads of clothes. Next stop, Roo Ranch. The Roo Ranch is a place that raises and breeds different kinds of kangaroos. I still am not sure as to what the ultimate purpose of the place is, but it started out as a husband and wife who had a few kangaroos as pets. Their children’s friends kept coming over, even after their children had grown and gone away to school, so they opened it up to the public.
While we were there we got to see a baby kangaroo, climbing out of his mamma's pouch. He was all red and hairless and looked kind of like a chihuahua. I got it all on video, but it requires some editing. While I was taping that, one of the other kangaroos that had been giving me love nibbles earlier, decided that he wanted to go at it a little rougher, that's on tape too. Good times with the roo's.
The only reason I wanted to go, was because on the brochure, it said you could have your picture taken with a baby kangaroo, or as we intrepid explorers like to call them, joeys. We also brought home an 8x10 of the two of us with our little bundle of love. We will also be getting a kangaroo when we get back, his name will be, Ryan the 'Roo.

After the Roo Ranch, it was home to shower, because apparently kangaroos stink. Then we went to Kevin Costner’s Midnight Star. It is a Restaurant/Casino in Deadwood. Let me clarify though, it has slot machines, and a couple of BJ tables upstairs, and when I say a couple I mean, two. Everyone in town has slot machines; gas stations have slot machines, so it hardly seems fair to call them “casinos” without explaining exactly what that means. Anyway, I love slots, so it was perfect. Plus, they are old school; they still use machines that dispense change, none of that paper ticket crap. The sounds of change tinkling could be heard all over the place. The one place it could not be heard was in front of me and Dugger. The only time I heard that lovely sound was when I accidentally hit CASH OUT. It really sucked having to put $17 in quarters back into the machine, but oh that sound…hhhmmm, happiness in a bright, shiny, blinking box. My mom and sister know what I’m talking about.

There was one more stop we had to make on our way out of town, The Broken Boot Gold Mine. The Broken Boot was never what one would call a “mother lode” type of mine. The majority of gold that came out of the mine was in the form of gold dust that the miners could not even see. Basically these miners just blasted the rocks out by candlelight and hauled them out and sent it to the assayer. He told them if there was gold and how much. Personally I am thinking, I would have been that guy. Especially when the 15 year old that was giving the tour of the mine turned off the electricity, just to show us how dark it was down in the mine. There was also something in the air, because, I could not breathe down there at all, I think it was a combination of the moisture in the air and the graphite dust. Graphite was the other thing the mine kicked out until it was not profitable, but it was still everywhere. One last interesting fact, The Broken Boot mine sold more “Fool’s Gold” then real gold.

Deadwood turned out to be the town of hokey tourist stop’s on the Dugger Vacation Express, baby kangaroos, blinking shiny boxes, and the Broken Boot.

From Deadwood, we head west to Devils Tower in Wyoming. Once we arrived it was easy see why the Indians, to this day, feel that the Tower has special mystical properties. On our hike there were ribbons tied to the trees. We were told upon entering the park not to disturb them, because they have special meaning to the Indians that left them.
Our hike here started out in the Prairie Dog Town that surrounded our campsite. It was so cool to be that close to the little barking buggers. I swear I saw a black footed ferret, but with no collaboration, so…you know what that means. It was only supposed to be a quick hike. The longer hike was supposed to be the next morning, since it was already 4:30pm, and it was raining. Well, let’s just say five miles later we had circled the entire Devils Tower and were returning back to the motorhome, all this sans map. We were just winging it. We did alright, we saw bunches of deer, tons of tracks, and one crazy turkey that stalked us for part of the trail and then got pissy when I tried to take his picture. He probably thought I was stealing his soul.

We took off the next day and headed out for Cody, Wyoming. This was where we had our first taste of the next 10 day’s weather pattern, but hey that’s the future, right now, at this first sighting, we are both a couple of kids with our first snow flurry. We got out and stood around and took pictures and marveled at the whiteness of it. I may have even said something stupid, like, “It’s not that cold” Then we moved on. We lowered our elevation and mostly left the heavy snow, once in a while a few flakes, but the coldness, that stuck, and increased, dramatically down the road.

That night we found the most beautiful campground on the side of the road, right after we left Cody. Keeping in mind of course, that everywhere we were driving is still a national or state park. I think this was a State Park, not bad for $12.

All aboard the Dugger Express, the next stop is Grand Teton’s and Yellowstone National Park. The first five minutes we arrived, it started snowing, but remember at this point, we are still enamored, so we took a vote and we decided to stay in Yellowstone a few days before heading down to the Grand Teton National Park. Yellowstone is like a zoo, in all senses of the word. We were there not really “in” season and there were thousands of people in the park. I know I probably should have expected it, but Custer and the Badlands were not nearly as crowded.

I will return to the crowd topic in a moment, on to wildlife. We were able to see, an elk cow, with a newborn baby calf, I swear I was less then 10 feet away. This is not usually recommended but she was down by the boardwalks with her baby when we were looking at ANOTHER geyser, more on that later too.

We were able to see a grizzly bear momma and her cub. Now this picture is fuzzy, we were really, really, far away, but since Dugger did not do what I asked him to do and get closer for a better picture, I included a model shot of what it might have looked like, if he had. Spoil sport.

The pictures that we took of the coyote are up there on our list of best shots of the trip. He was awesome, he was right next to the car, traffic had to stop in order for him to cross the road. Unfortunately, I think he had been receiving food from people, because he was not afraid of the cars or us at all and actually came toward my side of the jeep. I yelled at him to scram back into the woods, after I had taken some pictures of course, and he took off.

We got a picture of a wolf that was just sitting out enjoying the brief lack of snowfall/rain we had. We were pretty far away, so I need to try and play with it before I post that one, but she looks like she is white, or really light grey.

We still have not seen any moose.

Let's get back to the people at the park. These two parks, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, are like the Magic Kingdom and Epcot Center of the natural world. That's all I think I really need to say.

On our way out of the parks we tried one more time to see Old Faithful. The first time we tried it was freezing cold and it had started snowing harder then we had seen so far. I am not sure if anyone has picked up on this yet, but I am not taking to the cold weather, quite as well as I thought I would. Bluntly, it sucks. It is cold, and wet, and cold. I feel it all the way to my bones, and I cannot get warm, ever....I feel like a chihuahua. Anyway, we went to see Old Faithful. Way, way over rated, as far as we are concerned. There are several things we will be back for in different seasons, or whatever, this is not one of them.

This is a picture of the campsite at Yellowstone. Due to the bad weather we were not able to get in any hiking, or kayaking. It was not for lack of trying . Each morning we would go down to the backcountry office and talk to a ranger and plan a hike on a trail. Then the next morning go down to book it and it would be closed due to the snow or flooding. He finally gave up on hiking. We thought we finally could get some kayaking in the following morning before we left the Tetons. So we bought our boat pass and put it on the boat, but the storm came in early that night and started raining and snowing. We decided to leave early. We had anticipated spending 10 days in the the Teton's and Yellowstone, instead we ended up with five total. We took off early Monday morning.

We were supposed to head south, we had the route all planned out. Warm weather for momma, hikes for big daddy. Next thing I know we are heading north, towards Canada, and Sandpoint, Idaho.

From Sandpoint, Idaho

The Dugger's