Today was purely a driving day. We've covered about 2/3 of Wyoming today. This is truly a sparsely populated place. We would drive for miles and not see any sign of human habitation. The towns are few and far between.
We ended in Lusk, Wyoming, a small ranching community of 1,500 people which offered up surprises. There is a marvelous museum with relics and pieces from the past. The two most interesting things that I observed in the hour or so I spent there is a two headed calf (yes, a real two headed calf born on a ranch nearby, and preserved as a stuffed calf in this museum) and a genuine, unrefurbished 1890's stagecoach. I have seen several refurbished, but this was the first I have seen that is original. It was really interesting to see the craftsmanship and technology of the day.
Lusk is in Niobrara County, which is the least populated county in the least populated state in the US. But there are a lot of cattle and horses.
And, for a town of only 1,500 people, they have a really fine swimming pool/waterpark which I was able to take advantage of. The County's population is 2,400.
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| A view from our campsite |
Tomorrow we'll head to Mount Rushmore National Park in South Dakota.
Saturday, August 27
South Dakota
After a relatively short drive, we're near Mount Rushmore National Monument. We spent a good part of the afternoon at the monument.
It's an interesting place with an interesting history. Obviously it is nothing like the scenic National Parks we've seen, but from the perspective of being different, it is certainly that. 60 foot high faces carved into the side of a mountain certainly stands out.
It was started in the late 1920's as an idea to attract tourists to the region. In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the monument, commencing 14 years of work. Throughout the depression in the 1930's, this project was used to provide jobs for the ranchers and miners in the area. The project was mostly paid for by the government, but a surprisingly large percentage came from private donations. Work was halted at the beginning of WWII and was never completed to the sculptors vision.
Tonight, we went back over to Monument for their nightly lighting ceremony. This is held each evening as it gets dark. During a moving patriotic ceremony just after dark, the lights are turned on to the sculptures, providing a beautifully different perspective.
This project and many others like it such as Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park, the roads and tunnels in Colorado National Monument, the roads of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, and even our own Blue Ridge Parkway and many others were done during the depression of the 1930's. This was before all the onerous government environmental regulations of today. NONE of these projects could possibly be permitted today. It was also before we became a nation of "what can the government do for me" mentality that has brought us generations of people who have learned that they can live off the government rather than working for living. During the 1980's when we supposedly were on the verge of another great depression, the government spent billions of dollars, some supposedly on infrastructure. But what do we see today as a result of this massive spending? Nothing. It really can be depressing to think about.
Sunday, August 28
We put a few miles behind us today, but not to many.
We first stopped at Wall Drug Store in Wall, South Dakota. I had heard about it from a friend who was passing through this area about a month ago. He didn't describe it very well, and I was expecting a big building of some sorts with a drug store. Wrong!
It started out back in the 1930's as a small drug store in a small town and the husband and wife who had bought it were struggling to make a living. They came up with the idea of offering travelers (remember, this is the 30's) free ice cold water as they traveled to Yellowstone National Park, and other famous parks of that area.
They put up a few signs along the highway, and before long, they were serving lots of ice cold water. Forward to today. Now Wall Drug Store is an entire make believe old timey town, with dozens of store fronts that sell just about anything you could think of - and they still serve free ice cold water Kinda makes a nice story, but in reality, it's more of a tourist trap than anything. Although we did have a good hot roast beef sandwich - and headed on our way.
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| Wall Drug, Wall South Dakota |
A quick look at the Badlands will reveal that they were deposited in layers. The layers are composed of tiny grains of sediments such as sand, silt, and clay that have been cemented together into sedimentary rocks. The sedimentary rock layers of Badlands National Park were deposited during the late Cretaceous Period (67 to 75 million years ago) throughout the Late Eocene (34 to 37 million years ago) and Oligocene Epochs (26 to 34 million years ago). Different environments—sea, tropical land, and open woodland with meandering rivers—caused different sediments to accumulate here at different times. The layers similar in character are grouped into units called formations. The oldest formations are at the bottom and the youngest are at the top, illustrating the principle of superposition
Erosion began in the Badlands about 500,000 years ago when the Cheyenne River captured streams and rivers flowing from the Black Hills into the Badlands region. Before 500,000 years ago, streams and rivers carried sediments from the Black Hills building the rock layers we see today. Once the Black Hills streams and rivers were captured, erosion dominated over deposition. Modern rivers cut down through the rock layers, carving fantastic shapes into what had once been a flat floodplain. The Badlands erode at the rapid rate of about one inch per year. Evidence suggests that they will erode completely away in another 500,000 years, giving them a life span of just one million years. Not a long period of time from a geologic perspective.
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| Incredible color |
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| Some of the formations are small |
A pretty incredible place!
Tonight after dark there was a ranger program on astronomy. This is the perfect place for such a program because there are very few lights around, even in the campground, and you can drive a mile or two down the road and be surrounded by total darkness.
Anna and I had experimented a little with trying to take pictures of the stars.
Monday, August 29
This was a deadheading day, driving for almost 8 hours across a very flat South Dakota. We seldom drive that long, but there isn't much to stop for. Tonight we are a few miles off the interstate highway in Southeast South Dakota in Union Grove State Park. The park is very nice, but it's in the middle of farms on a hill. Rather strange to have a park in a location like this. But it is quiet, shaded and comfortable.
The trip heading East so far.
