13 May - Denver

We originally planned to wash the RV in the morning then go into Denver to do some sightseeing. We had a few repairs to make to the ole girl so we organised a mobile repair man to come in the morning. He was running VERY late. After several phone calls, he finally showed up at 2.30. Replacing the window trims on the door took a lot longer than anticipated, but servicing the generator was quick. Sadly that meant we weren't able to go into Denver and also didn't get the visit in to the wash bay. So no photos and nothing exciting to report. We did laundry and we have just finished packing (mostly) ready to pack up and store the van tomorrow, then to Denver airport for the flight to LA. We have booked a hotel on Rodeo Drive for tomorrow night, then a lazy day in LA and a late flight out. Its been a great holiday, but we are looking forward to seeing the kids and the fur / feather kids and sleeping in our own comfy bed again.

12 May – Colorado Springs – Denver

The snow had stopped bucketing down and was now a light snow shower. Wanting to find something to do that was preferably inside, or at least undercover we went to nearby Manitou Cliff Dwellings. The cliff dwellings were built by the Anasazi people (aka Ancestral Pueblans) between 1000AD and 1300AD. 

 Originally, the Anasazi farmed on the plains, but around 1100AD, they started building elaborate stone dwellings under cliff overhangs. It is possible that there was unrest and conflict with other tribes that forced them into fortified cities.

The dwellings are up to 4stories high and multiple families lived in apartments in each building. The dwellings are very well preserved, having been relatively inaccessible.

They were opened to the public in 1907. The self guided tour was very comprehensive and allowed us to enter the buildings and walk around them.

The site also included a replica dwelling from the plains (before they moved under the cliffs)

 and a pueblo style building dating from 1898 that was inhabited by the local Native Americans until 1984 and is now a museum.

After the cliff dwellings we decide to visit nearby historic Manitou Springs. There was a historic house we wanted to see, but it was closed on Mondays.

We parked up (2 lots of parking meters because we took two spots) and had a potter around the town instead, and lunch at a local pub. On the way back to the RV we met a lady with an African Grey parrot called Missy. If you haven’t seen an African Grey before, they are about galah sized and grey. Missy took a bit of a shine to Steve and stepped up onto his arm and didn’t want to get off. The lady had to get out a wooden perch to get her to step off. Sweet little bird. Getting back to the RV we found a parking ticket for “parking an oversized vehicle in the street”. Luckily it was only a warning and not charged!

We then hit the road to Denver again, and the snow started to bucket down again! More unpleasant highway driving. Settled in and getting organised to get some repairs on the RV tomorrow, wash it and get it ready for storage. 

11 May – Denver - Colorado Springs

Woke up to snow. We googled the weather and found there was another “winter weather event” in progress in the Denver area. We had planned to go to Colorado Springs, where there is a lot to do, and given we were not overly stoked with the RV Park we were in, we decided to head out. Driving on the interstate highway was interesting. Although the road was clear, there was blowing snow meaning that we couldn’t see further than about 2 car lengths ahead. 

As we headed to Colorado Springs the snow got heavier until there was a good coating of slush on the road. We were very pleased to get into Colorado Springs after nearly 2 hours. We found a good RV Park, with good services and pulled in. Although it was only lunchtime, there was no point trying to see any of the local attractions. We had planned a cog railway trip to the top of Pike’s Peak (14000ft), and a horse ride through the Garden of the Gods, but both those activities were off the agenda. As the afternoon went on the snow got heavier and we were glad to be indoors with the furnace running. We ducked out a couple of times to get some pics and damn it was cold!

10 May – Hot Springs – Denver

On the road again for a long drive across Nebraska to Colorado. We headed south from Hot Springs. The rolling plains alternated between light forest, green farmlands and the yellower prairie grasslands. 

We stopped at “Carhenge” for lunch. It defies description really, it’s a mix of modern art and a junkyard. Certainly different! We walked around the “exhibits” to have a leg stretch.

All the way across Nebraska and not a Starbucks to be seen. We would have settled for just about any coffee, but seems Nebraska doesn’t do coffee. Sad.

Something Nebraska and this part of Colorado does do is cattle feedlots. Big yards where they fatten the cattle up and clearly don’t clean up after them. Driving past on the highway was like inhaling a giant ammonia cloud even with vents and windows closed. Eewww. It hangs around for a few kms after you go past too.

Lots of trains in this part of the world, mainly carrying coal. We counted 115 trucks on one train, with 2 engines at each end.

Miles of highway later we arrived on the outskirts of Denver. We found an RV park, but got the trifecta – the highway, the railway and the airport! 

9 May – Rapid City / Black Hills – Hot Springs

We woke up to much nicer weather! Sun out and snow melting. We headed out in the morning to Rapid City for a look around (and a Starbucks), then headed to Keystone to see the Big Thunder Gold Mine. Donning our hard hats and wearing “sensible shoes and jackets” we headed into the side of the hill… 

The mine was established in 1882 by two German immigrants trying to intercept the well-known Lucky Boy gold vein. They mined by hand using hammers and hand turned drill bits, but by the close of the mine were mere than 200 meters into the hillside. By 1907 they intercepted the Lucky Boy vein, only to find it had narrowed out to only a few inches thick and was not profitable. They only mined about $50 of gold from the vein before they exhausted it. The owners stopped mining in disappointment, however in 1909 the Columbia mine opened adjacent to Big Thunder and was averaging up to 10 ounces of gold per ton. The owners started mining again in the hope of intercepting the Columbia vein. In 1913, they began seeing signs of the gold bearing vein. The miners had started mining in their mid-30’s and were now nearly 70 years old. On reaching the vein, they hollowed out a room 20 feet wide, 35 feet high and 60 feet long. Sadly, the ore they dug from the room amounted to around $150 in gold (about $3000 in today’s money). The mines owners hung onto the claim until they both died leaving no heirs, never giving up hope of striking it rich! Very interesting tour!

Leaving Keystone, we drove south to Hot Springs to visit the Mammoth Site. Around 26000 years ago a sinkhole formed at the site due to a collapsing cave. A spring formed at the bottom of the sink hole and attracted animals to drink. The larger animals often found themselves unable to climb out due to the slippery sides of the hole and eventually died from drowning and the bodies sank to the bottom. Over the course of the next 350 to 700 years, the hole filled with sediments and mammoth remains. The remains in the site are not technically fossils, since they were not mineralized but preserved by the clay and coarse sand that accumulated within the sinkhole. As of 2012, at least 60 individual mammoths had been identified. The majority of the mammoth remains have been identified as those of Columbian Mammoths, although the remains of three Woolly mammoths have been found as well. 

In 1974, during excavation for a subdivision, a mammoth tusk was unearthed by the excavator. Recognising this as an important discovery, the site was preserved and excavated over time. The excavations continue today. This unique thing about this site is the bones are preserved in situ, rather than being removed. The dig to date is 22 feet deep and drilling has estimate there are another 45 feet of bone filled sediments still below.

Done for the day, we found a nearby RV park and settled in.

8 May – Rapid City/Black Hills

Woke up to snow, sleet and ice. The weather site told us that the Black Hills was experiencing a “winter weather event”. Really cold and nasty outside. We voted for an R&R day – reading, watching movies and hot drinks. Around 3ish the weather eased a bit, so we went into the lodge to do laundry and played a couple of games of pool and had a workout in the quite well equipped gym. 

7 May – Rapid City / Black Hills

The weather was very overcast and drizzly so we took the opportunity to go to Jewel cave.  Its apparently one of the largest mapped cave systems in the world, some 170 odd miles and they say there is quite a lot yet to map. From measuring airflow in the cave system they estimate that they have only mapped about 5% of the system. They have almost weekly expeditions to continue the exploration process, although who would want to go crawling along their belly in tight, dirty little air-starved spaces....I know not.... certainly not me LOL. The cave is a dry cave, so not a lot of stalactites, but lots of crystal formations. The cave was underwater up to 5 times in the past and while it is full of water the crystals form. It was a bit of a workout – lots and lots of stairs. You enter the cave via a lift because there is only one known entrance in the side of a canyon.

We stopped by a wine tasting place on our way back to camp (that's more like it :)) and tasted some wines.  The winery was called Naked Wines and had a range of different wines, named all sorts of things like Cougar, Foreplay, Fifty Shades of White, Booty Call, Naked Merlot, etc etc... fairly amusing. They also had micro-brewery beer tasting (we didn't get to that... next time).

We did a bit of shopping and now are sitting back having a cheese, cracker, dip with a Canadian liqueur (Yukan Jack.....very smooth) dinner (we had a late lunch...followed by a blueberry pipe at the Purple Pie Shop (also on the way back).

The weather has turned a bit windy, overcast and really bloomin' cold so we are just going to kick back, take it easy & enjoy the good life..... indoors:)

6 May – Rapid City / Black Hills

After breakfast we headed off to Crazy Horse. En route, we drove through the conifer forests that gave the Black Hills region its name. From the plains, the hills look black in the distance. Arriving at Crazy Horse, we turned off the highway and could see the monument towering over the tree tops. Crazy Horse is a giant statue cut out of a mountain top. The Latoka people are native to the region and the Black Hills are sacred to them. Crazy Horse was leader of the people and defended their way of life after the Treaty of 1868 was broken. This treaty was signed by the President and said As long as rivers run and grass grows and trees bear leaves, the Black Hills of Dakota will forever be the sacred land of the Sioux Indians. Then gold was discovered in the Black Hills…. Crazy Horse was stabbed in the back as he stood under a flag of truce.

The Crazy Horse memorial was begun in 1948 and work continues to this day. At this point only his face is finished and his outstretched arm and horse’s head is under construction. The family of the sculptor is working on it as an unfunded project. All funds come from admission and gift shop sales. Even in its unfinished state, the memorial is stunning. It is the world’s largest mountain carving.

After leaving Crazy Horse we drove the short distance to Mt Rushmore. Much smaller than Crazy Horse (the 4 Presidents heads could fit into the head of Crazy Horse) but equally as impressive. The Yanks have really gone to town on the presentation of the monument. On arrival you walk up a granite avenue lined with the flags of all the States. Ahead of you, is the mountain, with the heads of 4 Presidents – Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln carved into the stone.

Amazing that the carving was done between 1927 and 41, mainly by men hanging in bosons chairs from the cliff side with jackhammers. We followed a path that leads closer to the mountain and it is really interesting to see the heads up close. 

We also saw 2 mountain goats filling up on tasty grass after winter. They were not in the slightest interested in people and just kept nomming away. 

We did a bit of videoing for Ros’ business, as Mt Rushmore is the perfect place to talk about Leadership Legacy. A visit to the gift shop for Ros to purchase a Black Hills gold necklace as a souvenir, then heading back to the RV Park. On the way we passed through Keystone, and made a note to go back for a look at the goldmine. We also stopped at Fort Hayes to see the sets from Dances with Wolves. The film was made about 14 miles away on a private property and after they wrapped, the sets were moved to Fort Hayes. Kinda cool to see.  They were closed, so the only building was the outpost where Kevin Costner received his orders.

5 May – Laramie to Rapid City

We headed into Deadwood after breakfast and to the Back to 76 Museum. The town was started in 1876 during the gold rush. The museum is devoted to their “back to 76” celebration that seems to be an annual event. Sounds fun. They have a rodeo and re-enactments of all the notable events, like the shooting of Wild Bill Hickock outside one of the saloons. In the basement they had a large collection of wagons and stagecoaches (over 130) that they use in the parade.

Leaving Deadwood, we drove to Lead (pronounced LEED) to look at the formerly most productive gold mine in the world. It shut when the bottom fell out of the gold market after operating for 125 years continuously as a combo of open cut and shaft mining. The shafts go down to 8000ft. We took pics of the open cut hole – it’s pretty deep! 

Not much else happening in either Deadwood or Lead, but apparently they come to life after Memorial Day (in May?). It’s still a bit snowy here.

Leaving Lead we drove about 70ks to the Geographical Centre of the USA. Nothing actually there (the monument is in the nearest town) but we stopped and took a pic anyway. 

We thought there might be a flagpole or something, but no…. Given there was stuff all to do…we had lunch on the side of the road. The plains are flat for as far as the eye can see.

We then made tracks for Rapid City and an RV resort just out of town and close to Mt Rushmore. Heading there tomorrow!

4 May – Laramie – Deadwood

We didn’t have a great night, being next to both the Interstate Highway AND the main rail line, both of which ran all night. We were up and on the road early, as we had a big drive ahead. We travelled North with the Rockies to the left and the Laramie Mountains to the right. The plains were very bare and rugged. Speaking of trains, we overtook one that was at least 60 plus cars long, with 4 diesel engines.

Turning East, we crossed the Laramie Mountains and into farmland. It is early in the season, so the remnants of last year’s crops are still in the fields. We passed a paddock with bison and saw a number of prong horned antelope in the distance. 

We turned North again and began following the Oregon Trail route. At a town called Guernsey, we stopped at 2 significant historical places, the Oregon Trail Ruts and the Register Cliffs. The Oregon Trail is visible for some of its length, despite it being just wheel ruts and 150 years old. The Guernsey site is one where the wagon wheels wore deep ruts in soft sandstone and are clearly visible. Even after the obvious ruts, you can still see the trail heading away across the fields. 

The Register Cliff is a camping place that the pioneers used regularly and it became a “thing” for people to carve their name, place of origin and the date into the soft sandstone cliffs. The information board says that the oldest name is a trapper from 1790 something and the tradition continued through cowboys, army scouts stationed at nearby Fort Laramie and up to modern times. They have fenced off the old names and left sections for modern graffiti.

Driving North, the scenery changed first to drier plains with tumbleweeds caught in the fences and then to the foothills of the Black Hills in South Dakota. As we drove into the hills we started driving past snowdrifts and log cabins. We arrived in Deadwood for the night to find that we are in the lower zones of the snow line, its gonna be a cold one! We also had a couple of little visitors near our site, so we left a couple of nuts out for them.

3 May – Cheyenne to Laramie

Up and at em!  We drove into Cheyenne to have a look around.  We went through the historic train museum, which is right next to the working train station used by Union Pacific.  It was very interesting as the rail has been a very significant factor in developing the American interior lands.  The steam engines, or “Iron Horses” grew in popularity and size as demand required the services.  Grew in fact to be humongous engines known as “Big Boys”.  One on these was on display in a park nearby that we went to later. The museum went through the history of the development of the rail and the interior towns as they quickly grew to accommodate the people moving there.  There was quite a lot of lawlessness and it seems that there were vigilante groups set up to deal with this.  

There was also a model rail set up above the museum and this was done really well, depicting some of the actual towns that the rail went through, with great attention to detail.

From the Rail Museum we walked to Capital Building, based on the actual capital building in Washington, which had 24 crt gold leaf on the dome. 

Then onto the Wyoming State museum.  Here we looked at the history of Wyoming, very interesting.  After this we picked up a Starbucks, Ros had a caramel crunch Frappuccino while Steve had a chocolate cookie Frappuccino, very nice…. We like our Starbucks.  We made our way to the original state Governor’s House and had a look through.  Was used as the Governor’s residence up to the mid 1970’s.  It then underwent a restoration project in 2005 and decorated it with items from different eras.  Now they allow tours through it.  Very interesting.

We walked back to the RV, had lunch and went over to the park to see the “Big Boy” loco.  My goodness these things are huge!  No wonder they called them Big Boys.   The Union Pacific Railroad made 25 of these, toward the end of the steam era, at a cost of 1 million dollars each.  This one (4004) was retired from service after 440,545 miles in October 1958.

We then set sail, or steering wheel, to Laramie. A mere 1 hour to the West of Cheyenne.  Unfortunately there was quite a head wind blowing and we also had a slight incline, so the ole girl was back to only about 50mph (the speed limit being 75mph).  The incline took us from about 5500 feet to around 8500 feet, back to what we were (roughly) in the Rockies.  The plains beside the highway still had the remnants of snow on the ground.

We arrived in Laramie and stopped at the Laramie Plains Museum, which is in the historic Ivinson Mansion.  We were quite lucky as the lady doing the tours was just about to close up.  She had seen us parking the RV (no mean feat on a side street LOL) and asked if we would be doing the tour.  We said yes, only if it wasn’t inconvenient.  She was more than happy to take us and it was fabulous and very interesting. 

This mansion was built in 1893 by Edward & Jane Ivinson.  Edward was then running to be the first Governor of Wyoming at the time and it was intended that this would be the state house and the Laramie would be the state’s capital.  Unfortunately he lost and the house became his private residence. Later on it was gifted to become a girl’s school and was known as the Ivinson Girls School.  It fell into disrepair and was saved from demolition in 1972 and has since been fully restored using furniture and other items of the time & from around the area.  It is a spectacular place that has extremely well restored.  The inside is very beautiful and the house has 3 upper levels with a basement used for wine & storage.

Having done the tour, we headed off to find a camp site.  We found our rest stop at a KOA park ground, just on the outskirts of Laramie.  Time to have a dinner…. Sweet n sour-stir-fried pork…. Yum!