Mount Rushmore, the Deadwood Stage and wildlife at last!

They do warn you that Mount Rushmore is popular and to expect it to be busy. And they are not wrong! Admission is free, but there is a charge for parking. Once you've got through the fee barrier - it took us about half an hour from the time we joined the "line", there are attendants at the various car parks and level entrances to help you find a space. And there is plenty of space as well.

It's pretty amazing and you can see on Washington how the intention had been to create busts rather than just the heads. My first thought was I was expecting it to be bigger, but then you are viewing from quite a distance and the size can be judged from the trees below.

Also on the same site is an exhibition of the Civilian Conservation Corps - an idea developed in the 1930s to overcome unemployment during the depression by creating work for those who had no work - and no chance of finding any, see The Grapes of Wrath to understand why - by building numerous public works such as trails and buildings in the National Parks being established. What a brilliant idea!

You'll spend maybe half a day at Mount Rushmore if you don't rush. The restaurant was full to the seams, so we headed off to Hill City to find a bite to eat. A nice little place, but busy. Buffalo burgers later, we headed to the Crazy Horse Monument.

This time you have to pay and rather like attractions at home, there are "begging signs" everywhere: "we get no funding"; "your donations fund all this work", etc. A big visitor centre full of stalls selling genuine native American artefacts (maybe) and a viewing platform to see Crazy Horse emerging from the mountain:

A good degree of imagination is required t see what will eventually emerge from the mountain

The size of what they are creating can be seen from the machines

Here's a model of what will eventually emerge

 Somewhat underwhelmed, we took ourselves off to Custer State Park. A HUGE park with proper scenery. We took one of the scenic drives that took us through several low and narrow tunnels:

Rocks, Mountains, Trees

The road comes to an abrupt halt, it seems. But it continues to the left through a narrow tunnel

It's tight for a SUV - there is no way in this world that we would have fitted our RV through here! This is Needle's Eye Tunnel.

And here's the rock formation that gives the tunnel its name.

We'd planned to drive around the Wildlife Loop, but there wasn't really time, so back to the RV and the Wildlife Loop could wait for another day.

The Deadwood Stage is a rollin' on over the plain...

Taking the scenic route, we headed off to Deadwood, not really knowing what to expect and with our knowledge of the story of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hicock formed entirely from watching Howard Keel and Doris Day.

There's plenty of trees and lakes along the route. Very different to two weeks or so earlier when we were in the desert

How much of Deadwood is genuine? we couldn't really tell. It is still mostly a gaming town with all the hotels and saloons being full of gambling machines and tables, rather like Las Vegas, but on a smaller scale. We couldn't find Henry Miller or the Golden Garter and suspect that both were just Hollywood artistic licence!

A trip in a proper old school bus took us to "Boot Hill" to see the graves of Wild Bill Hicock and Calamity Jane:

Wild Bill's grave

And Martha "Calamity" Jane Burke's grave 

Lunch today was in a newly opened saloon offering pizza for lunch, either by the slice or a whole pizza. We had a "small", which turned out to be enough for dinner as well. Thank goodness for "Doggy Boxes"!

BEAR COUNTRY!

Having spectacularly failed to see any bears in the wild, we took ourselves to a drive through wildlife park just south of Rapid City. A slow drive around enabled us to have a few close encounters with the residents. The windows on the car have to be kept closed, so this does have an effect on the quality of the pictures:

Fancy walking around with that on top of your head...

The nearest that we got to a fully grown bear. I wouldn't want to be any closer... 

The resident Grizzly bear

Some of the animals were kept in a traditional zoo environment:

A Lynx. There are thoughts of reintroducing these into the UK. Not exactly your friendly pussy cat...

Bobcat. Just a little larger than a decent sized moggy, but not quite so cuddly.

Cubs playing in the trees. They separate the cubs from their parents to prevent them being killed. Unlike Yogi looking after his nephew Boo-Boo, then.

On the 4th of July, we finally managed our circuit of the Wildlife Loop. We forgot to take into account that it is a National Holiday and therefore all the wildlife had the day off! All we saw were a few donkeys, or burros as they are called in the US. We were hoping for spectacular fireworks, but that was not to be; a combination of being in a sparsely populated area and a ban being in place due to the high fire risk.

We now have two days to get ourselves back to Denver to fly home. That will be in the next and final section of this story. Watch this space....

If you have enjoyed looking at these pictures and others in this blog, they are available in higher quality and resolution at my gallery http://kevinwarrington.zenfolio.com/ where you can purchase prints, artwork and gift items.

On the Road to Mount Rushmore

Leaving Durango, we took a slow and easy drive to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, spread over several days and where we could, taking the less busy roads. First stop was to be Grand Junction and getting there would take us high up and through the Rockies, passing Silverton along the way. Here's the route for the first day.

We didn't stop at Silverton, but we did at Ouray, which likes to think of itself as a bit of Switzerland in the USA.

Mountain scenery heading from Silverton to Ouray

Looking down onto Ouray on the road from Durango & Silverton

The really good bit about driving a monster RV in the US is that you can stop and park wherever you like. And if you take up three parking spaces, then that's fine. The downside, though is that if you are on a meter, you have to pay for all the spaces. But on the other hand, they really like tourists around here, so you'd probably get away with it...

Numerous old buildings remain and add to the character

Main Street. It is rather hilly!

Leaving Ouray, the route varies from mountainous and forested to open plain and took us into Grand Junction where we found our campground for the night. Tonight it is going to be another KOA site. Some of these seem to get a bad press, but this one is great. It's next door to the State Fairground and close to a busy road, so it might be different at other times, but while we were there it was great with very friendly staff and a good plot for us to use overnight.

Heading away from Grand Junction, we travelled by Interstate to the small town of Rifle where we headed north and up into more mountains. Here's the route..

Our destination was Steamboat Springs, a ski resort and we were visiting in mid-summer. It wasn't on the original plan, which was for us to head to a State Park to the north for some chill out time. But we discovered that this entailed 60 miles or so on gravel roads, so a rapid replan took place before we left home. We were staying again at a KOA, but any hopes we had of this being like the previous night's stop were dashed. It is old, a little run down, cramped and things just don't work as they should. So can't recommend this one - but it is the only choice in town.

In its favour, though, it is on a free bus route into town, so off we went to explore. We are at one end of town and the main ski resort area is at the other. So we took the bus to "our" end of town and went for an explore. That didn't take long...

Downtown Steamboat Springs

A block back from the main drag, we find a river and go for a stroll:

And now, having exhausted the attractions of the town, we think that we'll head off to the ski resort and see what is there. Even if the answer is "nothing", we can take the lift up to the top of the hill and admire the scenery. What was there? Nothing! And the lift was closed for maintenance. Great...

OK, so back into town and find somewhere for lunch, which turned out to be a pub:

                       

 

That was an improvement! After libations and refreshments, we head back, taking in the town museum along the way. There was a large display on Butch Cassidy, who had "connections" with the area.

Ann relaxing on the porch of the museum building

And then off on the next bit of the journey, following this route. It was a long journey, climbing even higher into the mountains until we reached the Wild West town of Laramie. Here we took a break at the only tourist place we could find, which happened to be the local prison. Actually, it was interesting and worth the stop. It's claim to fame? It's most famous inmate was one Butch Cassidy

Mountain scenery along the road to Laramie. Notice the snow - and this was late June!

Wyoming State Prison at Laramie

One of the cellblocks at Laramie. Despite popular opinion, there are modern prisons in the UK that are not much different to this

And so eventually, we arrived at the KOA in Douglas, Wyoming, our stop for the night. This one was quite OK. Just a short drive now towards Mount Rushmore tomorrow. Here's the route. We found ourselves at last on decent roads! Wyoming and South Dakota have proper roads with smooth surfaces!! A stop at Walmart in Rapid City for victuals and we were set up for the next 4 nights. And the car we had rented was waiting for us. A *bit* smaller than our RV, but it will do very nicely...

Next time, we'll go to Mount Rushmore, then to Deadwood and then in search of some wildlife.

If you have enjoyed looking at these pictures and others in this blog, they are available in higher quality and resolution at my gallery http://kevinwarrington.zenfolio.com/ where you can purchase prints, artwork and gift items.

The Durango Kids

It sounds like it should be a cowboy town, but Durango's real claim to fame is being a railway town on the Denver and Santa Fe system and home to what is probably the most famous narrow gauge steam railway in the world, mostly because it has been on the television so many times. It was on our route (conveniently) and a ride on the line has been on my "bucket list" for ever.

Conveniently, the line ran through our campground and we were given a site in the first row, so we were as close to the line as we could possibly get.

The view from our site

We stayed for three nights, which gave us two whole days in town. One was dedicated to the train ride to Silverton, so on our first full day, we took the local bus the 5 miles into town. It cost us just $1 each return.

Downtown Durango

The railway depot has a museum located in the roundhouse, built to replace the original building that burnt down. It seems most Western towns have burned down more than once and Durango is no exception!

Our closest encounter with a bear. This one was stuffed.

And then the trip to Silverton the following day. On our day of travel, there were three return services to Silverton; one of which was run in two parts, so in total there were to be four trains running each way. We were on the second departure, so we arrived early to watch the action

Durango grinds to a halt as the trains leave. There are many ungated crossings, so the bells ring and the whistle is sounded continuously all the way through the town.

It's a holiday, so with all thoughts of cost cast to the wind, we have paid to travel First Class and have the end seats in the final carriage with easy access to the rear platform to hang out for pictures.

Our seats in the First Class Parlor Car. Ann has adopted her characteristic on holiday "film star" look with the large sunglasses

The line climbs all the way, following the course of the Animas river most of the way. To begin with, the climb is quite gentle, through trees.

Before long, we have arrived at what is called the "High Line". This is a shelf the width of the train that has been blasted into a 1000 feet high cliff. The cliff extends 600 feet above and therefore the drop into the rapids below is 400 feet. If you don't like heights, do not look down. At this point, I'm hanging off the rear platform to get the best view.

Curving around the wide part of the highline. I'm at the back of the train taking pictures.

Looking down into the canyon and the rocks 400 feet below. I'm at the back of the train, now hanging over the canyon taking pictures.

The line crosses back and forth over the river and the question is always which side is the best to sit? It doesn't make a huge difference as the train is turned around for the return journey, but it did seem to be working harder on the journey to Silverton, so my suggestion would be that a seat on the right side is probably better - and that is what we did.

Approaching Silverton, the scenery becomes pure mountain and trees.

The old depot at Silverton is no longer used, so the train just pulls up in the street, rather like a tram!

With all the original mines now being worked out, Silverton is now a tourist town. We managed to choose probably the worst restaurant in town for lunch! It served pasties, which is about right as the pasty is an international miner's food. But not at all like the proper Cornish pasty, even though the same shape. I think the content was a mix of left overs and washing water. The beer was OK, though.  We had a stroll through Silverton. Or as we are out West, maybe that should be a "mosey"

The only paved street in town

A ride around the town in the stagecoach was an option, but we chose to walk

Time to leave...  We are in the same seats on the way back, but as the train has been turned around, we are now on the opposite side, so the scenery is quite different.

We were intending on a meal out on our return, but the effect of lunch was still with us, so it was back to the RV and a simple salad. Good points: Durango is an interesting town; the train trip and wandering around Silverton. Bad bits; It is high in the mountains and hot, hot, hot! Hard to believe it gets cut off in the winter by the snow.

If you have enjoyed looking at these pictures and others in this blog, they are available in higher quality and resolution at my gallery http://kevinwarrington.zenfolio.com/ where you can purchase prints, artwork and gift items.