Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park

Today the weather improved and it is actually sunny but cool in the 40's. We left early for Mount Rushmore as Beau is an early riser ( 5am this morning) and we want to beat the crowds. The last few days have seen rain and fog, so you can't see the monuments clearly, so I expect a rush today. We did get there early after our continental cuisine breakfast and the weather cleared nicely to a high pressure blue sky with white wispy clouds, but the wind chill stung my Florida ears and gave me a runny nose.

Mount Rushmore monument is very impressive. I was also impressed by the many granite needle outcroppings on the mountains around the statues. We hiked up the trail to get as close as possible to the carvings and saw them from lots of angles, I think we have about 47 different views on the camera. Saw some big horn mountain sheep just below the monument.

Went to the museum and theater and found it very interesting how they did the granite carving back in the 20's and 30's, a real accomplishment that took 14 years to complete.

After Mount Rushmore we took the scenic Iron Mountain Road ride through Custer Park . Lots of very narrow one lane road and one lane tunnels. One tunnel was so small I was afraid the van would not make it through without scraping the sides and top! Lots of hairpin curves going down 9% switchbacks and no guardrails in some spots. One oops and you can go straight down, until you hit a 200 year old ponderosa pine that is.

The weather was perfect and we encountered a few heard of wild bison feeding with their young calves along the road. There were a few scenic turnouts inhabited by wild burros that came right up to your window for a handout. They had the begging routine down pretty good, almost as good a Beau but we had nothing to give them. They would wait about 10 seconds and if they didn't get a treat would trot down to the next car .

Lots of antelope, white tail and mule deer in the fields on the drive. The rolling hills are carpeted in green and look like a vast golf course, without the sand traps and golf carts that is. We were constantly pulling over to view antelope, bison and in one area prairie dogs had established an entire community on both sides of the road. One sentry per mound, each mound a mini-volcano in the grassy fields among the hills.

Ended the day with an excellent sandwich at a little gourmet shop in Custer City washed down with a local dark ale called Moose drool......appetizing!

Tomorrow is supposed to rain all day, so we will probably stay at the motel complex and swim in the indoor pool, shoot some pool and maybe play some drizzle tennis or basketball.

The parking lot last night looked like a Harley Motorcycle Dealership and I had to restrain beau from peeing on the bikes, probably not healthy for either of us.

We leave for Jackson Hole after tomorrow and I hope it warms up for hiking in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.

Jim, Suz and Beau

Rainy day at Bear Country USA

Today it is raining and foggy and the temperature is dropping into the low forties. Not a good day for sightseeing mountain monuments so we went to the Bear Country USA open zoo travel park. You drive through the park in your car and the animals are in the open. Of course the wolves and elk and big horn sheep are separated by high electric fence, but they still sit over there and dream of filets. Lots of mammals here and it is impressive as the animals walk all around and up to your car. Got to keep the windows up in the bear and timber wolf paddocks! They have artic wolves , timber wolves, elk, big horn sheep, deer, mountain lion and lots and lots of bears!They have over 100 bears and have two grizzlies in a separate area. The grizzlys are easily 3-4 times as big as the black bears. One of larger black bears must have smelled something in the rear bed of the pickup truck in front of us, he was half in and the driver started moving and the bear ran along the side of the truck for awhile holding on to the bed liner. At the end they have a baby animal section with small mammals and baby bears which are pretty feisty, running and wrestling . Went to the cattleman restaurant in town for lunch after and had buffalo chili.....guaranteed to create enough gas to power all propane vehicles withing 100 miles for a week! But tasted reallllly good! Tomorrow is supposed to be nicer, but colder, they are calling for record lows in the 30's. If clear we will go to Mount Rushmore .

See you tomorrow if we don't freeze tonight.

VolksMarch 2009

Last night we arrived at the Bavarian Inn near Custer SD. A great little motel with a lot of ammenities such as restraunt, breakfast included, wifi, tennis, indoor outdoor pool, pool tables, basketball and a fitness vitacourse. The motel has a German mountain decor both inside and out and it fits in the black hills here with granite crags and rock faced moutain spires. In the info packet at the office was an entry form for the local VOLKSMARCH ( peoples walk) at the Crazy Horse monument. So we did it Saturday morning.

It was very foggy with a light misty rain and temps in the high forties so we could not see the monument until we got up to the top of the hike. The distance was 10k or 6 miles to the granite memorial to Chief Crazy Horse which is an ongoing carving of the indian warrior. The trail was not difficult but was a little muddy and the last mile on the way up was a dirt ( mud) access road to the statue. I finished the entire hike in less than 1.5 hours so I was moving at over 4 mph. (to stat warm) Got a nice comemerative medal at the end. I've included a picture of the Crazy horse head which is the only part finished to date after 60 years. The project is funded by donations and procedes from activities such as this hike, and some funds go to a local childrens charity.

A very impressive visitors center here made entirely from the Ponderosa Pine that cover all the black hills here. There are movies about the memorial and a full american indian museum as well as restraunt and a laser light show after dark where they project the finished statue picture on the side of the mountain as well as pictures set to music.

Later we will check out the town of Custer for a saloon to watch the Belmont horse race if there is one there. Maybe we will drive into Custer state park to take the wildlife drive. They have a herd of Bison there that is 1500 strong. You have to be careful on the drive as they sometimes stand on the road. Could crunch the car a bit as they average 2000 pounds .

Hope the weather improves so we can visit Mount Rushmore, the forecast says better by monday.

There is also the Mickelson trail here to hike and bike. It is 146 miles of converted rairoad rails to path. We may hike or maybe Jim will bike some of it if the section is paved or packed gravel.

Tommorrow if it rains as expected, we may do a drive thru a local wild animal park where the animals roam and you are the caged one in your vechicle.

Jim, Suz and Beau

Hi All,
We've been in Springboro at "Suite 101" for a week now. I'll summarize our visit......Jessie and Christine have named the converted office to bedroom as " Suite 101: Baxter's" a very comfortable and functional room. It makes our stay even more comfortable and enjoyable!

We attended Gabe's award ceremony for 8 th grade graduation, he got like 8 awards for stuff like relay for life, science fair excellence and the like....GO GABE! Gabe is grandchild # 1 of 7 and is following in grandpa's footsteps as he also got bunches of awards in his eighth grade graduation and boy scouts. Grandpa's geography medal has helped trememdously in kicking butt in trivial pursuit and Jeopardy tournaments !

Jim had fun riding on the Little Miami River trail again. Rode over 220 miles this week , mostly down to Loveland to a favorite coffee stop and back, about 60 miles roundtrip. Lots of deer, squirrels and other fauna and flora.

Had a great time at Gabe's graduation party which was "cover" for Chris's 40 th birthday party,two parties in one. He was totally suprised, but still insisted on cooking the burgers for both Gabe's freinds and all the rest of us... Christine did a great job of organizing the event and keeping it a secret. Lots of fun. Chris' brother Mike and daughter Sammy made the trip up for the event and it was good to spend more time with them.

Sunday was special......we had a great family breakfast with Jessie making her famous scrambled eggs.........then after dinner that night we had cake and suprised grandpa with cards for both his birthday and fathers day in advance as we will be somewhere out west on the acutal days. Thanks! Also the kids got grandpa a GPS for his bike for his birthday! Now he will have no excuse to not be ontime or get lost......so much for those well used paper maps! I'll have to spend the next couple of weeks learning how to use it. It has a lot of functions and maybe Suz can track my wherabouts, not sure if it can do that..........

Then........we went for a Hot Air Ballon ride which was totally awesome! Something that grandpa and grandma have wanted to do for some time.
Bella Balloons did a great job! The wind was calm but we had a great time and landed in the Dayton Mall.........too bad grandma left her purse in the chase car!! Again thanks to C&C for arranging this great ride!!

Thanks to Chris and Chris and Gabe, Trev, Jess and Tori for taking such good care of us for our visit......we are blessed. Or.....as MR. MBA would say ....we are getting a great ROI on our investments...........
We leave for Custer South Dakota Wed, 6/3......

Family reunion

Hi All, sorry for the time between posts.

We gathered in Winchester Va at my sister Kathy's house for a family reunion. Originally we were to meet and see David and Julie, who are currently serving in the Army, but as the Army would have it, they got other duty and could not make it. But.......we had a good time seeing all of our immediate family and shared good stories and memories of David and Julie. Hopefully they will be able to visit over Labor Day weekend somewhere and we may travel off route if it makes sense and is affordable in our trip timetable. On our reunion dockett was a birthday cake to Chrissy-Ann who turned xx? but can now collect SS checks........?xzxx!3!!!

It was good to see everyone again and thanks to everyone who traveled to see us and family for the weekend. Food and fun was too good, I think I gained more pounds than I lost hiking those 100+ miles on the AT. Will just have to bike them off coming up in June. Kathy's new house is great and we found that just a mile up the road the AT crosses and they are building a new shelter. We did a short walk up to check it out, nice section of trail. We'll have to stop here next year when we complete the Hot Springs NC to Harpers Ferry section of the AT next summer.

We leave for West Virginia and Yokum's vacationland next, sounds a bit like the Li'l abner cartoon mixed with some Beverly Hillbillies, but the website says they have wifi and modern accomodations, we'll see......

Jim, Suz and Beau

Shenandoah day 9

Today's was to be a strenuous 6 miler up to the Overrun waterfalls according to our freindly ranger at the visitor center. Gave me a map and showed me the lower and upper falls locations. Well...the hike was easy if anything, not sure how they rate the difficulty of the side trails, but this trail did not even get me to sweat. The lower falls were not really falls at all, just a place where the crick crossed the trail and had to go over maybe a two foot rock......went on to the upper falls and they too were a disappointment. Should have been 93 feet, and maybe they were, but not too impressive. The falls were mostly overgrown with tree foliage, so you could not see much of them and the picture did not come out very good. Well that's the end of hiking on the AT this year, but .........I am sure we'll get a chance to do some day hikes in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone parks and along the way. Now Hike'n C.A. Bear will have to take a backseat to Bikely Beau in a few weeks when we start the x country bike ride.

Jim and Hike'n

Shenandoah Day 8

Today I wanted to do a shorter hike, did not want to get out of bed and get going, so I only did 7 miles. Was a very quiet and peaceful morning hike. The trail leveled out from yesterday and rolled through the hills through green glades and meadows. I was able to keep up a good pace but kept slipping into daydreams and reverie. I purposely did not use my trekking poles and tried to make no noise to see if I could site a bear. Well, no luck, and there were not many animals to be seen at all, but lots of bees and bugs. Passed only one other hiker, also with white hair and beard and maybe older than Santa Claus.

We are near the end of the Shenandoah park now, nearing the 10 mile mark, so we have covered 95 miles so far. The AT leaves the park at the 10.4 mile road post marker and heads out of the part around Fort Royal so I will not follow it tommorrow. There is a 6 mile strenuous hike up the cliffs with three sets of waterfalls on overlook run trail, so I will do that. If the first set of falls is close enough, I'll bring Suz and Beau up for a looksie, if not, they get to look at the pictures. Going to stop at the visitors center for a souvenior Shenandoah shirt, this has been a great week of hiking!

Do Da and Hike'n Bear