*END* of US West Trip, Sept 2011

Mackinac Bridge Michigan

 

Thursday Sep 22

Time to start heading for home today. A lot of hours, with a stop at the Cabella store in Mitchell SD along the way. 

We stopped at a municipal campground in Adrian for the night. $20 with utilities and WiFi. We're in go-home mode, didn't even unhitch the trailer overnight.

 

Friday Sep 23

Another early and quiet departure. One thing about parking near a highway, the traffic noises mask any noise we might make when packing up.

We ran into some construction, rain and traffic through Green Bay WI. We're taking the northern route home until we get to Michigan.

All set up by 6:30 pm EDT, off hwy 35 near Escanaba. Just a stone's throw from Lake Michigan, but it was pretty dark by the time we stopped, so didn't see the lake at all here. 

Saturday Sep 24

It was a longer travel day than we had expected. Luckily we had an early start, still dark at 6:30 am, and dark for quite a while after that. You know winter's not far away when this starts happening.

We did  see views of Lake Michigan as the day dawned though, this route is quite a nice drive in the daylight. Lots of sandy beaches along the lake. It was up to 13C when we crossed the Mackinac Bridge, $7 toll.

We headed for Frankenmuth today, intending to camp there for the night at a campground we'd been to a couple of times before. Well, the campground is gone! The town was so busy, such a zoo, we couldn't wait to get out of there, so no chicken dinner at Zender's this time (sob).

It was still early, about 1:30, and a good driving day, so we decided to just head home. Good time for a border crossing, it wasn't busy at 3:30 or so. We were home a little after 7pm.

It feels like it was a really good trip, although we won't know until we look at our pictures of course :)) We saw a lot of things we wanted to, plus some we never thought we'd see (like Rocky Mountain Natl park).

p.s. we were really feeling the urge to go back to a travel van for some sections of this trip. Especially the drive home with brief overnight stops. It was only a couple of years after this trip that we sold the Tahoe and HiLo trailer, and ordered our Sprinter van.

Custer SD to Adrian WI

A driving day today. After some initial park-like roads getting out from the Custer area, we made our way up to I90 and headed east. Tomorrow and Saturday will be more of the same. We expect to take the northern route through Michigan's Upper Peninsula, with a stop in Frankenmuth, likely overnight Saturday.

Lusk to Custer South Dakota, 2 days

 

We had a busy day on Tuesday. First we moved from Lusk to a c.g. here just outside Custer SD. It was only a 2 1/2 hr drive, so we were all set up by noon.

In the afternoon we went to see the Crazy Horse memorial that's been under construction for years (and will be for a lot more years). There's quite a building complex there now, lots of Indian artifacts and history displayed. It would take days to see and absorb it all.

 

Thousands of small beads used to decorate clothing and moccasins etc

 

This is what the statue looks like now, from about 3 miles away. It's just huge, way bigger than the Mt Rushmore presidential heads:

Here's a scale model of what it is supposed to look like someday:

Progress is slow. There's no govt money in the project at all. The original sculptor died in 1982, and 6 of his 10 children carry on the project today, funded by donations and private-money grants.

After the Crazy Horse visit we headed into Custer State Park, looking for wildlife. It was nice to not be towing the trailer on the way there:

 

 

We did want to see some animals, so drove the Wildlife Loop road in Custer State Park. After a slow start, did we see buffalo! (aka bison). 

We saw 2 large herds of bison, likely over 300 each. The park managers are gathering them now for the official annual roundup event next week. They expect to collect some 1500 animals, and since the range can only over-winter about 750, the rest will be sold at a large auction.

 

 

We did see other animals too:

These were Pronghorn antelope (above), we also saw a few elk and mountain sheep, and lots of mule deer, all over the place especially near town.

All in all, a very full day.

Route from Lusk:

Crazy Horse, Wildlife Loop Rd:

Today (Wednesday) we just toured the area a bit, and drove the Wildlife Loop again. We have to bison-watch while we can! It was a much easier day than yesterday! Even a bit anticlimactic.

 

 

Tomorrow we'll be heading for home, may be coming through Waterloo this weekend if all goes well.

 

Craig to Lusk WY

Monday

Another driving day, pleasant but nothing spectacular like yesterday's drive. We camped in the little town of Lusk Wyoming, 100 miles or so north from Cheyenne, on our way tomorrow to the Custer area in South Dakota, where we'll likely stay put for a few days. It's getting down towards freezing at night now, but it reached 17C today along the way.

 

A lookout guarding the way

 

  Cathie finished a knitting project on the drive:

Mesa Verde to Craig CO through the San Juan mountains

Today we left Mesa Verde at 8am, bright sunshine, 4C. We were going to go east to Durango, then take hwy 550 north from there. However there are 2 high passes on that route (10,910 ft and 11,008 ft) and snow coming down on the peaks, so we decided to take a gentler route (the main pass is "only" 10,222 ft), which turned out to be a fantastic drive through the San Juan range! 

It was sunny all the way, and cool (down to 3C before rising to 9C later on). We were heading mostly north, so the sun wasn't in our eyes, and the peaks just glowed:

The 145 and 62 sections make up part of the San Juan Skyway route, just a great drive.

Weather: 4C at 6am, down to 3 and up to 9 through the mountains. 21C here in Craig at 5pm. Sunny all day.

Monument Valley to Mesa Verde National Park (2 days)

Morning from our Goulding's site

 

We're sitting in the Cortez (Colorado) Chamber of Commerce writing this. We're camped in Mesa Verde park, but not many facilities there - just real pretty. Cortez offers fast free WiFi.

Yesterday we had a good trip from our cg (Gouldings, near Monument Valley). Some really nice views, here's one that any of you Forrest Gump fans might recognize, it's where Forrest stopped running:

 

On the way we came into a small town just as their Homecoming parade was passing, so we became the last float in the parade. We disappointed the kids though, as we had no candy to toss to them. Got lots of waves anyway:

 

 

We got camped in a really nice no-hookups site in Mesa Verde Natl Park. We're just behind the tree behind the trailer in the pic:

 

Mesa Verde is known for its assortment of ancient cliff dwellings. There are some 4,000 archaeological sites in the park, some well preserved and open to the public. Some pictures look like doll houses, but people lived here:

Going down...

Some rooms were like an underground kiva

Escaping from below

Some were open but likely were roofed back in the day. The smaller openings are air vents.

The park Visitor Centre

The large vertical one is several stories high. Unusual.

 

Tucked in under an overhang for some protection

 

Later we had a hike with a lookout, and discovered some deer in the grasses:

 

We had a good tour of the park in good weather this morning, then the rain moved in. At noon it was raining and 7C! So we're in the nearby town of Cortez now. Apparently there is a quilt shop downtown that we're heading for.