Month: August 2016

Ronan MT – We drove through some beautiful country between Custer SD to Ronan MT.  We decided that we had the time and took our route through Yellowstone, stop and see Ol’ Faithful. While the drive was nice and interesting, it made for a looooong day. While wandering around FB we saw our friends were driving eastward toward Yellowstone. We made contact and decided to meet up for dinner around West Yellowstone. It was a nice visit, but dark by the time we finished and we still weren’t sure where we were parking for the night. We wandered up the road about 5 miles and decided to call it a night.

 

All these people…

For a little of this …

In the morning we continued on our way. We went through a beautiful canyon past Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park. It was a little windy as evident by the choppy water.  

We wondered if we should pull over or carry on… We made it to our next destination to visit friends in Ronan MT.  The one son worked at the KOA camp in Lake Poulson. We offered to drive him to work one day so that we could make some stops between the 2 towns – including Walmart. We had been seeing many signs along our drive north of Missoula to a store called “Three Dog Down”. Our curiosity was to stop there of course, we do need a new down comforter anyway! The store was named as such because they choose to rate the thickness of the comforters in dog warmth – one dog to three dog. This store was quite the mix of 4 sections. First, of course, being the down comforter and pillow area. Next was a sort of local knick knack area – collectibles, jams, books etc along with this “lip shit”

& “hand shit”..

 

 

Next came the clothing area that had rain gear, cold weather items (of course some down jackets), and t-shirts etc. Last section was the Candy area – with about 50 flavors of taffy along with some other interesting items. While we decided on a comforter that was a dog and a pup in warmth, we looked at and discussed getting a duvet. Since we own a dog, the white won’t stay that way very long! When we asked how long it would take to get one, maybe made to order, the owner suggested we go downstairs to the “factory”! It was a large room just smaller than the stores with 2 sewers in the busy season – which started in another week or so. The seamstress showed us some materials and said she could have it for us the next day. WOW – ok, sold! Rob was a little shocked to see that the duvets cost as much as the comforters (especially since the one we got was on sale)! Later that day, they called to say it was done and that they had loaded the comforter in the duvet for us, which also came with 2 pillow cases. YAY.

 

Our visit included dinner around the campfire both nights,

sharing life stories and enjoying ourselves – a lot.

            

We could have easily stayed here much longer with our friends as well as in the area, but life calls for now.

Custer SD – Bud & Kay had told us about a cousin that they had visited in Custer SD who owned an RV park. As I was raised on the east coast, think I finally went west of the Mississippi River when I joined the Air Force, I had never seen many sights out west. So we planned our next stop around seeing Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse (still in progress) Monuments. We had plenty of time to relax as we were here for 10 days. We tend to stay off the roads on weekends whenever we can.

We opted to visit the presidents in the evening, went before dark and saw the park interpreter do a small talk then show a little film which had music that was choreographed to turn on the spotlights at the height of the music, a little bit of dramatic effect. It was really good though. They had also told everyone before the program started that at the end, anyone who was any kind of veteran or whoever wanted to represent a veteran in their family, was to come down to the stage to help him retire the colors.  That was a really great thing for them to do.

 

Our visit to see Crazy horse was on another day, pretty uneventful except that the cousin Paul showed us the campground from there. The next day we rode the quad to the back of the camp property, went on a little walk, and wow – in the distance we could see Crazy Horse pointing at us. Imagine that! (if you zoom in on this pic and it is the tip you see in the middle).

We also did a drive around Custer State Park – to say we did. We weren’t expecting to see any “wildlife” as it was really the wrong time of the day.

 

We took Sadie with us and she got a little “freaked” out at one point and tried to climb under the back seats and even laid down at my feet in the passenger seat. It was a little warm

 

that day for the area so we kept the a/c on. We also went through some interesting scenery.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday mornings, both of them, we went into town to the Farmers Market, or at least the start of the season of it, and got some farm eggs and fresh honey. We also walked the main street the one day – went into one of the stores and asked about “sheds” (antlers) for dogs. We bought 2 broken and irregular ones for $5 bucks each. Gee – the parts that we buy in the pet stores are so very very much more. All the pretty sheds are used in lamps and furniture etc. We asked about the 2 locations further down the road and all the ones in the pickup truck and the wagon. They told us that those guys charge a lot more for them and therefore don’t sell nearly as many as these guys did – said the locals come to him. Well looks like Sadie has something to chew on for a few years, hopefully!

Paul has moved on from running the camp full time, he is 82 or so even though you couldn’t tell talking or walking with him. His one daughter Nancy and her husband are the caretakers now, along with another daughter Becky coming a few times a week to help out in the office. So Paul spends a lot of his time over in Fort Pierre (not to be confused with Pierre which is on the other side of the river) where he used to live, has a home he calls the bunkhouse along with some other properties. He and his son are fixing up a house and grazing some animals on the lands. Paul had invited us over and we decided to take him up on his offer and take the 60ish mile ride (in the car). Of course along the way we made a few stops – one at a Minuteman II Missile Silo that was now inactive but you could look at from the outside.  Next was at the Missile Museum – which is where you could sign up for a guided tour of a different one of the silo’s but was sold out. And the 3^rd stop we made was to the world famous “Wald Drugstore”.  It was as good as any place for a potty break and excuse to say “been there, done that”! It was an extremely hot day – for South Dakota – in the upper 90’s. It even said 104 in Pierre when we went to go have lunch – what the devil is going on! We had a great day – saw his 3rd daughter Kari, her husband, as well as his son Eric and family. We drove back to Custer that eve around dusk / dark as it started to cool off. Part of the drive is along a small 2 lane county road back to the highway. By the time we got onto the highway we could barely see out the windshield as the bugs were so thick on the windshield. At the first exit that had a gas station – we got off and cleaned off the front of the car! Whew – to be able to see again and know you couldn’t use your wipers to get them off. So glad the rest of the drive was clear in comparison. On a side note – even if we could, our wiper blades on the car are in need of replacement that they wouldn’t have done us much good!

Once we finished relaxing and it was time to move on, we had told Kari that we would stop in Deadwood to say hi. She took us to lunch to visit a little more and then on up to see Moriah Cemetery where they had world famous buried – Wild Bill Hickok along with Calamity Jane and a few others. Our walk was cut short as it started to rain so we headed back for her car and then back to our home.