Wall Drug and stone walls

After a restful pit stop in Rapid City, SD, my sister and I traveled east on our way to Badlands National Park.  But, before we went there, we made a little side trip to Wall Drug to get donuts.

Why donuts you say?  Well, on a previous road trip, I spent the night in Wall and heard the donuts at the drugstore were pretty good.  Turns out, they were GREAT!  So, I told myself next time I was in the area, I would get those tasty donuts again. And, we did!  We sat in the car and ate our donuts...boy, they were as good as I remembered.

After our donut treat, it was just a short drive to Badlands north park entrance.  We spent the morning taking in the awesome views and also taking a lot of photos.  I'll let them speak for themselves.

It would have been nicer if it had been more sunny, but the scenery was still breathtaking.  At one viewpoint, there was a park ranger stationed there to provide assistance to visitors.  We asked her where we could see bighorn sheep.  She suggested a couple of possible places to see them.  The ranger also mentioned there were pronghorn antelope sighted just down the road.  Sure enough, they were there!

At lunch time, it was a bit windy, so we just ate in the car.  Afterward, we took in a couple of short hikes.  First, we did the picturesque Door Trail, which meandered through weathered gullies and canyons.  As you can see, the sun finally came out! 

The other trail we hiked was the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail.  The views were not as impressive, but the walk was peaceful and relaxing.  The trail also has the most trees found in the entire park!

Tomorrow, we leave the state of South Dakota and travel south for a bit more history...and hopefully another visit to Culver's! 

Wheels, wings and butterburgers

The bed in my hotel last night was super comfy soft...the best I've ever slept on while road tripping.  I wouldn't mind a bed like that for myself.  My sister and I took it easy today, visiting a couple of museums.  We drove from Spearfish, SD to the motorcycle town of Sturgis to see the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.  This small museum had a lot of nice vintage bikes...and a wooden one, too!

Before I left on my road trip, I was told by a friend that if I got a chance to check out the fast food place, Culver's.  I put it on my list and today, we decided to have lunch there in Rapid City, SD.  The butterburger was delicious, the fries crispy and the chocolate custard SO good!  So, thanks Kevin for the suggestion!

After lunch, we traveled east of town to Ellsworth Air Force Base to visit the South Dakota Air and Space Museum.  When we arrived, we saw there were many historical aircraft on display outside with a B-1B bomber as the centerpiece.

We walked around taking photos and trying to guess the types of planes we were looking at.  Here are a F-84 Thunderstreak, a B-26 Invader, a super rare B-29 Superfortress and a B-52 Stratofortress. 

Tomorrow, we'll be visiting the Badlands, with a brief stop in Wall to check out the famous drug store.  I'm going there on a mission...a very important mission.  Stay tuned...

Oh, give me home where the pronghorn roam

It was a beautiful sunny day as my sister and I left Billings, MT for our first destination of the day, Pompey's Pillar National Monument. The interpretive center there describes the journey of William Clark after he and Meriwether Lewis completed their Corps of Discovery to the Pacific Ocean.

 

The site also has the only existing evidence of that journey...Clark's signature etched on Pompey's Pillar.  We climbed up a staircase to see it, but was really hard to see the signature through the protective covering, so I'm showing the replica here.  In addition, there is a register consisting of many other signatures of other people who have passed by the area around the same time.  At the top of the staircase, we surveyed the Yellowstone River that Clark's party traveled on a long time ago.

In the afternoon, we traveled south to Fort Phil Kearny Historic Site.  This was the site of the worst defeat of the U.S. Army by the Plains Indians before it was surpassed by the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The fort itself no longer exists, but the area surrounding it has changed little since that time. 

After looking around the fort area, we traveled a short distance to the main battle site.  A memorial to Captain William Fetterman is located there as well as a trail with interpretive signs outlining the series of events that led to the loss of all 81 men who fought valiantly against a force of over 2000 Indians. 

To the north is Lodge Trail Ridge where Fetterman rode down to meet the main Indian force located on a small hill.  They were forced to retreat to the adjacent hill where they were all killed in just 30 minutes.  The memorial is located at that site, which you can see in the distance in the first photo.  

For the past couple of days while driving through Montana, and today through Wyoming and South Dakota, we've been seeing LOTS of pronghorn antelope lounging and grazing in the hills.  While leaving Fort Phil Kearny, I spotted a herd of around a dozen antelope in a field next to the road.  We stopped to take pictures, then watched the male antelope attempting to keep his harem from straying.  First, a female and her two half-grown calves started trotting away from the herd.  He took notice and quickly ushered them back.  Then, another female attempted to RUN away, forcing him to give chase and make her think otherwise.  It was pretty entertaining to watch. 

Tomorrow, it looks to be another beautifully sunny day.  But, we'll be spending most of it indoors doing a couple of museums.  At least it beats hours of driving, which I seem to be doing a lot of lately. 

Hot times in Billings

We left Great Falls, MT this morning with a full morning of driving ahead of us.  Our destination was Billings to visit the zoo there.  As we drove through miles and miles of flat grasslands, we saw handfuls of pronghorn antelope grazing in the distance.  The temps were heating up when we reached the city...mid 80s!  My sister and I had a very tasty Thai lunch, then headed over to ZooMontana. This relatively small zoo is the only one in the state of Montana, but it had some nice animals.  The pair of bald eagles were rehabilitated after injury, and became permanent residents there.  It was a similar situation for one of the two grizzly bears.  Ozzy was a nuisance bear at Yellowstone National Park, but was given a second chance at life at the zoo.

There was a sole bighorn ram, but he turned his back on me.  The Amur tigers showed great interest in the children/prey looking excitedly at the red panda. 

Zoos are a great place for local, native animals to hang out, due to the abundance of trees and plants...and convenient alternate food sources.  I saw a red squirrel digging for who knows what.  And, my sister spotted a great horned owl sleeping high up in a tree.

The zoo had a couple of grey wolves with white coats lounging in the shade.  After checking out the river otters, we circled back to find one of the wolves eating grass.  Shortly after, the wolf barfed up the grass.  I guess like house cats, wolves also eat grass when they have upset tummies.  We ended our zoo visit by checking out the koi fish.  For a quarter, we got handfuls of food pellets that sent the fish into a feeding frenzy. 

Tomorrow will be another history day as we travel from Montana to Wyoming and onward to South Dakota.  After dealing with a high of 87 degrees today, it will be nice to cool down a bit, at least for one day.  On a side note, I suffered a major setback today as my primary camera decided to go kaput.  Thankfully, I have a backup camera, but alas, I won't be taking any nice closeups or panoramic shots.  The first thing I'll be doing for sure when I get home is buy a new camera.

History awaits in Great Falls

Today was devoted to reliving a little history.  We left the sleepy town of Browning, MT and headed south to First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park just outside of Great Falls.  This park has one of the largest buffalo jump sites in the U.S., spanning a mile in length!  Many, many years ago, the native peoples of the area drove herds of bison over the cliffs for their meat.  To see the site, my sister and I opted to hike the 3-mile loop trail rather than make the easier drive by car.

At the top we got a closer look at the cliff edge...and prairie dogs!  I asked a park ranger...who was leading around a school group...if there was any visible buffalo bones around.  He pointed out a spot on the ground where you could see bone fragments.  Those are pretty old bone fragments!

After our hike, we headed into Great Falls for lunch, then a visit to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. This excellent museum is run by the USDA Forest Service and has the most detailed exhibit on the Corps of Discovery expedition that I've ever seen. 

After watching an introductory video by Ken Burns, we strolled through the interpretive center.  Of particular interest was the replica of an air gun that Captain Lewis had on hand, just in case the powder got wet. 

It was pretty warm today in Great Falls...low 80s this afternoon.  Tomorrow looks to be sunny again for our zoo day in Billings.