Busy Weeks

Whew!  Too busy in the past couple of weeks to update the blog.  I will start this entry with where we are now and then work backwards to the time we left Glacier National Park.

Staying at the NRA Whittington Center just south of Raton Pass, New Mexico.  This area has had a lot of rain and the high desert is green and beautiful.  Unfortunately, it also has billions of mosquitoes this year thanks to the extra moisture.  Between dawn and dusk it’s okay outside; otherwise squadrons of the wretched little bugs swarm you every time you poke your head out of the trailer.

View from the campground.

Wildlife abounds here at the Center.  There are warnings about bears and cougars coming into the campground and deer and elk routinely wander through.  Yesterday we saw pronghorn antelopes at the shotgun center.  

Today we went to the Capulin Volcano National Monument.  

View from bottom of the crater.

View from the rim of the crater.  

Spent all day yesterday driving to visit the Fort Union National Monument.  The ruins of the fort have been pretty well preserved.  This fort was the supply depot for the Army installations in the Southwest, such as Fort Cummings near Deming.  It also where the Union Army  departed to confront a Confederate force moving up the Rio Grande valley.  The battle at Glorieta Pass saved the western gold fields and wealth from falling into Confederate control.  A little-known battle but an important one.

The fort sits astride a section of the Santa Fe Trail and you can see the wagon ruts still.  

Jail for the dangerous prisoners.

After we left Glacier National Park, we traveled across Montana in the cold (42 degrees at one point), rainy, VERY windy weather.  One of our stops was Spearfish, South Dakota, only 20 miles or so from Sturgis.  It was our misfortune to be there within days of the motorcycle rally at Sturgis; the park was packed with bikers.  We got one of the last sites available and were darned glad we had made reservations.  The prices at this park go from $35 a night to $110 a night during the rally. 

Arrived in Yale, South Dakota, in time for our friend’s birthday party.  Another RVing friend from Texas, Gilbert Minzenmayer, also came to the party.  Wenda and Bill live on a farm so we released the dogs from their leashes and let them run and play with Winston, Wenda and Bill’s dog.  After spending a few days with them, we all spent a couple of nights at the Oahe Downstream Campground outside Pierre. 

Wenda and Bill

Bill, Wenda, Gilbert, Mike

Everyone trying to be my size.

Encountered bikers again at the stop in Wall, South Dakota as we headed back west.  It’s 100 miles to Sturgis from Wall and the place was overrun with bikers.  We drove through Badlands National Park with a thousand of them.  It was not a treat.  

Note "CLOSED" sign in the window.

Downtown Wall

Bikers in Badlands National Park.

Leaving Wall, we stopped next at Chadron, Nebraska, and the park had MORE bikers.  If I never hear the roar of a motorcycle again, it will be too soon.  NOTE TO SELF:  Do not be within 1,000 miles of Sturgis during the motorcycle rally. 

And now for a real treat:  CARHENGE at Alliance, Nebraska.