We must stop meeting like this!

Last Saturday we went to Spearfish Walmart and parked our loaner car.  When we returned with our stuff the truck we met in Yellowstone NP (people we volunteered with in Texas) was parked next to us....see above.  The Kirks were in Walmart somewhere so I called them and we will make a date to meet for lunch soon....... Two times in one month for non planned meetings are just strange!!

Black Hills Tour Training

As part of our orientation, our boss Nancy took 4 of us (John, myself, & two other seasonal rangers) on a 12 hour tour of the Black Hills.  We traveled to Jewel Cave National Park, Wind Cave National Park, (no cave tours but met supers) & Mount Rushmore National Park.  We even went past Custer State Park.  We saw bison and mountain goats. We traveled through Rapid City, SD and then back through Spearfish, SD into Wyoming and the tower - Black Hills 101 - condensed version.  Emma was back at the rig with her legs crossed but was patient!  No wet spot!  What a day!!


Mountain goat on our walk in Mt Rushmore NP.

This carving in the mountains is huge.  The faces are 20 stories high.  The eyes are 11 feet across!
Note the huge pile of rubble beneath.



Nancy, our supervisor, is standing right in front of the camera in white and Bev, a seasonal here at the tower, is in purple.  John is the one in red.  We had a private ranger tour but people stopped to listen to her also. 

Quick Study for Devils Tower Programs

 After little car was towed away and we recieved a loaner for 2 weeks we headed to our new temporary home, Devils Tower.  The car cost almost $7,000 to fix.  Thank goodness for insurance.  Poor car has been with us for just 3 years and has had the engine replaced because of a fire, been hit by another car before we even started towing little car, had a windshield replaced in Texas this past winter and now had the body fixed-big time.  At least it was not totaled.  Remember it has been made into a tow vehicle and what a headache that would be if totaled!!!!!!!!!!!  The doe costs us dough (deductible$$$) but maybe it was an expensive car wash.  We never got to wash the car and it was cleaned inside and out when we picked it up at the body shop.


Our home for part of the summer and below our view from the front of the RV looking north




This peace sculpture by a Japanese artist is the sacred circle of smoke.
  Looking through the sculpture you can see Bear Lodge (Devils Tower).  Near here Buffalo Calf
Woman gave the Lakota rules to live by (how to take care for all things in their world).

A bull snake was going past on one of our walks around the tower.

Spring is here with things in bloom

In the last week we have studied, studied, studied and started to give walks and talks.  John is doing a coyote short talk and I am presenting a vulture program.  We both have started working at the visitor center answering questions and John has revised his pronghorn program to fit Wyoming and the American Pronghorn.  It has been a crazy time here.  We have not had time to miss our car!
   

Poor Scion & Poor Doe

Over this embankment to the right came a very large doe determined to cross
the road like something was chasing her.

This is what happened

 

But thank goodness we made it back to the motorhome to wait for the adjuster!

Our new boss, Nancy, stopped on her way home from Devils Tower to invite us us to an orientation.  Yesterday we spent the day in Devils Tower.  On the way back to the motorhome which is at a campground in Sundance, the Scion met a doe quickly crossing a very lonely road .  The car broadsided her on the passenger side, she rolled up across the windshield on the drivers side and landed in the road.  She got up and went back in front of our car to lay down in the ditch dying.  We felt sooooo bad!!  No cell service so we had to figure out exactly where we were! The car was running so we picked up the pieces of car in the road, took pictures, noted where we were by the mileage signs and a B&B sign, then headed to Sundance and the cops, 15 miles away.  We wanted to quickly as possible put the poor does out of she misery and report the accident.  So now instead of going and setting up at the Tower today we will wait for an insurance man to call us.  We do not want to be out of reliable cell service until the Scion problem is resolved.  We are fine and I guess the car works but is not legal - no headlight. It just looks awful! You never know what a day will bring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sundance, WY

We left Cody, WY and went north to Billings, MT (Wal-Mart night).  Yesterday we have arrived on the western side of the Black Hills after a very windy, cold drive stopping in Gillette (another Wal-Mart night).  After talking to our supervisor at Devils Tower, we will be arriving at Devils Tower in 2 days, a little earlier than planned.  In the meantime we are in Sundance, a town either named after Sundance Kid of Butch Cassidy fame or the "kid" was named after Sundance.  This country was where the "gang" was from!  Maybe in the town museum we can learn which is true. Yup, found out The Sundance Kid started his career near here and spent 18 months in the Sundance jail. I have found a vet for Emma (she will need shots/checkup this summer) and a groomer.  Nancy, our supervisor, says Sundance is about as close as we can get to things like a vet from Devils Tower.  Tomorrow we will wash the car.  It is a 4 block town. Shopping is in Spearfish, SD, a 35 minute drive from Sundance. We hope to see the Kirks (people we met in Yellowstone) after we both settle in.  At the end of the week they should be in Spearfish, SD.  Devils Tower and Spearfish are only an hour apart.

Meeting Friends

The best part of the park was not the beautiful scenery or great wildlife but an unexpected meeting.  After John and I had lunch while watching the Yellowstone River we were headed east leaving  the park.  John did a quick turn into a pulloff and I though he was crazy.  He just said "Don't you recognize the truck?"  He had just spotted the Kirk's truck, another volunteer couple we had met in Texas.  We had last seen them on Christmas Eve 2013 in Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge while all of us were volunteering.  What a chance meeting!!!! 

They were very suprised to see us knocking on their truck door.  They were having lunch in the next turnout from our lunch spot.  We could have had lunch together!  Boy, John put 2 and 2 together very fast!  After visiting with them awhile we both went our separate ways.  They were west of the park in West Yellowstone, ID/ WY border.  We were staying east of Yellowstone in Cody, WY.  We will meet them again in the Black Hills at Spearfish, SD.  Both of us will be volunteering at the DC Booth Historic Fish Hatchery. The Kirks are volunteering for the entire summer and we will volunteer for August and September.  Imagine in all the US, just bumping into another couple in Yellowstone National Park in the snow!

Heart Mountain Japanese Internment Camp 1942-1945

It was snowing today so I made a large chicken soup.  I invited the next door couple to have lunch with us.  They are new California full timers and have spent the winter in Mesa, AZ. They did not own a windshield scraper so John let them borrow ours. In the afternoon we went to Heart Mountain Internment Camp.  It has remnants of a camp from WWII.  The Government thought west coast Japanese could create problems after Pearl Harbor so they were "relocated" to camps throughout the US, mostly west.  Fourteen miles north of Cody, WY was one of them.  Most of the camp is gone except a chimney of the hospital and a few cement footings but the Interpretive Center is new and nicely done.  It looks like three barracks of the old camp.  Inside is great stuff explaining life behind barbed wire.  There are pictures and recordings of people (now adults) who were living in this camp as children during the war.  I love oral history so I was captivated by the recollections.  Many of the camp which held 10,000 people were Americans (2/3).  Our history is not all glory but sad decisions by the government also.  We will learn more as we learn about Devils Tower. I know the Sioux say they never signed over the Black Hills. They refused payment and say they never signed away the land.   The government of the time just took it - gold was discovered in them there hills!!!!!  We enjoyed our time at Heart Mountain.  It was so windy and cold it was easy to imagine what the Japanese endured during the years they were in Wyoming. 

Snow in Yellowstone

When we saw the sides of the road, we figured we would see lots of snow.

Yellowstone was beautiful, even the burned areas.

The bison were looking for uncovered grass right beside the road next to Yellowstone Lake.

On  the Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley there were 5 PELICANS.
 ...... Bet they thought they came too early!!

It was just beautiful!!

These mountain goats were looking at their companions up on the snowy rocks.
They were right beside the road with no snow- no dummies!

A moose mom and calf feeding in the willows.  It is the best picture I have of them.



Sulpher pools & geysers on our walk around the Norris Geyser Basin area.

Yellowstone Falls with the snow was just beautiful.  I have a sketch from
the last time I was there August 5 years ago!  Too cold to sketch now!

The falls from Artist Point - the best view in Yellowstone!
 

Cody and Yellowstone National Park

View of the snow last night
Below I had to shovel (with a broom) our RV steps!

 

We arrived in Cody just outside the mountains of Yellowstone National Park.  It is rainy and cold and not good weather to visit the national park so we are hunkered down visiting the town waiting for better weather.  In Cody things are not really open until Memorial Day but they have a wonderful museum. 

 

Yellowstone 2009

Picture of small sulphur pools that was taken on our previous visit.

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My Connecticut old faithful from 2009!

The bison that scratched his back on a big bus moments before this picture taken 8/2009.

John is about museumed out!!!!but...the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum has many different buildings like the Smithsonian in Washington, DC and we did them all.  It houses an art of the west museum with a replica of artist Remington's NY state studio (I visited the fine art building), a huge gun museum (John visited there), a Native American Museum, a Wild Bill Cody Museum and a natural history museum, which we both visited.  A 2 day pass is always given.  We spent at least 3 1/2 hours one day and another 3 1/2 the next to see just the first floor.  There are other special exhibits and sections like library, etc which we were just too pooped to enter and the outdoor cabin exhibits were not open until Memorial Day. They also had a Bird of Prey exhibit with live birds in one of the gardens-too cold today.  It costs $18 for a two day pass but well worth the money.  You could easily spend two full days there and come away with a full head of facts never before known.  Sorry , no pictures!

We will enter Yellowstone NP from the east, which we have never done before.  We know Yellowstone a little for we visited there for a week about 5 years ago on my Yellowstone Dream Trip.  My, looking back on the last several years I have seen so many parks and places including famous parks like Zion and Grand Canyon again and again and again!  John and I are soooooo lucky!

Casper and Buffalo, WY

    We traveled north to Casper and stayed for a few days.  It had beautiful snow in the mountains and wonderful history museums.  We went to Fort Casper, Casper Wildlife Museum, and a museum at the local Casper College with a skeleton of a Colombian Mammoth found around in 2005 near Casper.  We also visited the National Emmigrant Trails Interpretive Site!  We learned lots!!!!!!!!!!!
    

At Fort Casper, next to the Sweetwater River, was a reproduction of the Mormon ferry.  On the Sweetwater, several Mormon men were left behind to man a ferry service theyhad build for the first Mormon immigrants. They charged nothing for future Mormon immigrants but charged for others.  What a smart business move!

Fort Casper was a small rugged fort.

In the wildlife museum, there was a skeleton of a Pronghorn as well as a whole exhibit.  The museum was donated to Casper by a hunter who had rooms of taxidermy specimens from all of Wyoming and elsewhere.  It was a great place.  Below are pronghorn, Johns favorite western animal, fighting.

 After a few days in Casper, we arrived in Buffalo, an old western small town trying tourism now. Most things were closed until the summer season starting Memorial Day, but we were told we could go to the local Hotel and look around. It was open for business and they let people wander the old hotel. Boy, did we fall into another wonderful part of history and completely free! It was an amazing place. Patrick and Jim, did you miss something!  The reason it has so much original is because one of the owners had the hotel for a very long time and never tossed things out, just stored them. It has almost all the original tin ceilings and woodwork and built-ins including a wonderful huge sideboard and the original bar. Like most old finds, it almost was torn down. They have been finding stuff everywhere and people in the town have donated items found in their attics, etc. back to the hotel. If you are ever in Buffalo, WY and need a place to stay right out of the old west, stay at the Occidental Hotel.

The lobby of the Occidental Hotel and Saloon cira 1880.
Below is the saloon with original bar ceiling, etc.

Below is one of the Bordello Rooms.  There were rooms above the saloon used for these purposes.  There was a back stairway with cowboy spur marks on the stairs and one room door had huge marks from a gun butt. One cowpoke did
not like his lady with another!

The front of the building on the main street in Buffalo.

John waiting patiently for me in the lobby of the hotel

One of the hallways of the hotel

We left Buffalo and headed over the Bighorn Mountains through Powder River Pass at 9,660 feet. This is the lower section of the road.  Several feet of snow were on the sides of the road in the mountains.  This picture was taken while we were coming down into the valley.  It was 18 miles of down, down, down. We will not go that way again with the motor home!!!!  Cody is in the valley just outside of Yellowstone National Park.

From Rawlings to Casper, Wy

    The weather has been cold,windy and now rain (snow in the mountains) but we have enjoyed Wyoming.  In Rawlings leaving the motor home we traveled north by car to a Mormon site where Mormon Pioneers in two handcarts companies met blizzard conditions. Many died of exposure and starvation.  The site of Devil's Gate is where the Mormon, Oregon, and California trails met on the Sweetwater River. Starting there all traveled over South Pass crossing the Rocky Mountains.  As at all LDS sites, the handcart history was told is a very compelling, interesting way.  The volunteers we meet are all doing mission work for their church and are eager to tell the history of  a place. They offer to tell more of their religion but never push.  They are wonderful people living their faith and explaining their history.  Last year we stopped at Brigham Young's St. George winter residence and another time a Utah outpost.  We meet the same kind of people who explain history.  Brigham Young was quite a leader to convince people to come to a new land and do whatever was requested.  The Mormon pioneer group was the most organized of all the pushes west.
    We then went to Rawlings Historical Museum and saw lots of things including a pair of shoes made out of human skin - Yuck!!  The men's shoes looked like saddle shoes (white and brown) but were made out of an old outlaw's hide....They say the shoes are human remains and no pictures please.


Imagine push/pulling a handcart all the way across the Rockies!!

This is the actual road/trail that still has ruts from the migration.



Marker of one of the trails and below a marker remembering
the many women who lost their lives and are in unmarked graves.

Really a graffetti rock of the 1800's
Below John walking around Independence Rock in his winter coat, hat and gloves.
We were cold but could then imagine what the immigrants must have endured!



Yet next to the rock these were in full bloom.

As we headed north we met snow and cold.