Black Hills - June 10-19, 2011

It was time to get the camper out for the first trip of the year. I was eager to find out if I had gotten it winterized correctly last fall and if it had survived the very cold weather we had in January. I got a bit worried when the electrical system wouldn't work after I had re-installed the batteries but then I remembered there was a battery cutoff switch that I hadn't reset. After that, everything was fine. I drained the antifreeze from the water lines and filled up the freshwater tanks. I couldn't find any leaks so everything seemed good to go.

It is recommended that I wash and wax the camper to protect it from the sun so I did that. It took a long time since there is quite a bit of surface area on the thing. Then I loaded up my gear and headed out.

The first stop was only a few hours away. I was planning to meet my brother for lunch in Colorado Springs the next day so I only went about halfway up at first and boondocked north of Tres Piedras near San Antonio mountain. The elevation is over 8000 feet up there so it was quite chilly that night. I set up my generator to run the microwave and cooked up a hot meal.

The view of San Antonio Mountain from my campsite.


The next morning I headed up through Alamosa and then east to Walsenburg to I-25. I met up for lunch and then took I-25 through Denver to I-76 and made it up to Sterling, Colorado where I stayed at a campground. That made for a decently long day's drive.

At Sterling, Colorado.


Next was the western part of Nebraska where there were two stops to be made. First was the Scott's Bluff National Monument. This spot was an important point on the Oregon Trail - the wagon trains had been traveling through a featureless expanse of grasslands for many weeks and these bluffs were the first landmarks they came across. There was a nice museum there and I learned an interesting fact. After the first couple of years of the wagon trains, there was a recommendation that new immigrants not bring anything like tools or heavy items with them. They could collect all the things they needed along the trail from the items that previous wagon trains had left behind. A lot of people also died from disease along the way, there was an estimated 4 graves per mile along the trail.








The second stop in Nebraska was the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. The site is best known for the large number of well-preserved Miocene fossils, many of which were found at dig sites on Carnegie and University Hills. There was a severe drought which brought lots of animals to a few waterholes where many died and left hundreds of fossilized bones behind. There wasn't a lot to see at this site other than the small museum.

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument - headquarters.




Leaving Nebraska behind, I made it up to the southern part of the Black Hills of South Dakota. The first stop was Wind Cave National Park. I got there in time to take a guided tour of the cave that lasted about an hour. Wind Cave is currently listed as the fourth longest cave system in the world with more than 135 miles of passages mapped. It is a very complicated system with all of those miles encompassed in an area of about 1 mile square. It would not be a good place to get lost in. The cave got its name because there is only one entrance, a hole about 15 inches across. The sound of the wind whistling in or out depending on atmospheric pressure is what led to its discovery.

The main claim to fame in this cave is a type of cave formation called Boxwork. This is formed when water flows into cracks in the base limestone and deposits Calcite in them. Later, the limestone is dissolved away as a cave is formed but the Calcite remains. The formation is pretty rare and Wind Cave has 95% of the known Boxwork formations in the world.

That evening I stayed at a campground there in Wind Cave National Park. I had to wait for about 30 minutes to register due to a strong thunderstorm that rolled through.

Boxwork formations - not the easiest thing to see since they're pretty small.


My campsite in Wind Cave National Park.



The first stop the next morning was another cave - Jewel Cave National Monument. Jewel Cave is listed as the second longest in the world at 150 miles. I took another guided tour, this one a bit more strenuous with more than 750 stairs to climb up and down. There was several areas where the Calcite crystals had formed on the surfaces and left a nice sparkly finish. Overall, the formations here (and in Wind Cave) weren't as impressive as those in Carlsbad Caverns.

Near the end of the tour, the guide told about how exploration was continuing. They had an advance camp set up deep inside but to get to it you had to go through an area called the Miseries on your hands and knees for about 1100 feet. Then you went through the Mini Miseries on your belly for another 700 feet. Finally, you had to make it through the area known as the Calorie Counter where the passage is only 7.5 inches high. The ranger asked for volunteers to help with the exploring, but, strangely, nobody raised their hand.







Heading north, I stopped next at the Crazy Horse Memorial. This statue is being carved out of the mountainside similar to Mount Rushmore. It has been under construction since 1948 but stagnated for quite a while. Work has picked up again now and they've finished the face and are working on the horses head. Once completed, it will be the largest statue in the world. Funding for the work comes mostly from the tourism it generates and there were quite a lot of people there to spend their money.

Crazy Horse Memorial showing the finished face.


This is what it will look like if they ever get it finished.


Not far from there is Mount Rushmore. It is certainly an impressive sight and a lot of people were here, as well. I listened to a park ranger give a talk on the history of the memorial. The original plan was for each of the presidents to be depicted from head to waist but the original sculptor (Gutzon Borglum) died and in 1941, with World War II looming, the project was declared complete with just the heads completed.





The day was getting long so I drove on up to Deadwood and found a campground to stay in. The next day, I headed north and west into Wyoming to see Devil's Tower. The National Monument headquarters is right at the base of the mountain and had spectacular views. It was raining, though, so I didn't take the walking tour around the base. I had been hoping to see the alien landing strip but had no luck with that. (From Close Encounters of the Third Kind for those pop-culture impaired folks.)

My campsite in Deadwood.






From there I decide to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Nation Park up in North Dakota. I probably wouldn't ever be any closer to it than now so I took an extra day to drive up there. I stayed at a campground in Medora, North Dakota, which is right on the southern border of the park. Roosevelt had built a ranch in the area and spent some time there before he became president. He solidified his love of the outdoors and conservation while in the area.

I toured the museum there and learned something new. I hadn't realized that Teddy Roosevelt had been shot - he was getting ready for a campaign speech when a saloonkeeper shot him in the chest. Roosevelt didn't think it was too serious so he insisted on giving his speech, anyway, with blood dripping down his shirt front.

There was a nice scenic loop drive through the park which I took. I saw some wildlife; buffalo, several large prairie dog towns, deer, and some wild horses.

There was a lot of beautiful, rugged country in the park.




I couldn't get a good picture of the wild horses before they ran off.


This guy wasn't looking too friendly.


The rest of the day was spent driving back south to Rapid City where I stayed the night. In the morning, I drove east and south to stop at the Badlands National Park. This is an area with a lot of eroded bluffs, pinnacles, and spires. It has some spectacular scenery. I learned that this area was the first to be called a 'badlands'; since then other spots around the world have used that name as well.

Badlands National Park




Another long drive along I-90 east got me to Sioux Falls where I spent the night. The following morning I drove down to Sioux City, Iowa and had breakfast. I saw some of the flooding problems they are having along the Missouri river - I had to take a detour because I-29 had several spots that were under water. Then, I headed south back into Nebraska - the eastern part of the state this time. In the southeastern part, south of Lincoln, is the Homestead National Monument.

This area celebrates the homesteaders that took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862 and the free land it provided. Their museum showed the difficulties the settlers faced trying to get a start in unsettled country. It was hot and humid outside, but I walked down to take a look at a restored homesteaders house, anyways. Afterwards, I headed farther south to Salina, Kansas for the night.

Homestead National Monument Visitor's Center


Restored homesteader's house. This was home to a man, his wife, and his 10 children.


There was some excitement that evening in Salina. I had the stereo on in the camper and they interrupted the music to give a severe thunderstorm warning for McPherson county. I looked at the atlas to see where that was and saw it about 20 miles south of where I was staying. A couple of minutes later, they came back on and said the storm had turned north and was headed up I-35. My campsite was a few hundred yards off of I-35 so I started getting worried.

The radio station also had a web site where they had some real-time videos going of the storm as it came into Salina. The reporters were talking about quarter-sized to ping-pong ball sized hail as it went through town. I was just north of town and was getting a bit nervous. The rain started, and then I could hear hail - probably only marble sized from the sound of it. A minute later and I heard (and felt) some larger hailstones banging against the roof. I was watching the skylight over the bed area to see it was going to be broken open or not. Fortunately, the big hail quit after about a minute and there was only heavy rain for a while.

In the morning, I inspected for damage but didn't see any. I was partially sheltered under a tree which might have helped some. Nobody else in the campground seemed to have any damage, either, so we missed the worst of it. In any case, I headed south on I-35 to Oklahoma City.

My original plan was to stop in Oklahoma City and visit their zoo to break up the long drive. Once there, though, my truck's thermometer was reading 101 degrees at about 12:30 in the afternoon. There was a nice science museum right next to the zoo so I elected to visit that, along with their air conditioning, instead. It was quite a large museum and since it was Saturday, there were a lot of families there. There were quite a lot of hands-on exhibits, as well.



I drove on a little further before stopping near Elk City to camp. The last day of the trip was spent fighting a strong headwind all the way back to Albuquerque which really sapped my gas mileage. Over all, though, it was a fun trip.

Total miles driven: 3241
Average Gas mileage: 9.3 (It was over 11 at Deadwood, SD, and then I got into more windy weather.)

Places crossed off my list:
3 National Parks
5 National Monuments
1 National Memorial

States visited: New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas.

San Diego, Southern Arizona - November 7-13, 2010

With colder weather settling in to the north, a trip along the southern part of the country was in store. There are a number of National Parks and National Monuments across southern Arizona and California so I packed up and headed to San Diego.

Day 1 - Sunday

This was basically a driving day. The route was south on I-25 to Hatch where I picked up the cutoff over to I-10 at Deming. From there it was west to Benson, Arizona , where I stayed the night.

As usual, I played my MPG game where I reset the trucks miles-per-gallon calculation at the start and tried to see how high I could get the average to be. On previous trips I had gotten around 10 MPG but this time I ran into bad luck with the winds. A breeze from the southwest was quartering into me from the right on the way south and then quartering from the left once I turned west. It takes very little headwind to cause me to have to downshift frequently to maintain speed. The camper has a large surface area to create drag plus there is a parachute-like effect in the space between the camper overhead and the truck's roof. By the time I got to Benson the mpg read only 8.9.

Day 2 - Monday

The first stop today was the Saguaro National Park which has two parts - one east of Tuscon and one west of the town. I chose the eastern side and tried to time my arrival with 9:00 since that is when most of the park headquarters buildings I have been to open up. I got there about 10 minutes early but they have a driving loop through the park that was already opened so I took that first.

The park is right on the outskirts of Tuscon so that makes the loop road a popular spot for bicyclists and joggers and they were out in force. Several times I had to wait for them to clear the way since the road was really only one lane wide. After the loop, I stopped at the headquarters building to look at their displays and buy a souvenir magnet.

A typical Saguaro cactus.


They don't grow nearly as thick as they used to. The problem was caused by a couple of stretches of freezing weather - once in the 1960's and once in the 1990's. They should come back if there isn't another freeze and they also keep cattle off the land to avoid trampling new sprouts.


I would hate to have to travel through this area on foot.


Autumn sun over Saguaro.


The city of Tuscon is right on the border of the park. As long as the housing density doesn't rise, the impacts should be manageable.


Next was the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument which is located on the border with Mexico southwest of Tuscon. The road over to the area appears to be the first real road north of the border and therefore was crawling with border patrol agents. I went through two checkpoints and saw several mobile detection units with tall, electronic surveillance masts along the road.

This road also passes by the Kitt Peak Observatory which I could see on top of the mounains next to the highway. Once I got to the little town of Why, I turned south which would have led me to the Mexican town of Sonoyta except that I turned off a few miles short of there. The landscape was similar to that around Saguaro but they also have Organ Pipe cactus which only grows in the far south of Arizona and in Mexico.

Kitt Peak Observatory



An example of an Organ Pipe Cactus (at the Monument Visitor's Center.)



From there it was north through Ajo to Gila Bend where I picked up I-8 west. By this time, the wind had really strengthened and was about 30 mph directly from the front. I could feel it sucking the gas tank dry but I eventually got to Yuma where I spent the night.

Wind whipped dust on I-8 to Yuma. (taken through the windshield)


Day 3 - Tuesday

The goal for the day was to get to San Diego and have some time to see a few things before heading to the campground. It was interesting to watch my GPS system which shows the elevation as I'm driving. As I approached El Centro, California, the elevation kept dropping. I was thinking El Centro must be close to sea level but the numbers actually went negative. It turns out that El Centro is the largest American city that is below sea level (-50 feet, actually). After driving throught the broad valley, the road started climbing again - up to over 4000 feet to get over the mountains before dropping back down into San Diego.

My first stop was the Birch Aquarium which is part of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This is located in La Jolla which is just north of San Diego, proper. It is a fairly small aquarium but they had a number of unusual critters. They seemed to specialize in seahorses and had a number of varieties which they have successfully bred. Their back patio area had a nice view of the ocean.

Whale statues outside of the Birch Aquarium.


A nice view of the coastline from the back deck of the aquarium.


There were some surfers down below. I seem to remember the water off of this coast to be quite cold.


Next was the Cabrillo National Monument which is located on Point Loma which is across the bay from the city. The monument is dedicated to Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo who was the first European to set foot on what is now the West Coast of the United States in 1542. He explored up the coast - perhaps all the way to Oregon but broke his leg along the way and died of gangrene before he could return. He is generally considered the last of the European explorers that opened up North America.


Statue of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.


The monument has a nice view across the bay to San Diego.


One of the residents at the monument.



There was still time left in the day, so I set my GPS to take me to Balboa Park where I planned to visit a couple of museums. Since the GPS didn't know I was driving with a big camper it sent me up Hill Street which would rival anything in San Francisco for steepness. I hoped the camper was well secured as the nose of the truck pointed up to the sky. I managed to power up the hill and eventually find Balboa Park.

It took a while to find a parking spot I could fit into - I finally went over the San Diego Zoo parking area to get one. The first stop was the Model Railroad Museum which is quite large. They model the area around Southern California including Tehachapi Pass which is famous as a railfan site. There are layouts in both HO and O scale as well as a toy train layout. (Toy trains don't try for realism - they use three rail track and things like old Lionel trains).

I then stopped off at the San Diego Natural History Musem which was a couple of buildings over. They had some nice exhibits on dinosaurs and quite a few dioramas. It wasn't as extensive as the Denver Museum of Natural History which is quite large. I saw a 3D IMAX film exploring what the life of Sue (the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton ever found) might have been like. They couldn't resist putting in a few 3D scenes of Sue roaring and looking like she was going to bite your head off. Afterward, I headed to the campgound (in Chula Vista) and set up for the night.

Balboa Park, San Diego.


The Botanical Building at Balboa Park.


Day 4 - Wednesday

The day started off with the San Diego Zoo. I had been here before and it is one of my favorite zoos. The one issue it has is the hilliness of the terrain. My initial plan was to catch the motorized tour bus and get the overall picture of the place and then head to a few of the most interesting exhibits on foot. That didn't work out since I got there at opening time (9:00) but the tour didn't start operating until 10:30. I just headed out and would play it by ear.

By the time 10:30 was getting close, I had already covered three quarters of the zoo and was down at the bottom of the canyon it is built in. I hiked up the oppsite side to see the polar bears and then to catch the sky tram back to the front. From there I caught the bus and toured the place again.

One thing that stands out about this zoo - they have some full grown examples of a lot of the animals. The big male Polar bear was gigantic - easily twice the size of the ones at the Rio Grande zoo. Of course, they have more space and a lot more money coming in to fund the operation. Their big male gorilla was also quite impressive.

The big male polar bear.


One of the females. the other one was sequestered to have cubs.


A statue showing how big a male polar bear can be. (That isn't me standing with the bear. The scales to the right let you see how you compare to a polar bear which weighs up to 1800 lbs.)


After a quick lunch, I decided to head over to Sea World. I hadn't been to a Sea World in a long time and was looking forward to the dolphins, in particular. I discovered that the off season had begun for the park so most shows were put on only once per day. Fortunately, the best ones were in the afternoon which allowed me to attend them. I saw the dolphins - as part of a large, musical show with birds, small whales, and some trapeze artists. I caught Shamu's show which is always fun as he splashes water over anyone in the first 12-15 rows. There was also a show with trained pets - dogs, cats, birds, and a pig - all from the local animal rescue center. I'm not sure what that has to do with the sea, but it was entertaining.

Shamu doing his thing.



For some reason, not many people wanted to sit up front.


They have a nice penguin exhibit with a moving walkway.


My back was pretty tired after all that walking, so, after stopping for dinner, I headed back to the campground and showered, watched a DVD, and hit the sack early.

Day 5 - Thursday

This was the day I started heading back home but I wanted to take a different route and see a few more things on the way. I headed north a bit and stopped first at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. They have changed this around a little bit since I was last here and added more animal exhibits. The main attraction, though, is still the large, open enclosure with a number of different species of African animals. There are a number of types of antelope, some rhinos, zebras, and giraffes. They have the tallest giraffe in North America (19 feet tall).

One interesting fact that was pointed out was that the small antelope they had never moved out of the end of the large enclosure. The reason was, their instinct is to keep their predator's in view at all times so they can be prepared to run. There was a Cheetah exhibit at that end of the valley (a separate enclosure) so the antelope kept them in view all the time. I bet the Cheetahs were frustrated watching all that fast food walking around and not being able to go catch it.

San Diego Wild Animal Park.


This is the open area that is the main attraction of the park. A number of species roam the area together.


This guy reminds me of someone but I'd better not say who.


The tallest giraffe in North America. They say a 6 foot tall human can walk under his belly without bending over.


Got pretty close to this guy. (There is glass between us).


Afterward, I gassed up and decided to reset my gas mileage calculator to see if I could do better than 8.9 on the way home. I headed north a bit more to Temecula and then took a two lane road east over the Santa Rosa mountains. Of course, with my luck, the wind was quite strong in my face, again. When combined with the 5000 foot elevation gain and winding roads, I was only at about 8.0 at the top. The downhill side of the pass got me back to about 8.8.

At the bottom of the pass was the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument visitor's center. The monument protects a large area which contains a number of endangered species including the Peninsular Bighorn Sheep. I stopped and got my souvenir magnet. Another five miles or so and I was in Palm Desert. At that point I picked up I-10 east and made it to
Blythe, California where I stopped at a campground on the banks of the Colorado river.

I didn't get a picture of the area so I found this shot of the National Monument area from the BLM web site.


Day 6 - Friday

This day was a bit play-by-ear with the main goal of getting back to the campground in Benson that I stayed at on the way out. I was trying to get to a couple of National Monuments that were west and south of Phoenix. The first one was the Sonoran Desert National Monument which was set aside to protect the diversity of a large chunk of the desert. There aren't any buildings or visitor's centers with this monument so all I could do was drive through the middle of it. I took a small road from Gila Bend, east through the towns of Maricopa and Casa Grande, and then back to I-10. The monument has hiking trails but it looked pretty bleak at this time of the year.

Sonoran Desert National Monument


Next was going to be the Ironwood Forest National Monument which is similar to the Sonoran Desert monument in that there are no buildings or improvements to visit. The information I had suggested that a loop road exists but parts were gravel and might require 4 wheel drive. I decided to skip this one for now.

In place of Ironwood, I headed in to Tuscon and visited the Reid Park Zoo. My Rio Grande Zoo pass got me in for free so that was a good deal. It is a nice, little zoo, and seemed well attended for a weekday. I liked their giraffe and rhinoceros exhibits which included some grassy areas rather than just the bare dirt of our own zoo.

After relaxing for a while (and resting my back), I headed out to Benson.

Day 7 - Saturday

This was a driving day - heading for home. The only semi-interesting thing happened in T or C where I got off the highway to look for a gas station and got caught in what I assume was a Veteran's Day observence at their cemetary. After getting through all the traffic, I found some gasoline and some lunch and then drove home. I nursed the gas mileage along and got it up to 9.1 by the time I rolled in to the drive. I would wait until the following day to unload the camper and get it winterized. Any trips I do this winter will not be with the camper.

This was a nice trip that avoided both the heat of summer and the storms of winter. The last night in Benson saw a low temperature of about 26 which was the only cold weather I encountered. I don't know where the next trip will take me but there are a multitude of options.


Total miles driven - 2043
Gas mileage - 8.9 on the way out, 9.1 on the way back.