Bert's Musings

Tonight we are parked at Cedar Pass Campground in the Badlands National Park. This is the first time we have stayed at a National Park. It has been my impression that most National Park campgrounds can't handle a 40' motorhome. This one can, of course this is the wide open spaces of the prairie. It drizzled rain most of the way here but hasn't rained while we have been here. There has been a brisk breeze with temps in the high 50's. The breeze had died down and the low is forecast to be 38. We will see. This is main street in Wall, South Dakota; home of the famous Wall Drug Store. What a neat place. Everything you see in this block is part of the "drug store" complex. There is even a nice little chapel, capable of seating over 50, in the complex. Behind what you see is the Wall Backyard. Another complex of buildings with historical photos and lots more stuff, including a T-Rex that "attacks" every 12 minutes. Once you are inside you just keep walking...

The weather was great today. Mostly sunny with a high of 66 and a low last night of 39. The 39 really didn't seem all that cold. We didn't pay any attention to how cold it was supposed to get and our bedroom windows were open all night. At night we only leave the front heat pump active. We had the thermostat for it turned down to 60. I don't think it even ran excessively. Today we "backtracked" to take a look at Sturgis & Spearfish, Montana. Last Friday we spent the night at a rest area, on I-90, that was very near Spearfish. We (Kathy) probably drove 160 miles today while looking around. Sturgis, at least without all the Harley's that are there in August, wasn't all that impressive. Spearfish, on the other hand was quite impressive. We first went to the DC Booth Historic Fish Hatchery. It is currently more of a historic site than an active hatchery, but they still raise fish, They release 50,000 8-10" trout a year into South Dakota streams. The h...

Today we explored the area around Mt. Rushmore. First we stopped at a winery. After seeing many, many, many billboards advertising Red Ass Rhubarb wine we had to check it out. The grounds were nice. This is one of the nicest truck docks I've ever seen.  The rest of the facility.  We went on to Hill City. We drove around it but didn't see anything that caused us to want to stop and look. We then drove over to Keystone. We parked and walked around there for quite a while. We had lunch and then walked down to the "old city". This is an old riveted tank that someone is using for a building, maybe even a home. We decided to ride the "1880" steam train that travels back and forth between Keystone and Hill City. This is the train coming into the station at Keystone. Taking on water before heading back to Hill City. I talked to one of the train guys and he said the engine uses 900 gallons of water going from Hill City to Keystone and about 1,000 gallons going the ot...

I was to lazy to post anything yesterday. Actually there wasn't much to post, nor is there much from today. We are at a campground about 10 miles south of Rapid City, South Dakota. We plan on staying here several days before heading east again. More rain yesterday but the drive was less than 100 miles and fortunately it wasn't raining while we set up at the campground, although it did rain through the night. Other than going out for lunch we didn't do much yesterday. We can't seem to kick our colds and I am staying around the RV today. Kathy is out at some flea market. There is a 40% chance of rain today, but so far it has been sunny and the temperature is in the low 60's, although it is breezy. The plan is to start our area sightseeing tomorrow. We are now less than a thousand miles from Centertown, Missouri, the location of the home we just bought. That is only two LONG days of travel in the RV but the plan still is to take our time and arrive there around June 15...

This won't be another book. Our cell phone signal is weak and thus our Internet connection is SLOW. We are spending the night at the South Dakota welcome center on I-90, maybe 30 miles from Sturgis, SD. We travelled 440 miles today. (We are such wimps. Tom, my brother-in-law, used to drive his motorhome from near Tampa Florida to Crossville Tennessee in a day, 650 miles, and he did all the driving. Kathy and split the driving on the longer mileage days.) It rained, or snowed, on us most of the way. It was snowing and in the mid-30's when we "broke camp" this morning. The wind chill was in the low 20's. The highest temp we encountered today was 46. This is Montana snow, 1:20 PM, around elev 4,900.  This is Wyoming snow, 3:45 PM, around elevation 4,900.  The road runs uphill into a cloud. Foggy.  Foggier.  Foggiest. Visibility was maybe 100' at this point.  Parked for the night at the South Dakota welcome center. We went uphill and downhill all day. The ...

It only got down to the mid 40's last night, not into the 30's as forecast. It is 37 here right now and supposed to get down to 33 tonight. Today we had a GREAT day in Yellowstone. It was a little disappointing that several roads through the park were still closed. We basically drove to Old Faithful, about 110 miles, and returned on the same route. I would have liked to see Yellowstone Lake but that would have required another 30 mile trip just to see one part of the lake and then backtracking the 30 miles. The lake covers 136 square miles. The elevation of the surface is about 7,800 feet above sea level. Even though we didn't see the lake we still had a very good day. The north entrance to the park is about 55 miles from here. We are at elevation 4,500 while the north entrance is at elevation 5,300. We were up as high as elevation 7,500 during the drive. The number of people at the park today shocked us. There were easily more than 500 people, maybe even a thousand, who wa...