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Lessons Learned on the Road: Chapter Six

15/09/23 at 5.00pm / by Jessie / 0 Comment

Welcome back to our series “Lessons Learned on the Road”! If you’re new to this series or just need a refresher, here are the basics: Each post corresponds to roughly a month of travel (or two months, as the case may be). Posts are random-ordered lists covering a range of categories and topics, some specific to RV life, some related to travel, and others simple observations and knowledge obtained along the way. We hope you enjoy our musings!

You can read earlier posts in this series here, here, here, here, and here.

-We’ve written before about our preference for traveling without campground reservations or an itinerary (sometimes we wake up and really don’t know where we’ll go that day or where we’ll spend the night) and the many benefits of first-come, first-served camping. Traveling without reservations or firm plans has proven to be ever-helpful while traveling in the Pacific Northwest, as we’ve had to pack up and move on a dime several times due to wildfires and smoke. Flexibility has been our friend.

-If you’re going to be hauling around full or semi-full tanks with any regularity, it’s a really good idea to reinforce your tank supports under your RV. We learned this the hard way when our fresh water tank support worked its way loose while driving down a rural highway. Handyman Jason reattached it with a new bolt and then added a second piece of bent-angle steel under the fresh water tank. It seems to be doing the trick.

-For several months now, we’ve been using concentrated all-purpose camp soap (‘Camp Suds’ or a similar brand) for dish detergent. It works really well and suds much less than traditional dish detergent, so we can use less water when doing dishes (I found myself using a ton of water to rinse dishes before we made the switch). However, I will note that I still use Dawn when washing our metal grilling spatula/flipper because Dawn cuts the grease faster than camp soap. I also use Dawn occasionally when we’re in a developed campground with hook-ups and a dump station because we think it helps cleanse and cut grease in our grey tank.

-Weather forecasts in the Pacific Northwest are rarely accurate. It’ll be beautiful and sunny when rain was forecasted for the day and vice versa. But most of the time, you should err on the side of planning for a grey, rainy day.

-Another water-saving strategy we’ve been using for a while: We often collect sink and shower water in plastic tubs/bins and repurpose the water for flushing the toilet. On occasion, if I do a fairly clean load of dishes, like washing our water bottles, I’ll even repurpose that water for mopping the floor or cleaning the shower. When we can’t repurpose all the water we collect, we’re often able to dispose of it in designated areas within campgrounds or dispersed camping areas (e.g., utility sinks, grey water drains, pit toilets). Collecting some grey water makes a huge difference when boondocking/drycamping and/or staying in a campground without a dump station; we can usually stay put without dumping our tanks for 5-7 days when we’re able to collect and repurpose or dispose of some grey water (our grey tank is 30 gallons).

-Always turn off the water pump before traveling. Jason usually asks me at least three times, “Is the pump off?” before we pull out of a campground. I usually roll my eyes and say, “Yeeess, worry wart.” But no more. I’ll never roll my eyes again, as we know some full-time RVers through social media who had a bad experience recently when their pump accidently got left on during travel.

-Unless you’re buying diesel, it’s illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon. It’s like New Jersey. We’re not fans of this law.

-Cell phone service anywhere around Mount Rainier, including towns outside the park, is close to nonexistent, and it’s even worse with an old iPhone.

-You may be more likely to see a black bear in Mount Rainier while walking on a paved path near an inn than while hiking in the backcountry. The bears know where the dumpsters are.

-It’s not uncommon for price ranges on Allstays to be grossly incorrect in either direction (sometimes camping areas are free or less than advertised, and sometimes they’re more than advertised). Despite this, we still love this app and it’s our go-to for most everything related to our travels. We’ve found that it’s helpful to call campgrounds or look at specific websites to verify prices.

-Salt and Straw ice cream in Portland is delicious! They have the most unique ice cream flavors, and the employees are super nice and fun even when you’re being painfully indecisive. When I told our server I’d never been before, she let me sample probably 10 different flavors. The best part? The samples are served on cold metal spoons. Bliss.

-A trip to Mount St. Helens is worth it.

-There are LOTS of visitor centers on the western side of Mount St. Helens: one operated by a town, another by the county, and then another that’s a Science and Learning Center. While these may be worth a quick stop, keep driving and save your time and energy for the Johnston Ridge Observatory, located closest to the mountain and at the very end of the road. It’s operated by the US Forest Service and is first-class. They offer a multitude of ranger talks frequently throughout the day, Junior Ranger programs, lots of exhibits and trails, and two movies. Don’t miss the movie on the geology and eruption of the mountain. It’s one of the best park/monument films we’ve seen all year.

-When you drive down lots of lumpy, bumpy roads with your RV, it’s a good idea to periodically check the screws on your water pump. The vibration of the pump itself, plus lots of miles on the road, can cause the screws to loosen and the pump may stop working until they’re tightened up again.

-Don’t skip Sunrise at Mount Rainier. Paradise is THE thing to do, and with good reason, but Sunrise is equally as good, if not better.

-We should have installed a roof vent cover a long time ago. As in, before we left home. The covers cost about $20 at Walmart and take about 20 minutes to install.

-Seattle sprawls for hours north to south. Seriously, hours. Expect lots of traffic, especially on a Friday and/or a Seahawks game day.

-Related: Seattle Seahawks fans take their football seriously. And it seems like most people in Seattle are Seahawks fans.

-It’s almost always worth it to drop the travel trailer before looking for dispersed camping on unfamiliar roads (and let’s be honest, they’re all unfamiliar roads), even if we end up paying for one night of camping in a developed campground. Scout it out first or you might end up doing some of these ridiculous things.

-You might draw the attention of casino security if you stand on the tailgate of your truck to inspect the roof of your RV (see same ridiculous post).

-Many Washington state rest areas have very nice multi-lane dump stations with potable water. Some also allow overnight parking for up to 8 hours.

-There are a lot of Panda Expresses in the Pacific Northwest. This makes Jason happy.

-When there are wind gusts up to 60 mph in your campground and trees are falling, it’s time to go.

-Related: Trees in the PNW are so tall that you can’t tell they’re swaying in strong winds simply by looking out the window of your RV. But if you go outside and look waaay up and see only the whites of leaves and branches falling, you get a good idea pretty darn fast.

-When a big storm is expected in a rural area, it’s always a good idea to fill up anything that can hold water (fresh water tank, water bottles, bathtub in a traditional house) before the storm hits. Well water pumps generally require electricity, so no power = no water.

-Forks, WA is well-known for being the setting of the popular Twilight series. So well-known, in fact, that when you call Coachmen Roadside Support for a problem with your RV, the Coachmen employee may say, “Oh, you’re in Forks! Like the Twilight Forks! So cool!” Yeah, it might be cool if our RV wasn’t broken on the SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY.

-We did like Forks because various local groups set up food tents/trucks in the Ace Hardware parking lot. $0.50 hotdogs while we try to repair our RV on a Friday night? Yes, please! (And we got to support the local high school track team.)

-The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in Oregon is pricey but totally worth it. Stay until the last hour of the day, and once the families have left, go play in the kid’s area.

-Don’t try to pronounce anything in the WA peninsula. You will get it wrong.

-Sunsets over the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the WA peninsula are some of the very best we’ve seen this year.

-Don’t skip the northern Oregon coast while in the PNW.

-If you end up eating at the highly recommended Pelican Pub and Brewery in Pacific City, OR, don’t skip dessert. Order the Caramel Carrot Cake; it comes with a root beer caramel sauce, a caramel cream cheese frosting, and is topped with coconut English toffee. Also, order one of their craft beers.

-With enough peer pressure, swimming in Crater Lake is totally worth it despite the frigid water – it’s an unforgettable, exhilarating experience.

-We’ve noticed a trend of legal marijuana stores located right next to fast food places. Coincidence? We think not.

-Horses cause a ton of trail erosion, making for unpleasantly challenging mountain bike conditions.

-Volcanos have shaped much of the PNW landscape. In central Oregon alone, volcanos have formed mountains, lakes (including Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the US), deserts, and lava beds, fields, caves, etc, which juxtapose old-growth forests and lush vegetation.

-There is no sales tax in Oregon. This is a beautiful thing when your spouse insists on buying a new bike for his birthday.

Running from Smoke and Other Recent Misadventures

15/08/21 at 10.08am / by Jason / 0 Comment

Sometimes we might be guilty of painting too rosy a picture of our travels. We feel fortunate to have this opportunity, and we don’t want to sound like we’re complaining. But we also want to present a true account of what life is like for us on the road. With this in mind, we present a brief (each of these could be its own blog post) account of our five days after being driven out of North Cascades NP by wildfire smoke:

We needed propane. Like good citizens, we turned off our refrigerator (active pilot light) before pulling into the gas station where we’d buy propane. The problem here is that we forgot to turn the refrigerator back on. When we woke up the next morning we realized we’d thawed about 2.5 lbs of expensive salmon and 1 lb of grass-fed ground beef. All of this went into the refrigerator and needed to be cooked ASAP!
We tried to drive through Seattle on Friday afternoon in a downpour, which also happened to be the evening of the Seahawks first preseason game (and they take their NFL football VERY seriously in this area, even preseason). After creeping along at 30mph on the interstate for way too long, we saw a casino, Wal-Mart, Cabela’s, Panera, and Home Depot within a quarter mile of one another. We decided we’d try driving through Seattle on Saturday and settled into the comfort of suburbia for yet another night of parking lot slumber. As an aside, we are surprised by how bad Pacific North Westerners seem to be at driving in the rain.
We found a spot among the 50 or so RVs who would call the casino parking lot home for the night and headed into the casino looking for a cheap meal.We opened the door to the casino only to be met by a wall of cigarette smoke. Jessie turned around and walked back to the RV in the cold rain to make some soup and read her book. I soldiered on into the casino bound and determined to find a cheap meal. In many casinos this is a fairly easy task (they don’t want you to leave!) . Not this one. Not a single meal under $13 in the whole place. So I went back to the RV to have some soup and a Snicker’s bar for dinner.
On Saturday morning, after waking up in the middle of the night to an overeager LP alarm, we decided enough was enough. We needed to install a roof vent cover that would allow us to leave our vent open even in bad weather or while driving. Our LP detector simply doesn’t like air that is heavy/humid or doesn’t move (and it hates Jessie’s shampoo). Most of the time you have to buy these covers at an RV dealership (expensive!) or order them online. But, we found one at our local (for the day) Wal-Mart. So while parked at Cabela’s, we took 30 minutes to climb up on the roof and install our new vent cover. Classy.

Jessie walked to Panera for some coffee and wifi while I did some grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. She was ecstatic to find that she had free coffee for the month as part of the Panera rewards program. So she proceeded to drink way too much coffee and spent the day with a sour stomach.
We made one more stop before looking for camping on Saturday. Trader Joe’s. Good place for grocery shopping. Terrible place for navigating a 25 ft travel trailer.
So after our soggy, noisy night at the casino and getting our shopping done and roof vent installed, we left north Seattle and headed south through town. There was a seemingly strange amount of traffic for a Saturday which leads us to believe that folks here spend a lot of time driving. And the city does sprawl north and south for hours. Our goal was to find a spot to grill our fish. How about a city park? Seemed like a good idea. Enter low hanging trees and tight parking lots. We didn’t incur any damage, but we do have some new “kisses from nature” on the roof of the RV.
Clearly the parks idea didn’t work, so we headed to yet another casino to park, inspect the RV for tree damage, grill our fish, and sleep/camp for the night. Apparently, standing on your truck to inspect the RV and then getting out your grill will earn you a “welcome” visit from casino security. No grilling. “You are welcome to eat at one of our restaurants and see the Elvis show”. So we left hungry.
Fed up with the suburban sprawl of Seattle, we pointed the truck southeast determined to get into the national forest near Mt. Rainer, find a campground, and grill our damn fish. We drove through two overpriced campgrounds, neither of which had any availability for us anyway, and finally parked in a picnic area to grill our fish. So at about 9 pm, Jessie with a sour stomach, we both ate a hastily grilled-in-the-dark gigantic piece of salmon after spilling salmon juice all over the RV during the preparation phase of the meal.
Not allowed to camp at the picnic area, we pulled out just before 10pm to find “dispersed” camping along a gravel national forest road. We just needed a semi-level 40 ft piece of dirt to park for the night. In the pitch black, we turned off the highway and onto a gravel road. After turning the RV around utilizing an 18 point turn method taught nowhere in Driver Ed., we finally got the RV parked for the night despite the fact that Jessie, “the spotter”, feared a fatal bear attack the entire time.
On Sunday, we left our lovely-in-the-daylight “campsite” hoping to find camping at a campground near the Sunrise area in Mt. Rainer National Park. We made it there easily. And they had availability! And a sign that said “no trailers over 18 feet”. It would have been nice of the Park Service to put this sign on the main road BEFORE we made the turn. So we backed out and turned around. Homeless yet again.
We left Mt. Rainer and headed south into yet another national forest and another overpriced campground. But we backed into site A6 and debated staying anyway. Nope. Let’s go find free camping in the national forest. So down another narrow forest road we went. Dead-end. So we backed out, uphill about a mile, turned around in what amounted to a shallow drainage ditch and headed back to site A6 eager to pay $20 not to have to be in the truck any longer.
Jessie now has reoccurring dreams/nightmares about finding free dispersed camping, and Jason is sick of backing up the trailer.

Clearly the more confident we feel in our travels, the more willing we are to take risks (i.e. drive down narrow gravel roads with no real idea of where we are going). These risks often mean great rewards, but sometimes they mean eating fish off a paper plate three hours later than you planned and in a location you never knew existed.

Dodging Wildfires Version 2.0: North Cascades National Park

15/08/19 at 9.01am / by Jason / 0 Comment

On day four (of seven) of our time in North Cascades National Park, we picked up* the two smelliest individuals we’ve ever met. These chaps were from Wales and were ten weeks into a twelve week backpacking adventure in the western US. I’m not sure they’d bathed since arriving. Jessie had a very polite and seemingly delightful conversation with them as I drove as fast as was prudent with my head out the window (perhaps a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea). About 30 minutes later, we parted ways with our foul but enjoyable new acquaintances and were on our way to Mt. Baker National Forest and Recreation Area.

We’d decided to leave North Cascades National Park for the day for less smoky hiking conditions after winds shifted overnight and sent a lot of smoke our way. You see, there were three separate wildfires burning in the southern part of the park. Not that these fires made CNN headlines like the Glacier NP fire with all of its fancy video footage and road closures. North Cascades is the second least visited National Park in the lower 48, so it isn’t exactly newsworthy the way the more popular parks are.

Mt. Baker National Forest is located about 40 miles west of North Cascades. During the winter of ’98-’99 Mt. Baker received a world record 95 feet of snow. It boasts a peak just under 11,000 feet and seven massive glaciers. The glaciers were the big draw for us, so after winding up 15 or so miles of dirt road we arrived at the Mt. Baker National Recreation Area Trailhead. As we pulled into the small gravel parking lot, we saw two guys hiking into the wilderness with skis. I looked at Jessie and said, “I think we might be in over our heads”. But we decided to press on, determined to get in some hiking. Up we went through alpine forests and boulder fields, across streams and waterfalls until the Easton and Squak Glaciers appeared before us. As we arrived at the fork in the trail where we had to commit to a route for the day, we came upon a lovely French-Canadian gentlemen who recommended one of the two trails we were considering. So we skipped the more popular Park Butte trail with its smoke-limited panoramas in favor of Railroad Grade, which promised an up-close-and-personal view of Mt. Baker. It did not disappoint. This hike is easily in the top ten for the year.

While at North Cascades, we learned the park is really about three things: (1) amazing, rugged, dense, unforgiving wilderness, (2) glaciers, all 300+ of them, and (3) hydroelectricity. Yep, there are three dams in the park established and maintained by Seattle City Light. These obviously predate the creation of the park. The one and only paved road, Washington Highway 20, that winds through the park follows the valley floor through most of the park where the dams and river/lakes are found. There is no road that leads to stunning vistas of glaciers or panoramas of the mountain ranges. In fact, you can see only one glacier from Highway 20, if you know where to look, the weather is perfect, and you squint real hard. Think of it as the opposite of the famous Going to the Sun Road at Glacier NP. This is the beautiful and frustrating thing about North Cascades. It is absolutely stunning, but to see it you’ve got to hike. And the hiking here is hard. Many trails start below 1,000 feet and gain 500-1,000 feet per mile. These trails will make you think your heart will pound out of your chest on the way up and your knees will shatter on the way down. We prided ourselves on being in good hiking shape before arriving at North Cascades and we were thoroughly humbled by the hiking there. It’s also the first park we felt truly disadvantaged by not having overnight backpacking gear with us. To see the best of what the park has to offer, you need a minimum of 2-4 nights in the back country. We simply can’t do that with the equipment we have with us. Next time.

While in the park, we had the opportunity to camp in two separate campgrounds (one of them totally free and lakeside), complete one tough 10-mile hike, take in a lovely 7.5 mile hike to Cascade Pass, and enjoy several smaller hikes. We saw the strangest “park film” of the year (we’ve seen about 14 of them). We took an official tour of one of the small towns built to service the dams and took an unofficial tour of another one of these towns that is about 70% abandoned and looks like the set of the “Walking Dead”. At dusk it’s downright creepy. We also marveled at how few people were in the park. At times it felt like we had the entire park to ourselves. Having your own national park is a pretty special thing. We just wish that the smoke hadn’t driven us out earlier than expected.

*We’ve observed that hitchhikers are more common in and around the national parks than most places in the US. In fact, we had to hitch a ride ourselves while at Arches NP. While in Glacier NP, we picked up a man and his backpack. At least it appeared to be a backpack from afar. In reality it was his two year-old daughter in a child carrying contraption meant to work like a backpack. He and the rest of his family had missed the last bus back to their campground and weren’t prepared to hike seven miles back to camp with a gaggle of young children in tow, so here he was catching a ride with us back to camp to get the car and pick up the rest.

Fire and Ice: Glacier National Park

15/08/14 at 7.54pm / by Jessie / 0 Comment

Just a couple of days before we planned to arrive in Glacier National Park, we read the news (a fairly rare occurrence these days) that a wildfire had just started in the eastern side of the park near the town of St. Mary. Initially small, the wildfire grew exponentially over the next 36-ish hours as we continued to monitor the news updates from beautiful Lolo National Forest well south of the park. Fortunately, we loved Lolo and were happy to stay an extra day or two until the fire stabilized (we hoped).

In the meantime, we developed alternative plans. We figured that, at best, our initial plan of spending two-ish weeks in the Glacier area simply wouldn’t be realistic due to the fire resulting in the closure of a significant portion of the infamous and scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTTSR), which bisects the park and connects the West Glacier area with the eastern side of the park where much of the best hiking and best glacier views are found in the Many Glacier and Two Medicine areas of the park. We decided to spend our “leftover” time in North Cascades National Park in Washington. We read in one of our guidebooks that North Cascades NP is home to approximately 300 glaciers (Glacier NP has about 25), so it seemed like a good and suitable alternative. (Coincidentally, a fire would start in North Cascades prior to our arrival and continue to grow, but more on that in a separate post.)

As predicted, the fire in Glacier slowed down after a few days. It became apparent that at least the western side of the park would be perfectly safe. We were situated to enter the park from the west anyway, so we decided to head into the area determined to do whatever we could and to make the most of it. Of course, though, we were disappointed, as Glacier was one of our top priorities from the beginning of this trip and a place where, as aforementioned, we’d planned to spend a significant (for us) amount of time.

Initially, we were worried about smoke, but it turned out to be a nonfactor everywhere we went in and around the park except for the St. Mary area itself, which we traveled through on our way to and from Many Glacier. Despite the smoke, we stopped for a meal at Park Café in St. Mary, recommended to us as a worthy spot for a belated anniversary celebration dinner. The food and service didn’t disappoint, and we essentially had the normally line-out-the-door popular place to ourselves, which made us sad for the business owner and staff who rely heavily on summer park visitors for business.

Our other worry was how we’d be impacted by the GTTSR closure. Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Let’s start with the good.

With a little creativity, we figured out how to access the hikes we wanted to do from the road even though the “best” trailheads weren’t always accessible. We drove up the open section of road twice and thoroughly enjoyed its scenic rewards both times (we took a second drive when the weather was nicer and the road was opened a little further to allow access to its highest point along the Continental Divide at Logan Pass). We don’t know what the road looks like east of Logan Pass, but I can’t imagine that it’s as beautiful as the area west of the pass.

Now, the bad news: Glacier is a big park with relatively few roads. Without the benefit of the GTTSR bisecting the park, the only way to travel between the western and eastern sides is to drive around the park’s southern boundary on roads outside the park itself. From West Glacier, that meant a roundtrip of 3-5 hours to Two Medicine or Many Glacier on the eastern side and of at least 8 hours to Waterton Lakes, the Canadian national park that borders Glacier, as there isn’t a good western route between the parks.

We’d initially planned to celebrate our anniversary with a daytrip to Waterton (we had no desire to deal with the logistics of taking the RV into Canada for a night), and we quickly scratched those plans. Though we really wanted to spend more time in Many Glacier and Two Medicine, we ended up making just one daytrip to each area. The trips were totally worth it in terms of great hiking and breathtakingly beautiful scenery, but we simply didn’t want to spend a bulk of our time in the park driving. All week, we debated moving to a campground on the eastern side of the park, but it was too far to reasonably drive the RV without having a guaranteed campsite (Two Medicine and Many Glacier are first-come, first-served and have very few sites large enough to accommodate us, and St. Mary was closed during most of our visit and then was booked solid with prior reservations. Additionally, the eastern side of the park is bordered by a Native American reservation, so there aren’t good nearby camping options outside the park.).

Although we had a great week in Glacier, we definitely left feeling like it was “undone”, as we wanted to spend more time in the eastern part of the park. We certainly have a longer than usual “next time” list, mostly full of hikes we’d like to do in Many Glacier.

So, what did we do and enjoy during our week in Glacier?

We spent our first few days in a national forest near the park where camping was slightly less expensive, which allowed us to restock on groceries, get a cheap haircut at a cosmetology school in a nearby town, and enjoy a “down-day” of laundry, cleaning, and rest during one of several cool, rainy days. We also visited Hammer Nutrition’s headquarters in nearby Whitefish, MT where we showed up unannounced and ended up getting a personal 40-minute tour of the facilities by the company’s president, who filled up a bag with all kinds of goodies as we walked through the warehouse. Hammer Nutrition makes our favorite sports nutrition (drink mixes, bars, gels, supplements, etc.) and cycling gear. They also make delicious fair-trade organic coffee, which isn’t cheap, but which was included in our “goody bag” nonetheless, along with a pour-over coffee brewer, a simple but genius invention that means no more instant coffee for me! It was a true highlight of our trip.

Like Grand Teton National Park, parts of Glacier feel like a resort. There are lakes with overpriced boat rides, gorgeous historic lodges and inns with restaurants, bars, and expansive back porches/decks, at least one reading room with a gas-log fireplace (I know because I enjoyed warming myself there on a chilly day), and guided tours in antique red cars called “jammers”.

In an extended belated celebration of our anniversary, we treated ourselves to a ranger-guided historic boat ride on Lake McDonald after enjoying a tasty microbrew with a lakeside picnic (nothing says class like PB&J and beer). While we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon of “luxury” (for us), it’s hard to believe, and quite sad, that some 50% of visitors to Glacier National Park never take a hike in the park.

True to our MO, we went on some great hikes. Our favorites were Granite Park Chalet (we started at the Loop trailhead because Logan Pass was still closed at this point), Grinnell Glacier, and Scenic Point.

The 360-degree vista from Scenic Point was a true highlight of this trip for me. Situated on the eastern edge of the Rockies, the point provides a high-altitude view of expansive prairieland to the east (which would have been enough for me to fall in love with on its own), and in a quarter turn, a view of prairie-meeting-mountains, and in another quarter turn, breathtaking views of glaciated mountains and lakes. It was simply spectacular.

I also fell in love with Avalanche Gorge on the way to Avalanche Lake. The whole scene left me spellbound – something about the clarity and color of the water, the forest scenery, the slot-like canyon formation and shape of the gorge, and the moss- and lichen-covered rocks was simply captivating. This was the silver lining of the fire and subsequent road closure: it forced us to spend more time in the western part of the park where we went on some shorter hikes that we otherwise may have passed by, which led us to fantastic and unexpected places like Avalanche Gorge.

Finally, the real highlight of our week was spending time with my sister’s best friend and her boyfriend/partner, who happened to arrive in the park toward the end of our stay (completely unplanned on both our parts). In addition to enjoying hugs sent from home, we loved having travel buddies, which hasn’t happened since Zion NP in Utah. They joined us for a hike and for a magical evening drive up the GTTSR after the road was opened to Logan Pass; we took way too many pictures in the beautiful fading light, marveled at the spectacular beauty of it all, and stood awe-struck at the pass as a nearly full moon rose above the mountains.

The next night, we enjoyed classic camping fun: a big campfire with roasted hotdogs and marshmallows, good beer, and wonderful company with lots of laughter. It was the perfect ending to a not-so-perfect but still very good week.

The Rest of Western South Dakota

15/08/06 at 9.02am / by Jessie / 0 Comment

Our whirlwind seven-day adventure to South Dakota was one of the busiest weeks we’ve had this year. While we weren’t busy exploring Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks we took some time to explore the “other” things to do in Western South Dakota. Here is a quick round-up of our time in order of interest and importance as determined by me, (your mileage may vary):

Mobile Gas Station/RV Campground/Military Museum

Yep, this is at the top of our list. You see, the reason we left Badlands when we did is because a serious South Dakota heatwave was settling in. When the temperature hits 95+ degrees inside your RV it is time to find somewhere to plug into power and revel in the modern convenience known as air conditioning. Usually we end up paying handsomely for this luxury. Enter a very random 24 hour self-service gas station (as in no convenience store, just pay-at-the-pump gas) located in Wasta, SD that also has an 8 site RV “campground” with power, potable water, and a dump station. All of this for a grand total of $15 for two nights. Yes, we spent two nights behind a gas station. This, my friends, is RV road trip gold. And the fact that there was an extraordinarily well preserved A-4 Skyhawk parked out front was the icing on the cake. This place was delightfully strange and we loved every air conditioned minute we spent here.

Minuteman National Historic Site

Located just north of Badlands NP and buried deep underground and sometimes hidden-in-plain-sight, South Dakota has been home to a nuclear arsenal capable of destruction roughly 700 times that of the entire ordinance expenditure of all sides during WWII (including both Atomic weapons). Many of these weapons have been disposed of following the cold war but there is still a very active missile silo and bomber program headquartered at Ellsworth Air Force Base. We took a day to explore the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.

The Minuteman National Historic Site is located just off I-90 and is brand-spanking-new. They don’t even have their final museum instillation yet. The short film and what is currently available do a good job of giving a historical perspective of the cold war and the nuclear buildup that followed WWII. When the site is complete it will have a replica missile silo and other more authentic displays then the ones currently available. The real heart of The Minuteman National Historic Site is the distributed sites located across the plains and a bit of a drive from the “museum” location. A decommissioned missile silo and control center (different locations separate by roughly 15 miles) give visitors a better, more intimate view of exactly what Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) technology is all about. We took the time to visit the silo and had the opportunity to chat with a retired USAF technician who worked in the silo fields for well over a decade. Unfortunately the ticketed tours of the command center were booked solid the day we were there. This is easily worth the 1-3 hour commitment it takes to visit the site(s). All of the activities associated with the Minuteman site are currently free of charge.

South Dakota Air and Space Museum

As referenced above there is still a very active ICBM and heavy bomber program at Ellsworth Air Force base. Located just outside the main gate to the Air Force base is a fantastic museum with 52 well preserved aircraft including a B-1, B-25, B-26, B-29, FB-111, and the venerable B-52 all housed in a lovely walkable display outside the museum buildings. Inside the facility are historical artifacts and a replica of a missile launch capsule for the Minuteman missile program. We spent roughly three hours touring the free museum although we could have easily spent several more. A one-hour guided tour of Ellsworth AFB is available for under $10 but we were running short on time so we skipped the tour. Located just off I-90 we highly recommend this as a great place to spend a few hours if you are in the area.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial

This one you know. 60+ feet tall faces carved into stone. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the other guy (Teddy Roosevelt). The park is “free” but you have to pay to park. So in other words, it isn’t free. We very much enjoyed half-day at Mount Rushmore despite the amusement park feel we got from time-to-time. After walking just about everything there was to walk, taking too many pictures, attending two ranger talks, watching the film about the creation of the carving, buying postcards, and pursuing the museum we took our leave of the park after about three-and-a-half hours with plans to setup camp, have dinner, and return in time for the 9pm “lighting” program. We enjoyed the 60 minute program and it culminated with a nice tribute to current and former service members.

Crazy Horse Monument

Jessie needed a bit of a rest and opted to skip Crazy Horse. I ventured out planning to spend about three hours and wanted desperately to come away from Crazy Horse Monument with a better understanding of the monument and local Native American culture. I got one of my two wishes. I learned a lot about the 60+ year history of the carving and the man who set out to make it a reality. It is truly an interesting story. However, I did not learn nearly enough about the history I went so interested in exploring. In fact, if you were a professional museum curator I’d imagine you’d come away absolutely frustrated by the lack of organization and storytelling that takes place at Crazy Horse. What Crazy Horse has in abundance is stuff to buy. Food, souvenirs, authentic Native American “stuff”, etc is everywhere. The carving itself is impressive and still only roughly 20-25% complete after over 60 years of work. When/if complete it will be the largest rock carving in the world by a large measure dwarfing nearby Mount Rushmore. Crazy Horse is funded exclusively by private money, ticket sales, etc so it stands to reason that is will naturally be different than the likes of Mount Rushmore, but still, I left Crazy Horse a bit sad that there wasn’t more Native American and a little less American. At over $10 per person for the basic entrance fee (more if you want to ride the bus closer to the carving), Jessie was wise to skip this one.

Wall Drug

Not all tourist traps are created equal. Wall Drug belongs toward the top of this list nationally. It is 60 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. The sad thing about Wall Drug is that it is nearly impossible to bypass if you spend any time on I-90 in that part of the country. The billboards stretch for hundreds of miles in both directions and promise an oasis of goodness and fun. There are bumper stickers on cars all over the west. You simply can’t avoid it. That said it is a giant maze of souvenirs, junk, activities, and food (almost all really, really bad for you…our ¼ lbs of fudge was no exceptions). I partook in an exceptionally average doughnut despite a glowing recommendation from one of our guidebooks. This place seems to be designed such that you are supposed to get lost and have to eat and buy your way out. Skip it if your curiosity doesn’t get the best of you. Otherwise plan to leave with a belly ache, an air-brushed t-shirt that will regret the minute you pay for it, and a personalized knockoff Swiss Army knife that falls apart the first time you try to carve up the perfect marshmallow roasting stick. And no, aside from the “food”, we bought none of this.

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