Tripping without a plan, summer 2010
- Thread starter suntinez
- Start date
suntinez
Explorer
northeast WY
I wasn’t holding out much hope of seeing wild mustangs, but I got lucky. Walking over a couple hills, I saw a group of 5 of them, playing in a field. Amazing. We kept out of their sight mostly, and watched them frolicking for some time. This was a magical moment for me. I guess the Pryor Mountain mustangs are well known, but I didn’t know that until later. May have to go back for more of this.
Driving around the Powder River Basin, you see lots of coal being mined and trekked out via railroad. I never knew there was this much coal in this area, just never thought about it I guess. Coal is a big deal in WY.
Near Burgess Junction, from 14 to primary Forest Route 15, Freeze Out Rd and FS Road 150. Mostly dirt out here, but nothing that would prevent the Tiger from going, so we did. Turns out this is near the Bighorn Bull Elk Natural area, and we saw a lot of them.
Elk cows :
Bulls:
Where elk cool off:
I got to witness this small drama, a whitetail deer chasing off a coyote. I guess coyotes are huge predator of these deer, but this one won’t be in that statistic – at least not today.
After coming off the mountain and back to highway speeds, within 20 minutes a truck roars by and kicks up a rock on my windshield. Drat! It runs a little bit, maybe an inch and then BLAM! - a bird commits suicide right near the same spot. Now I’ve got a double run and have to do something about it.
Fortunately the first big town near here is Gillette. I pick an exit and there are at least a dozen businesses doing hail repair on vehicles within a couple miles of the highway. Strange. It seems they had a big hailstorm a couple months before. Sorry for those affected, it sounds like it was bad – but lucky for me.
So back on the road, I now understand that phrase “seas of grass” - rippling in the wind – amazing colors. Head over to Devils Monument, it is definitely strange to see this monolith rising out of the plains. If I was an alien, I’d notice this.
“I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I've been seeing this shape. Shaving cream, pillows... Damnit! I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important.” OK I’m probably dating myself here …
Hey the sign says “stop”
With colorful sandstone
In Aladdin, WY is one of the oldest general stores still in operation (100+ years) a nice place to have a seat, eat lunch, and watch the world go by. A mile past there is this old wooden coal tipple, used to sort the various sizes of coal before shipping it via rail.
I wasn’t holding out much hope of seeing wild mustangs, but I got lucky. Walking over a couple hills, I saw a group of 5 of them, playing in a field. Amazing. We kept out of their sight mostly, and watched them frolicking for some time. This was a magical moment for me. I guess the Pryor Mountain mustangs are well known, but I didn’t know that until later. May have to go back for more of this.
Driving around the Powder River Basin, you see lots of coal being mined and trekked out via railroad. I never knew there was this much coal in this area, just never thought about it I guess. Coal is a big deal in WY.
Near Burgess Junction, from 14 to primary Forest Route 15, Freeze Out Rd and FS Road 150. Mostly dirt out here, but nothing that would prevent the Tiger from going, so we did. Turns out this is near the Bighorn Bull Elk Natural area, and we saw a lot of them.
Elk cows :
Bulls:
Where elk cool off:
I got to witness this small drama, a whitetail deer chasing off a coyote. I guess coyotes are huge predator of these deer, but this one won’t be in that statistic – at least not today.
After coming off the mountain and back to highway speeds, within 20 minutes a truck roars by and kicks up a rock on my windshield. Drat! It runs a little bit, maybe an inch and then BLAM! - a bird commits suicide right near the same spot. Now I’ve got a double run and have to do something about it.
Fortunately the first big town near here is Gillette. I pick an exit and there are at least a dozen businesses doing hail repair on vehicles within a couple miles of the highway. Strange. It seems they had a big hailstorm a couple months before. Sorry for those affected, it sounds like it was bad – but lucky for me.
So back on the road, I now understand that phrase “seas of grass” - rippling in the wind – amazing colors. Head over to Devils Monument, it is definitely strange to see this monolith rising out of the plains. If I was an alien, I’d notice this.
“I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I've been seeing this shape. Shaving cream, pillows... Damnit! I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important.” OK I’m probably dating myself here …
Hey the sign says “stop”
With colorful sandstone
In Aladdin, WY is one of the oldest general stores still in operation (100+ years) a nice place to have a seat, eat lunch, and watch the world go by. A mile past there is this old wooden coal tipple, used to sort the various sizes of coal before shipping it via rail.
suntinez
Explorer
South Dakota
I came across 24 and 34, then down 85 into Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills National Forest. This scenic byway has lots of fishing and hiking trails.
Looking down into Spearfish Canyon from Little Spearfish Canyon.
Roughneck falls:
River otter chowing down on a fish:
Spent much of the day hiking around here, I should’ve stayed at one of these CGs but headed into Deadwood instead. It’s a cool town with a lot of history, and in July – a lot of tourists. This was a relatively empty spot along the main street
Nothing nearby was appealing, so I headed for a spot near Sturgis. Folks were already gathering for the big Harley rally in a couple of weeks.
I wasn’t holding out much hope after crowded Deadwood and all the Harleys around but it was a good call, Bear Butte Lake was empty and gorgeous.
There’s a small state park CG here right on the lake. When I pulled in there was only one set of folks camping there. They’d been told about this place by some interesting character in MT who said it was a sacred site among native americans.
Friendly folks, turns out they were cousins, roadtripping together from OR to KY and they invited me for dinner. Nice. We had the lake to ourselves and a grand old time, nice fire, music, chatting and playing with cameras.
Great colors on the lake at sunset:
A flock of pelicans came flying by, playing in the water after the sun set. I was surprised to see pelicans this far from the ocean. Maybe they’re not pelicans? Deanna said, grab your camera and we all walked over to the lake. At one point I turned around and said “cool moon” – it was a little sliver setting behind us.
Snapped some pics that came out pretty dark, but a few of them had this big orb in them. I lightened them up some here, but … what the heck is that? We were all looking at it on the camera, then looking back up at the lake – nothing. A mystical moment for sure.
Next morning, we got a good view of Bear Butte:
And a dip in the lake before parting ways, it was getting really hot out.
Found these guys nearby:
Well I’m this close … why not? The Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse memorials are amazing tributes to their creators. The sheer scale of these sculptures is mind-boggling.
The Crazy Horse memorial - one day the mountain will be carved into something 34x the size of this model. You can maybe see the horse’s head outlined on the rock.
Indian trade beads = moolah
This is a cool area, but I’m a bit overwhelmed by the crowds and extreme commercialization. So I leave, heading east. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more billboards in my life than for “Wall Drug Store”. I just couldn’t stop, nothing could possibly live up to that kind of hype.
I think if I’d researched this area a little more, or skipped high tourist season, I would’ve hung around here for quite a while. There are some really beautiful things in the Black Hills.
But I did take the turnoff near Wall for Badlands NP. Man those annual passes are nice! I didn’t pay (again), and took off down the road thru the Badlands:
Imagine if the prarie just eroded away:
There’s a young bighorn sheep in the bottom right corner, not sure if you can see him:
I was going to camp at Sage Creek inside the park, but the temps are soaring and Pep is melting, so I found a CG with hookups for AC near Interior, and we crashed for night.
AC on full, and a 12V fan blowing on her. Not sure if this is a “thanks mom” look or a “what the hell?” look:
A very slow morning, it was hard to unplug that AC. But we got a nice look at this fellow before leaving:
I came across 24 and 34, then down 85 into Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills National Forest. This scenic byway has lots of fishing and hiking trails.
Looking down into Spearfish Canyon from Little Spearfish Canyon.
Roughneck falls:
River otter chowing down on a fish:
Spent much of the day hiking around here, I should’ve stayed at one of these CGs but headed into Deadwood instead. It’s a cool town with a lot of history, and in July – a lot of tourists. This was a relatively empty spot along the main street
Nothing nearby was appealing, so I headed for a spot near Sturgis. Folks were already gathering for the big Harley rally in a couple of weeks.
I wasn’t holding out much hope after crowded Deadwood and all the Harleys around but it was a good call, Bear Butte Lake was empty and gorgeous.
There’s a small state park CG here right on the lake. When I pulled in there was only one set of folks camping there. They’d been told about this place by some interesting character in MT who said it was a sacred site among native americans.
Friendly folks, turns out they were cousins, roadtripping together from OR to KY and they invited me for dinner. Nice. We had the lake to ourselves and a grand old time, nice fire, music, chatting and playing with cameras.
Great colors on the lake at sunset:
A flock of pelicans came flying by, playing in the water after the sun set. I was surprised to see pelicans this far from the ocean. Maybe they’re not pelicans? Deanna said, grab your camera and we all walked over to the lake. At one point I turned around and said “cool moon” – it was a little sliver setting behind us.
Snapped some pics that came out pretty dark, but a few of them had this big orb in them. I lightened them up some here, but … what the heck is that? We were all looking at it on the camera, then looking back up at the lake – nothing. A mystical moment for sure.
Next morning, we got a good view of Bear Butte:
And a dip in the lake before parting ways, it was getting really hot out.
Found these guys nearby:
Well I’m this close … why not? The Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse memorials are amazing tributes to their creators. The sheer scale of these sculptures is mind-boggling.
The Crazy Horse memorial - one day the mountain will be carved into something 34x the size of this model. You can maybe see the horse’s head outlined on the rock.
Indian trade beads = moolah
This is a cool area, but I’m a bit overwhelmed by the crowds and extreme commercialization. So I leave, heading east. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more billboards in my life than for “Wall Drug Store”. I just couldn’t stop, nothing could possibly live up to that kind of hype.
I think if I’d researched this area a little more, or skipped high tourist season, I would’ve hung around here for quite a while. There are some really beautiful things in the Black Hills.
But I did take the turnoff near Wall for Badlands NP. Man those annual passes are nice! I didn’t pay (again), and took off down the road thru the Badlands:
Imagine if the prarie just eroded away:
There’s a young bighorn sheep in the bottom right corner, not sure if you can see him:
I was going to camp at Sage Creek inside the park, but the temps are soaring and Pep is melting, so I found a CG with hookups for AC near Interior, and we crashed for night.
AC on full, and a 12V fan blowing on her. Not sure if this is a “thanks mom” look or a “what the hell?” look:
A very slow morning, it was hard to unplug that AC. But we got a nice look at this fellow before leaving:
jim65wagon
Well-known member
Awesome! The colors you're getting on the photographs are amazing! Trippin' even!
BTW, the Devils Tower always makes me think of mashed potatoes.....
BTW, the Devils Tower always makes me think of mashed potatoes.....
suntinez
Explorer
You’re not alone, I’m sure! As long as you don’t start sculpting them and you never have to tell your kids “Well, I guess you've noticed something a little strange with Dad. It's OK. I'm still Dad” – should be ok
Heading east on 90, I expect a fast interstate drive, but there’s so much road construction it turned into a start-stop slow slog. Approaching the border of MN, the fields start turning green with crops, and there are these amazing huge thunderheads on the horizon. Lightning inside and rainbows around the edges - mesmerizing! It must be raining somewhere, here it’s just hot.
Several influential people in my life have come from MN, but I’ve only been there for business trips and never really looked around. If things had gone differently in college, Stillwater could well have become my home town, but I’d never been, so I go. I camp outside of Mankato at a county park the first night - Land of Memories, a big multi-use park on the MN river with 2 campgrounds, one reasonably secluded - and head for Stillwater the next day.
I was trying to skirt the twin cities, but road construction continues, 2 major highways are shut down, and there’s a ball game going on. Oh well, a detour through downtown Minneapolis. But I saw a bunch of new stuff, so it turned out ok.
Nice Ride MN seems like a really smart idea, renting bikes to commute around the city, just drop them off at another location:
Later on, I found out that Chicago has a similar program, I-GO, but for car sharing.
I make it to Stillwater, and it’s beautiful. A historic town on the St Croix river, there’s a bustling area down by the waterfront, so I take a little time for lunch and to look around. These clouds turned into a tornado later on.
Got a kick out of this store name:
The knot-tyers guild was having a demo, those folks do amazing things with knots! Lots of big functional knots for rigging and such, and this little decorative sampler:
I decide to keep heading north, following the St Croix scenic riverway as close as I can. I stopped for about an hour at this free outdoor sculpture park in Franconia, it was raining a bit, but I didn’t care. It felt good after the heat.
I wondered where this thing had gotten to! Scooby Doo, where are you?
Getting late so I stop at a state CG just south of Taylors Falls. The lady at the counter was just tripping on the tornado warnings that had been broadcast all day, it was hard to get her to focus her attention. She said “We’re full, you really shouldn’t be out camping in this anyhow”. “Well ... maybe, but I am – can you help? I need somewhere to go for the night.” She directs me to the WI side of the river, there’s another CG over there, but tells me there is a parade scheduled between Taylors Falls, MN and St Croix Falls, WI. And the bridge will be closed in about an hour.
I guess I’m committed if I go, so over the bridge to Interstate State Park in WI. It’s a huge place and just 2 spots left for tonight, Sat night. I chat with the lady at the entrance booth, she’s fascinated with Pepper and the journey and tells me about a Steinbeck book called “Travels with Charley” which I’ve now ordered.
By this time it’s pouring down rain, and ranger lady tells me about where the locals get pizza nearby in Dresser. I run down to check out the camp spot first, but can’t get pizza off my mind. WI cheese, yummy.
The CG is huge, it’s a couple mile drive down to my spot, lots of folks out for the weekend but my spot is at the very end of one loop, so not too bad. The people in the next campsite are once-a-year campers, 4 friends who grew up together but only see each other this one weekend. I tell them I’m headed into Dresser, can I pick them up anything? Why yes, another 12 pack of coke so they can keep drinking. Alrighty then.
Came back with my pizza and soda for them, and setup camp. They actually got a fire started in the rain ... by now, it’s thunder and lightning and the parade has started, we can see fireworks through the trees. Boom boom boom. They have a screen room setup for the bugs, so I put Pepper in the house and join them, it’s a little crazy to have her out here chasing thunder.
Todd gets a final text message from his brother – he’s skipped his family reunion to go camping – and the message says “Aunt Mary’s car is flipped over, we can’t get out of here, 8 out of the 10 cars are totaled, tornado has touched down”. Holy smokes!
Then a tornado siren starts going off where we are. They’re all looking up at the sky, and when I ask why, they say “When the sky turns green, that’s when you worry.” I look around and say “But ... it’s dark out”. “Well, I guess were screwed then.” Laughter, drinking, etc. Hmmmm.
The 3rd time the tornado siren goes off, everyone else on the loop packs up and leaves. We decide to stay, I’m with locals, right? Just after mixing my 2nd drink, red & blue flashing lights come through the CG and a voice over a loudspeaker says, “Pack up and evacuate to the shelter”. Uhoh.
They all pile in their car and head out. The sheriff stops right in front of Tiger and says “Drive! Now!!”. But the top is up, I can’t drive like that. I learned just how quickly I can break things down – maybe 90 seconds – and get 2 of the 6 latches done, canvas flapping out the top – I’d popped down with the door closed, oops.
The sheriff has taken off, I’m the last one there. Rain coming down in sheets, branches falling from trees, and I don’t know where the shelter is. So I head for the entrance, got turned around once but back on track and see the sign “fallout shelter” and I pull in.
The concrete building is jam packed with soggy, freaked out campers, kids, and their dogs. The ranger is saying they’ve extended the warning another 30 minutes. I’d left Pep outside while I scouted it out, then found my neighbors and we decided to sit it out in Tiger and keep Pep company. So after all of that, this is the only pic I got:
We got back to the campsite after a bit and everything was flattened. I had some tools and duct tape and bits, so we rebuilt their tents and shelter as best we could. The tornado didn't actually touch down here, but it was close.
Evacuated from camping for a tornado, a memorable night!
Definitely some bad decisions here, and extended adrenalin moments, but it all came out ok. One of the gals in the group is a DJ for MPR, I heard her recount the story on the air the next Monday, it was pretty funny. I guess bad decisions do make for good stories.
Dave Bennett
Adventurist
:lurk:
VikingVince
Explorer
Nice trip report...Loved the pic of the wild mustangs...glad they are still out there in some places. I believe I heard a while ago that a bunch of them were rounded up somewhere because they couldn't survive.
Someone mentioned color/clarity of your pics...what camera? thx
Someone mentioned color/clarity of your pics...what camera? thx
Dave Bennett
Adventurist
X2, what camera?
suntinez
Explorer
The main camera is a Nikon D40, the "little" camera is (was) a canon powershot 520. I laid the little one to rest on this trip and replaced it with an Olympus waterproof camera after Pepper learned to swim :victory:
I don't have photo editing software but use the windows native editor to "autocorrect" sometimes and crop, since there's annoying dust on the D40's small lens I can't seem to get rid of. I usually compress the pics also before uploading them, keeps the bandwidth on my free photobucket account down so it stays free.
It's a nice camera and alot more capable than I am, only thing it really needs is education for the operator!
Thanks ya'll, out of town for the weekend but will get back to pic sorting next week :ylsmoke:
I don't have photo editing software but use the windows native editor to "autocorrect" sometimes and crop, since there's annoying dust on the D40's small lens I can't seem to get rid of. I usually compress the pics also before uploading them, keeps the bandwidth on my free photobucket account down so it stays free.
It's a nice camera and alot more capable than I am, only thing it really needs is education for the operator!
Thanks ya'll, out of town for the weekend but will get back to pic sorting next week :ylsmoke:
Dave Bennett
Adventurist
suntinez
Explorer
Just getting a little beach time in Dave, and a free ticket to the Antonio Gates show today at Qualcomm, hard to turn down. Was getting worried about them ... if you're a Chargers fan, you always worry!
Also, Toni (the Tiger) got a new mattress this week and a new swivel passenger seat. You can't let that stuff sit, you gotta break it in Both seem much better than their predecessors.
Also, Toni (the Tiger) got a new mattress this week and a new swivel passenger seat. You can't let that stuff sit, you gotta break it in
Both seem much better than their predecessors.
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suntinez
Explorer
After an eventful night I head for Osceola, WI the next morning, these are the Cascade Falls:
An egret fishing in a pond:
Back to the MN side, still following the St Croix river as closely as possible.
At one point the “scenic riverway” signs lead to an unpaved road, there’s a lot of those in farm country up here so it doesn’t bother me a bit. I’m just toodling around trying to keep close to the river, pretty much driving through farmland.
Then the unpaved road turns into a 2-track, but hey – there’s the scenic riverway sign, so I keep going. Another couple miles and I’m pretty sure I’m off track now. Doesn’t matter - I'm having fun, and besides at one point I did get close to the river and saw this guy:
The road ends, not really a question here, it’s not passable without a chainsaw. OK that’s the end of this jaunt.
Fortunately Tiger is only 16ft long so I turn around, and take a closer look at that sign when I go back. Someone must've been playing a joke – it was just stuck in the ground and propped up by rocks. I guess they got me, whoever they were. I did see some very scenic corn, however:
Somewhere in here I developed a bad screeching sound up front so I stopped. I pull the right wheel off, there’s a rock stuck in the brake.
I pry it out with a screwdriver and my handy kitchen knife and break out the air compressor to blow things off. Good to go. And good to get back to an actual road, to find somewhere to camp.
I stop at St Croix State Park, it’s another large one but empty this time, and lots of near-riverfront camping . I find a spot and noticed that the Trasharoo was sagging quite a bit, but it’s now tornado-tested. I guess I didn’t do that great a job of putting it on after my 30,000 mi service/tire rotation back in WY. I wound up pulling the spare off to make sure it got on tight this time.
I’m pretty pooped and Pepper is too. We take a little walk by the river, and crash early.
An egret fishing in a pond:
Back to the MN side, still following the St Croix river as closely as possible.
At one point the “scenic riverway” signs lead to an unpaved road, there’s a lot of those in farm country up here so it doesn’t bother me a bit. I’m just toodling around trying to keep close to the river, pretty much driving through farmland.
Then the unpaved road turns into a 2-track, but hey – there’s the scenic riverway sign, so I keep going. Another couple miles and I’m pretty sure I’m off track now. Doesn’t matter - I'm having fun, and besides at one point I did get close to the river and saw this guy:
The road ends, not really a question here, it’s not passable without a chainsaw. OK that’s the end of this jaunt.
Fortunately Tiger is only 16ft long so I turn around, and take a closer look at that sign when I go back. Someone must've been playing a joke – it was just stuck in the ground and propped up by rocks. I guess they got me, whoever they were. I did see some very scenic corn, however:
Somewhere in here I developed a bad screeching sound up front so I stopped. I pull the right wheel off, there’s a rock stuck in the brake.
I pry it out with a screwdriver and my handy kitchen knife and break out the air compressor to blow things off. Good to go. And good to get back to an actual road, to find somewhere to camp.
I stop at St Croix State Park, it’s another large one but empty this time, and lots of near-riverfront camping . I find a spot and noticed that the Trasharoo was sagging quite a bit, but it’s now tornado-tested. I guess I didn’t do that great a job of putting it on after my 30,000 mi service/tire rotation back in WY. I wound up pulling the spare off to make sure it got on tight this time.
I’m pretty pooped and Pepper is too. We take a little walk by the river, and crash early.
Nice! These tiger provan are getting more and more interesting to me...!
