Our plan was to spend the night in Billings, Montana and on the way there we stopped at the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn.

On this hill Custer and his men fought against the indians but lost and were killed.  There is no way to know how authentic the placements are, but one thing that is neat about the monument is they have gravestones placed where Cavalry soldiers fell.  This gives the place more emotion.  I was expecting to find just a hill, and a hill indistiguishable from nearby hills would have had much less impact.

Mt. Rushmore is not the only massive sculture to see here in the Black Hills, the memorial to the Indian leader Crazy Horse is underway just north of the town of Custer.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is spectacular.  The size and scope of it, the history behind it, it is very cool.

The first blast on the mountain was in 1948 and sixty years later work continues.  The project is entirely funded by entry fees, donations and gift shop sales, no government money has been accepted by those behind the project.  So it actually felt really good to pay our $20 to get in (you can give too!).  The visitor center experience begins with a film about the history of the project, the sculptor who designed it and his legacy.  Then there are lots of artifacts of both Native American life as well as the actual blasting/carving process.  The visitor center is beautiful and huge and even includes the home the sculptor built for himself and later his family.

It feels like history in action to see it not yet complete.  Some day I can visit again and hopefully see that progress has been made.  Some day further on Sarah Michael can return with her children and she’ll see an even greater change.

We drove along the Wildfife Loop which goes down and around the southern end of the park.  For a while we didn’t see anything but the first animal we enjoyed was a white tailed deer.  He was curious for the length of his tail.

We were bummed we hadn’t seen any buffalo since last night we saw two of them beside the road, but then we noticed several cars stopped up ahead.  They were stopped to see a herd of buffalo grazing right next to the roadway.  A couple buffalo wandered into the street and walked right past us, which freaked out Sarah Michael, but they weren’t interested in us at all and didn’t bother us.

There were some young ones in the herd and they were very cute.

We continued on and enjoyed the scenery and more animals.  We saw lots more deer and also more donkeys.

Then we followed the same path out of the park that I’d driven the night before with the RV.  It was great to see the route in the daytime.  We also learned the tight winding bridges are called the Pigtail Bridges and it was cool to actually see them, since last night I had no visual context.

We were also able to see Mt. Rushmore from the mountain road, another thing I couldn’t know at night.

So we made our way down the mountain and onto proper-size roads and then made our way to Mt. Rushmore.

Mt. Rushmore is quite a sight.  It is exactly what I thought it would be, but it was still neat to see it in person.  We didn’t stay long at the monument, we took a few pictures and visited the gift shop.  In the gift shop I spoke to a woman who was sitting at a table signing books.  She was coauthor of a book about the mountain’s history, so I asked her a few questions then had her sign a copy for us.  I look forward to reading up.  For example did you know that there were nine major design changes to the mountain during construction?  Neither did I, but I don’t know the details yet.  I have to read the book.

Arches is beautiful.  It is similar to Monument Valley, but different enough to make it worth the visit.  One difference is that since Arches is a National Park visitors have much more access to the rocks.  At Monument Valley we weren’t allowed to go off the beaten path, but at Arches we could park the car then walk up close and climb on the rocks.  Certainly this could be at someone’s peril, as there are plenty of dangerous places to go, but that’s part of the fun.

Arches is also inexpensive to visit, $10 for our carload.

Arches is also in Moab, which appears to be a paradise for anyone with desires for Jeeping, mountain biking or river rafting.  It is a beautiful area.

Oh, another difference betwen Arches National Park and Monument Valley is that while Monument Valley is viewed from a dusty dirt road, Arches is nicely paved.

There are, of course, arches.

We stopped at Double Arch and walked over to climb into it.

As we walked on the trail, Sarah Michael noticed that her voice echoed off the rock walls, this amused her.  So we make loud noises to hear them come back to us, I’m not sure the foreign tourists appreciated this.

Climbing on the rocks isn’t especially difficult, but you must pay attention.  It is steepish but there are plenty of bits to put your toes and fingers onto.  The last bit of the climb to get up into the smaller archway was the most difficult so I basically held Sarah Michael up as she found footholds to use.  It was fun, though, and made me wish for more time in Arches so we could explore and climb more.

Alas we didn’t visit very much of the park, it was already 11am and we knew we had a long drive ahead to get us to our next campground in Longmont, Colorado.

So off we went.  Southern Utah is really something, I look forward to returning to see more.

This morning, before we left our RV spot we were relaxing outside when Sarah Michael saw a little groundhog-type animal poking his head out of a hole.  We watched as it pushed dirt up from his tunnel out onto a pile.  And he didn’t seem the least bit afraid of us.  We got closer and closer and he just went about his business.

Then we headed off to see the canyon.  We headed off to one of the historic sites in the park and on the way stopped at one of the many roadside view points.  I imagine it is hard to find a bad spot to view the canyon, as everywhere you go and the views are spectacular.

Sarah Michael thought the this rock formation looked like WALL•E in his crouched position…

Next we went to the Watchtower, built in 1932.  It is three stories high and has great views.

We stopped at a couple of other viewpoints and the view was always great.  But it didn’t take me long to get tired and want to get back to the RV.  The Grand Canyon is beautiful, but it all kinda looks the same after a while.

So we’re back in camp now, relaxing (this is what vacations are for!).  We leave tomorrow for a couple days of long driving so I’m going to luxuriate in nothingness for as long as I can!

Today we left Las Vegas for the Grand Canyon, which means a built-in trip to the Hoover Dam.

The dam is amazing, but right now the new bridge for Hwy 93 is being built over the gorge and it is something to see as well.  The old highway winds up and down the canyon to cross over the top of the dam, and this is a real problem for large vehicles such as trucks.  The new highway and bridge will make this trip much faster, easier and safer.

I hope someone is going to make a documentary about the construction of the bridge, it would be fascinating to see.

Security has really tightened since the last time I visited the dam in April of 2001.  All vehicles that cross over the bridge and stopped and inspected.  We had two security guys look us over, one checked the RV’s storage compartments and the other checked inside the RV.

Other than that it was uneventful.

So now we’re in Arizona!

Today as we drove through Yosemite and saw the devastation of the recent wildfires I sat in awe.  It is truly amazing to see what fire can do to a forest.  I have seen the after effects of wildfires but none so shortly after they have happened.  As I sat watching out the window you could see where the airplanes had dropped their “red-water” it was still on the dirt.  You could see where the fire crews had shoveled trenches to make their fire lines.  In some cases you could actually see where it worked and where it did not.  Through the burnt trees you could see where those same fire crews had chopped down various trees to try and stop the fire from spreading.  I tell you what between those aircrews and the ground crews they saved a whole lot of that park.

Another thing I find absolutely amazing is what the fire itself does.  I saw trees that were blacked on the front side and brown on the the back side.  There were complete chunks of forest that were scorched along the bottom so all the undergrowth and the bottoms of the trees were gone but the tops of the trees were fine.  Then just a ways down you would see patches where one tree would be completely gone but the trees next to it were fine.  Then you would get to really steep rocky terrain areas where it must of been torture to fight the fires because everything was burnt and the trees looked like burnt out Cuban cigars poking out of the ground.

I looked desperately for animals through all of this.  Because there may be portions of forest missing but there is still lots of forest still there.  I saw none.  I mean there were these beautiful rock cliffs that were just begging for a mountain goat… but nothing.  Gorgeous Rivers running through meadows that needed Elk or Bear or something… but nothing.  So I came to the conclusion that I was either looking and wanting it too much or they are still WAY to traumatized and in therapy somewhere way back in the woods.

So Thank you to those whose souls are called to wood and fire for saving a most awe inspiring place such as Yosemite.

The drive from out to Yosemite wasn’t very interesting, so I was glad to see a sign saying “Come and See how Cheese is Made” at the Oakdale Cheese company.  Unfortunately they only make cheese on Monday and Tuesday so we were only able to look through the window into the aging room.

Most of the cheese Oakdale makes is Gouda, and they had a lot of flavors.  Smoked, Jalepeno, Cumin, Garlic, Mustand, and lots more.

Eventually we arrived at Yosemite.

The roads through the park is narrow, windy and hilly.  I tried really hard to not abuse the brakes, because not only was I driving a large heavy vehicle, I was also towing the Jeep.  But nonetheless, after several miles the brakes became very soft, smelly and just a little smoky.  At a stop sign I had to say a tiny prayer (and clench my cheeks) in order to stop and not rear-end the vehicle ahead of us.

So I pulled us over at the first opportunity and while we let the brakes cool down we did the same for our feet as we waded into the river.

Yosemite is pretty, and there are many great views from the road, however it seems that Yosemite is really a hiker’s paradise.  There are trails all over and lots of people park their vehicles to take off on foot.  We’re not really the hiking type, so we kept mostly to the roads.  There was a neat spot, however, with a great view of Half Dome and a short trail to an overlook, so we did get some exercise and walked out to take some family pictures.

This place is also custom-made for rock climbers.  One of the last domes we drove past had a couple of people at the top I could see from the road.  Look closely, they’re way up there.

We left ourselves unbooked from any RV parks or resorts, we knew we wanted to get close to Las Vegas, but we didn’t know how close we’d be able to get.  Upon leaving Yosemite, the GPS predicted a 2am arrival into Henderson, LV (where we were going to next stay), I decided to make a go for it and drive as long as I could.

Jessie received another Elk wish on the road, a herd was actually crossing the highway in front of us and we had to stop for a moment.  I didn’t have the camera out, but it was more exciting the two we saw yesterday.

As you’ll learn in a later post, we had a plan for this afternoon, so I plugged the destination into our Garmin Nuvi and its estimated time of arrival meant we had some time to kill.  That’s always good news when you’d like to find something interesting.  So a little ways north of Eureka I asked Mr. Garmin if there were any landmark attractions nearby and we were directed to the Carson Mansion. This place is amazing!  You can’t go in, but looking at it was really something.

Then we moved on and Mr. Garmin next suggested the Avenue of the Giants, a scenic alternative to Hwy 101 that drives between more of the stunningly large trees.  It was beautiful.

During the drive through the forest we saw a river not too far away so I got it in my head to check it out.  We navigated a road that seemed to head toward the river and then we came upon a one-lane bridge.

We crossed the first section of the bridge then parked on the rocks and disconnected the Jeep.  It was fun to drive on the beach and through the water, and Sarah Michael loved it.  In fact, Sarah Michael had been wathing videos on the iPod on the RV and decided she didn’t want to stop yet, so despite my counsel to the contrary she brought the iPod into the Jeep.

We were cruising down the rocks and sand and I decided it would be fun to splash into the shallow water.  As we hit the water it splashed high all around us and covered the windshield, I couldn’t see a thing!  But my hands couldn’t find the wiper controls quickly so I didn’t see the larger rocks coming.

The rocks we had been driving on ranged in size from sand to golf balls, like you can see in the picture above, but the rocks we found ourselves on after the soaking were probably more like melon or canteloupe-sized.  They didn’t break anything but they were a surprise!

We continued on a little ways down the river then turned back, we had places to be.

First thing we did when we got into the park area was find the Mystic Forest RV Park and get the RV settled so we could take the Jeep out and about.  Pretty close to where we were staying was the Trees of Mystery park, where they have huge statues of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe, trails through the woods to see amazing trees, plus a gondola that takes you high above it all.  Oh, and Paul Bunyon talks.

The Brotherhood Tree is one of the most impressive trees in the park, it is 19 feet in diameter and 297 feet tall.  It is incredible to look up and see that its diameter remains nearly the same.  This isn’t just a tree trunk, this is the tree trunk.

The picture to the right is of just the tree, click here to see Jessie and Sarah Michael standing in front of it.

There were lots of other amazing trees to see as well, the Elephant Tree, the Cathedral Tree, the Candleabra Tree, the Lightning Tree, and many more.

The gondola ride was fun, but it was cloudy up above the trees so  we couldn’t see anything once we got up top.  If it were a clear sunny day the view would be amazing.

After the Trees of Mystery we went and drove through the Tour Thru Tree.  And it was only $4 to drive through it!  Compared to the other tours we’ve been doing, this is a steal.

Next we went and found the Corkscrew Tree, south of our campsite.  We didn’t know what it was going to look like, though we figured twisting was involved, but it was cooler than I would have thought.  The tree is huge and it is very hard to capture in a photo what the thing is all about.  You need to see it to appreciate it.  In my opinion of course.

We keep seeing signs warning of Elk that could be on the road but to Jessie’s disappointment we also keep not seeing any Elk.  On the way out of the park Jessie finally got her Elk wish.  There were only two of them, but it was fun to see some wildlife.

The Redwoods were neat, better than I expected.  Thank you Mr. Bunyon!