8/11/2014 an i90 rest stop near Wall,
South Dakota
Getting a jump
on this entry even though I haven’t gone far since the last one. Drove down to
Hot Springs then across to 79 and up. There was some nice mottling happening to
the landscape as the sun set, and the moon rose fat and red into the dark blue
horizon. At first I wasn’t even sure if it was the moon, due to not watching it
rise so suddenly ever before as far as I remember.
Had a nice
conversation with Mom and Dad and sorted out the final details of this trip.
It’s just going to be National Parks and driving from here out, with a stop in
Portland to see the old familiars. Three weeks to go, which gives 11 days to
get to Santa Cruz to retrieve my stuff from storage.
8/12/2014 an i90 rest stop not at all
near Wall, South Dakota but also very far from Sioux Falls
I had a very fun
an enjoyable day at Badlands National Park! I arrived and the campground had a
sign that said full, and I was bummed to not be able to stay, but camping was
also more expensive than I anticipated so I wasn’t too bummed. Later on the
sign indicating fullness was removed (I guess once people had checked out) but
my mind had already recalibrated to enjoying the most out of the day I had and
continuing on in the evening, so that I didn’t feel like occupying a site. I
got my stamps at the visitor’s center, as well as postcards. I watched the
video talking about wind and erosion. Badlands is eroding at an inch a year,
and it is an oddity in terms of National Parks because it allows visitors to
roam wherever they want, over rocks and through grass. There are lots of great
areas where you can hike up and around the formations. There are also
apparently tons of fossils to be found. I didn’t find any.
The scenic
overlooks provide many different points of view of the park, instead of the
same view just slightly down one way. There was a surprising amount of green
stretching through the park, among the pale rocks. I saw big horn sheep…or were
they prong horns? Or deer? Something on my evening drive through the park. I
saw the fossil talk, and then hiked the Door hike, which was a stretch of
boardwalk and then you make your own path from marker to marker across the rocks.
9 markers in total. The Window hike was just a boardwalk to a nice vista and I
talked to Max and Lauren (Laura?) who were very seasoned travelers, and they
had their lovely 15 month old daughter Razlin (pronounced raz-lynn, not sure
how it is spelled) with them. She walked the walk on her own. They are headed
to the same parks I am headed to, so maybe I’ll see them again! Notch was
awesome. All three trail heads came from the same parking lot. I devotedly
brought and drank water on all of these hikes. Notch goes through the canyons
and then up a huge semi-difficult ladder (though younger kids managed it) ontop
of the formations, and then along the cliff side to a wonderful vista. I sat
there in the shadow, holding onto my bookmark against the breeze, and read for
a while. My legs seem to have gotten a good amount of sun today, and I’m trying
to remember if my arm hairs have always been blonde or if they have been
bleached by the sun. My face is slightly pink in places, but not burned. I have
too good of a base tan going on right now to burn, unless I really worked at
it.
The visitor’s
center’s water fountain has a part built into it for refilling water bottles
(more flow than the sipping part of the fountain) and it has a “how many
plastic bottles have been saved from you refilling here” counter. This was also
present at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I kept my bottles filled.
Hydration is important! There were many people on the trails that lacked
apparent water bottles. I get that they are heavy to lug around, but they are
very important things to have! I did one final scenic drive and got pictures of
the sunset from Bigfoot Picnic Viewpoint Area Place, where I ate lunch earlier
in the day (a lunch of Subway I bought when leaving Wall, viva the 5 dollar footlong!)
and worked on my postcards. Gorgeous sunset.
I caught the
ranger program, which was general knowledge of the plants and animals. The
highlight was the star tour! A different ranger had a high powered flashlight
and was able to point out different constellations, which were very visibly in
the post-sunset pre-moonrise sky. Gorgeous starry sky, especially with the dark
outlines of the rock formations. There was a telescope set to Saturn, so I got
to see the rings through that! Also I saw the International Space Station whizz
by. I overheard a mom telling her kid to go look at Saturn and the kid whined
“but I’m not into planets”. She threatened to revoke technology from him for
the next day, so he in a huff went to go look through the telescope and see
Saturn and her rings. Overheard at National Parks would be a good
book/blog/twitter.
Hiking, lunch,
water, OH! Wall Drug! I started the day by going to Wall Drug. I picked up the
(actually free) bumpersticker for Carmen to replace one that was lost. I also
got a few postcards and souvenirs from the clearance section. A mug and a
little something something. I like postcards. I like mailing them to people and
thinking who to send what design to. I have a stack to drop in a mailbox, which
I will probably do in Nebraska. Wall Drug is a little compound of stores, which
combines tourist shlock and local craft and some higher end stuff. A nice
little oasis of things on an otherwise pretty unremarkable highway.
So now I’m on to
Nebraska! I really need a shower. Maybe I’ll call campgrounds in Nebraska and
the first one to say they have shower facilities is getting my patronage.
8/13/2014 Chadron State Park, Nebraska
This park is
DECKED OUT! It has a pool, which costs extra, showers, a crafts center, cabins.
Tons of stuff. It’s like a mini resort in Nebraska. There is a thunderstorm
warning, and it is supposed to start pouring around 6. I didn’t take the stuff
out of my tent, just piled it in the center as usually when it rains it is the
seeping of the sides that fills the tent around the edges, so stuff in the
middle is fineish. I just really hope it doesn’t rain. I think the thing that
aggravates me the most on this trip is being rained out of a camping spot. But
for the time being, I’m glad to not be driving and I’m happy to being full
showered. My feet get it the worst from not bathing, .then my hair gets gross.
The rest is easy enough to tidy up.
So I woke up at
my rest stop and drove east on 90, filled up my tank where I turned south on 85
and in retrospect it probably would have been quicker to go to the park and
backtrack south to Carhenge, instead of going allllll the way south to 2 and
then over on 2 to Alliance. It was a pretty big down and over…but I did get to
see a lot of Nebraska. The rolling hills, the road construction, the fields and
fields, the road construction…it was blue skies and hot.
Now it is gray
skies and still hot. I got to Chadron State Park, got my tent site, which was
primitive, which just means no electricity and there were not clear lines of
which tent site was wear. I dig a park that has cheaper tent camping. I
showered half way (no shampoo) and went to find out the pool cost extra, so I
showered all the way (yes shampoo) and now I’m at the “Trading Post”. I may
quickly go back to my site and remove all my camping gear from inside my tent,
and come back here.
Stay tuned!
