Along the route home ...

Along the route home Wednesday and Thursday, Aug 31 & Sept 1 2011

Along our route home, we stop at Moss Mansion in Billings, Montana.  Another great big house built by another great wealthy man.  Mr. Moss was involved with many business ventures in Billings, including owning the electrical company and the water company.  His house was one of the first homes with electricity west of the Mississippi.

Beautiful home built of red sandstone from Montana area.  He and his wife had 6 kids, and the last of his 6 kids - a daughter lived in this house from the age of 6 until she died at 88 years old.  She was a harp and piano player, and taught music lessons out of the home in her later years.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to take a music lesson in this grand beautiful home like this.  Must have been something.

She did not get married (why would she if she inherited a big beautiful home and money).  She loved to take cruises, and while on cruises, she took along with her a picture of their cabin at a lake - which she told people was her home.

She realized the value and beauty of the home was priceless, and wanted to preserve what her father had built, so before she passed away, she made arrangements for the preservation society to purchase the home for $450,000.00 fully furnished.  

This was a deal as she owed back taxes on the property.  The preservation society got it at a steal of a price fully furnished, and she did not have to pay the taxes from her own pocket.  The preservation society then gave it to the city of Billings with the agreement that it always stay as a home museum. 

Again, no pictures allowed as people post them on the internet, so cannot show much of the house, except one room, which I got permission to photo with no flash. I hope to re-create the stenciling (one day).

We also stop at the pictograph caves near Billings.  This was a little bit of a disappointment as there are only about 4-5 of 106 pictographs that you can actually see if you look hard enough.  Time, erosion, moisture and vandalism has made this sight a place that is not a must see.  We were only here for about 15 minutes and then left.

Thursday we are travel to Helena, Montana to see St Helena Cathedral,  Original Governor’s Mansion and the State Capitol.  

There happened to be a funeral at the cathedral, so we did not get in on the first try.  The governor’s mansion had tours beginning at 12:00 ( we didn’t want to wait 2.5 hours for it) and we missed the State Capitol tour.  We quickly go through the Capitol building and soon realize that we are less interested in history of Montana and their politics.  We do a quick self tour and decide to head to Spokane.

We head home tomorrow, and with the things to see and do wearing thin and being non-existent, we look forward to being home and sleeping in our own beds.

Adams House Museum & Little Big Horn - heading back home

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Adams House Museum & Little Big Horn - heading back home.

Well, as soon as we turn direction and head home, I think all of us feel like the holiday is over before it is over.  We are all a little tired today and have a 6 hour drive, so we listen to our book on tape (The Broker, by John Grisham) and head out.

Our first stop is in Deadwood at the Adams House Museum.  This home was built in the late 1800’s by a Mr. Franklin, who made his money selling merchandise to those coming through in the gold rush and set up wholesale groceries to service the whole area.

The house is built from red sandstone from the area around the Buffalo Gap Grasslands (we went through this area in the Badlands National Park).  Was a beautiful home, was passed through some families, and the last person to live here was a Mary Adams, who after her husband passed away, did not spend another night in the house.  She moved to her other home in Pasadena, California, and only came back to Deadwood a couple times a year to visit her mom.  She locked up the house and left it as it was-everything was kept in place for 53 years.

The locals thought it was haunted or bad luck as Mary’s husband has lost his wife, and 2 daughters and mother within days of each other.  They thought the home was cursed.  It didn’t help that over the years of abandonment that the home started looking a little disheveled.  This prevented vandalism and break-ins.

Eventually Mary Adams sold it to a family in Deadwood, and they got the house in 1987 for $125,000.00 fully furnished including food stores, pictures, all the personal items and the sheet music that was left out on the piano (even cookies in a jar). This family did some work to the place and did a B&B until their health deteriorated.  Some of the valuable furniture they stored out of the house as not to have the guests damage it.   They saw the real value of keeping the house and contents as intact as possible.

This family eventually fell ill, and sold the home to the city.  The city (it’s actually a small town) spent 1.5 million to re-store the house (pigeons and rain did have some damaging effects on some roofs, verandahs, and ceilings and plaster).  It was opened up in 2000 to tours which continue to this day.

What is amazing is that everything is left untouched.  The cookies left in a jar are on display, the molasses is still in it’s container, the pictures, combs, brushes and all furniture was kept with the house.  When the family bought the place, they documented everything and took pictures as well as to preserve all what they found.

Was cool to tour, however picture taking was prohibited in the house, so I have no pictures of the home to show except for the outside.

On the road we came across a road sign that made us all laugh.  If you ever heard of the phrase “not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” I think I know where that person went to school!  The sign we come across is pictured below...could be the 5 hours in the car humor, or too many grassy plains to look at!

Our next stop on this travel day was Little Bighorn National Monument and Custer’s last stand.

We had just missed the “Ranger talk” and were disappointed, as Phil had taken this in 3 years earlier ( on his trip across the US to pick Lucas and I up for our across Canada tour).  However we had a serendipitous moment... we booked the bus tour  and the same ranger that did the ranger talk so well when Phil came though in 2008, did our “talk” on the bus tour.  She was awesome!

Story goes the Sioux were given most of South Dakota as their land and reserve in a treaty. Then gold was found in the area by Custer (believe it or not!), and to keep the peace, because the white man started going illegally into the reserve land and the un-ceded land,  the government insisted the indians go back to the reservations to keep the peace between the indians and the white man looking for the gold.

When some of the indians did not return to the reservations (many did not know they were supposed to be restricted to the reservations - no one came into the reservation or the un-ceded land to advise them.  (There were no telephones, and they weren’t mailed a notice.)  The cavalry was sent in to move the indians forcibly to the reservations.

Thus the war started.  The Indians did succeed in defeating Custer on these grounds and plains of Little Bighorn, only to be defeated for all time in their claim to their way of life and substantial amount of lands.

This was a great stop, and our Ranger Rosemarie Williamson ( a Crow Indian) was superb in description, she made the history really come alive.  This stop was also worth the trip.

We head on to Billings Montana for the night.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site & the Badlands

Monday, Aug 29 2011

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site & the Badlands, South Dakota Badlands

Today is overcast and raining.  The forecast was for intermittent showers, however the day would prove to be rain with moments of stoppage.  Great day for touring inside, but not outside as it is grey and the clouds are really low.

We head out to the Minuteman Missile silo and Launch facility to take a tour.  First was the silo, which housed a Minuteman II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.  This is the only silo left as the government blew up the other 1000 silos in 1993.

Because it is raining, and there is a notice not to wipe the glass, the photos of the missile in the silo are not the best, but give you an idea of how big it was.  One of these missiles were 1.2 Megatons, which is more than all the bombs dropped in WW2 by all countries, including the 2 atomic bombs dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  The Silo that housed the missile was 80 feet deep with walls of concrete 4 feet thick  housing it.

We were able to get a tour of the launch facility and were brought down 31 feet underground to the “capsule” where the staff responsible for launching these big beasts kept 12 hour vigils of being ready "to push the button" (in reality turned the keys)

Basically it took 4 people to agree upon launching the missile, and there were codes and code books done up daily to ensure security and safety.  The chairs had seat belts included because when one of these were launched, the earth shook that much.

After lunch, we head out to the Badlands National Park, which looks like something you would expect to see in a Lord of the Rings movie.  The colors today were probably not as vivid as I imagine it would be on a clear sunny blue sky day.  Nevertheless, we are here to see it and can’t do much about the drizzle and sometimes heavy rain.

In days of old, this area was the muddy bottom of a very large river.  The river drained when the Rockies and other mountains rose, thus creating the spires of mud and earth which eroded from the water.  

We  had come up through the south so we saw the Buffalo Grassland, and then headed north to take the loop 240 road over the passes.  Even though it was a thoroughly grey day, it was cool to see.

We also stop at a Prairie Homestead historical sight, where the house was a sod house.  I remember my Grandpa Thompson saying in a book of memoirs of his area that his father and uncle and their wives lived in a cave the first 2 years that they homesteaded.  So I imagine they lived in something like this or worse.  The main part of the house was dug into a hillside with the front and possibly like this one, wood covering walls 2 - 3 feet high, however I am not sure about this.  Was pretty sobering as to the space, size and the primitive feeling.  I can't imagine how a person would live in a place like this with dust allergies!

Tomorrow we head back towards home, and will stop at Little Big Horn, and plan to say in Billings Montana for the night.

1880 Train Ride and Jewel Caves National Monument

Sunday, August 28 2011

1880 Train Ride and Jewel  Caves National Monument

A couple more tourist attractions are on the list today to see.

The 1880 train ride was popular with all of us, although 2.25 hours was not so popular, so we opted for Phil and Lucas to go one way (Hill City to Keystone) which only takes an hour, and I pick the guys up at Keystone.

Phil has a love of trains big and small, so this was on the “must do” list one way or another.  They travelled up a 6% grade which is the steepest grade in the US.  They have to use sand to keep the wheels from slipping.  The steam sounds cool, and so does the whistle.  You can just imagine days of old where men in their suits and top hats and ladies in their flowing dresses, and corsets (take a breath when you can) chugging along the mountain rails.  This train runs on re-cycled oil - probably from your oil change at Canadian Tire.

I pick up the guys at the Keystone Train Station, and we make our way to mini-golf and a quick lunch. 

Jewel Caves is next on our list.  This Cave is the 2nd biggest cave found.  A 155 miles are known and mapped, however they believe they have only found about 2%.  They base this calculation by the weather system inside the cave and the winds inside the cave and how strong they are. If their calculations are right, this cave could stretch to 3000 miles. 

We take an elevator 242 feet down into the ground and start the tour.  These caves are ginormous!  The “rooms”  are way bigger than the Lewis and Clark Caverns, however have different formations and textures.  

Lewis and Clark Caverns had huge stalagmites and stalagtites 10 - 30 feet tall and more.  Jewel Caves didn’t come close, however the rooms and the depth of the walls and shafts were “cavernous”

The other surprising thing is my flash began to work!  Go figure!  I was able to get some pictures of the inside.  I guess if you want better pictures of Lewis and Clark Caverns you will have to go and experience it yourself.

The tour took us over 700 stairs, some being severely steep.  Was fun and we enjoyed this different cave. They are actively and continuously exploring these caves, and in the last week they have mapped over 1 mile of new cave area.  This is done by volunteers who have a passion for darkness, adventure, cool air, and tight spaces! The guide advised us that they do this mostly by free climbing, and when necessary with ropes.

The biggest room is used to camp in.  It is as long as 6 football fields and 40 feet high.  They go in and stay for 4-5 days at a time.  It is set up with sleeping bags, and all they need to survive.  Everything packed in has to be packed out, including... yep you guessed it - bodily functions!  Ewwwww!

It takes them 8-10 hours to get there.  Lots of crawling over, under.  The smallest space they crawl through is 7.5 inches high (refer to picture of Lucas in a re-creation of the space in the blog).  I like exploring, but this is just too much!

We grab supper early and get back to the hotel to veg and relax.  This is our first early night in our home away from home.  We figure we are tired due to the 7 days of jam packed fun, so we rested tonight...until tomorrow.....

Mount Rushmore and all things touristy

Saturday, Aug 27, 2011

Mount Rushmore and all things touristy

Today we start a little later than usual, we are all a little sleepy today being that it’s been a busy vacation that began on the 19th.

Mount Rushmore is the main event today with some touristy things sprinkled in.

We are staying in Hill City, which is a very small town in and amongst the tourist towns and cities of the Black Hills.  Rapid City is about 1/2 hour away, Keystone (where Mt. Rushmore is) is about 20 minutes away, and Deadwood is about a 1/2 hour away, so we are pretty central to all the sights and places willing to take your $$!

We arrive at Mt. Rushmore Memorial Monument at about 10:00 a.m. and rented the audio wands to learn all about the place, why it was sculpted, who sculpted it and all that. 

We head up to the “Grand Terrace” which has the flags of all the US states plus the District of Columbia flag, and the 5 territories: US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands and Guam.  They have pillars that the flags are flown from, and in alphabetical order, the granite pillars are engraved with what state joined the union, in what year, and in what order.   

One thing I have learned about the Americans is that they do up everything big!  It is Mount Rushmore Memorial Monument instead of Mt. Rushmore point of interest.  Mount Rushmore is done very well, you walk up the Grand Terrace, and there are 4 dead presidents looking in your general direction - which I say loosely - Abe Lincoln is not looking at me!  What’s with that!

The presidential walk with the audio wand was really interesting and did keep our attention on a really hot day.  It’s a pretty easy walk on raised side walks, and you get to see all the 4 presidents from different angles.  I did not see the glasses on T. Rosevelt until we had a side view.

I try to get a family photo using my delay button, but alas, I could not get the camera pointed high enough to get the 4 dead guys plus us in it.  I also could not see my view lens as the sun was so bright.  A lady, after having watched me, several times, run back and forth unsuccessfully to get in the picture (I have a 10 second delay) graciously, while giggling, offered to take our family photo.   She had been entertained, and was not sure if she wanted to watch a few more times, or just to help out.  Thank you kind lady!

After Mt. Rushmore, we head to Keystone to look around.  At the Red Garter Saloon, they had a comedy show, so we took that in.  We saw the tallest white guy any of us have seen in person.  Big Dave is 7’ 2” and was in the comedy routine, which was about Wild Bill Hickock.  Was funny.   2 of the guys in the comedy act have been in movies.  Big Dave is on one of the the Big and Rich CD’s and is in the video for Save a horse, Ride a Cowboy. I of course don’t know that song (LOL) so those of you who do and are fans, I am sure you have seen Big Dave before.  The other guy was in Dances with wolves and a mixture of other movies I have never heard of, and played the “bad guy who always gets shot”

After the show, we went towards Rapid City where Lucas took in the indoor go-carts, slot car racing, batting cage, outdoor go-carts, and water wars.

Water wars is small balloons filled to the brim with water.  Tied in a knot, and then launched out of a cone to the opponent.  I was not the opponent - Phil was.   The idea is to soak your opponent while you try to stay dry.

What was funny was the guys were way soaked before they started to play.  Seems the tap with water flows quicker than the balloons fill, so if you don’t have the end secured just so, it sprays like a bad joke and a full mouth of water!

Anyway, by my observation, the guys were equally wet.  Phil eventually took off his shirt, which was after the filling of the balloons, but before they began the war.  Lucas got more soaked in the game than prior to the game, unlike Phil.  So my call is it was even.

After that we head out for dinner and to our home away from home in Hill City...until tomorrow....

The High Point of our Trip.

Friday, August 26, 2011

The High Point of our Trip.

Yes, today  is an unusual day in terms of highs.  We leave Cody, to head to the Keystone / Hill City area where Mt. Rushmore and all things touristy are.  

Not far out of Cody we see a  sign for a Wild Horse Reserve.  Being that none of us has actually seen wild horses, we take the exit, and drive into the reserve to find some wild horses.  We drove for a couple of miles and come across a dark moving spot on the range.  We drive closer, and see that the dark moving spot is 4 wild horses.  Three of them dark black to brown and one white and light brown spotted.

We drive up to a crest of a hill to get a closer look, which was probably about a mile or so away from the horses.  I used the telephoto on my camera to get a few shots.  Was cool to see wild horses.

We also passed a small town called Otto, with a population of 50, which made us all smile.  However it was bigger than Bracken, Saskatchewan, where Phil spent some time as a kid.  This was very small town America!

The scenic route through the Big Horn Mountains and over the Powder River Pass was our route, which takes us up to 9,666 feet in elevation.  You guessed it ...well just about.. this was almost the high point of our trip.  The highest was after we climbed another 50 feet to make sure we were over 9,700 ft in elevation.  There was a rock outcropping, so it made a perfect kodak moment (are they still called that being that I use a cannon, and the pictures are digital...?)  This is the highest Lucas has been (on ground) and 2nd highest Phil and I have ever been (on ground).  The crater in Haleukala, Hawaii I believe is around 10,000 feet.

Lucas planked the center of the highway on a double solid yellow line, and also owl-ed it as well.  This was a “high” for him - where else can you be in the middle of the interstate and be crazy!  There was not a whole lot of traffic on this road today.  The only significant vehicles we saw were quads - dozens of them, touring the  top area of the mountain pass. 

So these fun things made a full travel day in the car seem shorter and more interesting.

 I think Lucas and Phil’s favorite sign was the “Crazy Women” Canyon Road sign.  They think it says it all....

We get into Hill City, get some laundry done and crash for the night..zzzzz

Yellowstone National Park Wednesday & Thursday Aug 24 & 25 2011

Aug 24 & 25 2011 Yellowstone National Park

I have looked forward to this part of the journey for some time.  My dad had wanted to take us kids to Yellowstone, however not one of those things that got done before us kids got older.  I don’t believe he ever seen this part of North America, so I had him closer than normal to my heart while we visited and seen the natural beauty of the area.

Yellowstone must be to geologists as Disneyland/Disneyworld is to kids!  Even though we are not geologists or have much interest in it other than taking what little we had in school, this park is inspiring and makes a person re-kindle interest in volcanos and all things underground.

The park is sectioned off into areas where visitors stay called villages, and they have interpretive centers and info centers at each of these areas.  The park is basically divided into 2 loops - the north and the south loop.  

As we only have 1 and 1/2 day to explore we begin at the north entrance of the park and do the top loop and then go straight south to our first night which is at Grants Village-basically doing the whole east side.  The second day we will go back up north on the west side to old faithful, cut across the park and head out towards Wyoming at the east side exit.

Midway through Wednesday afternoon,  we begin the park sights beginning at Mamoth Hot Springs.  This was cool - did the walk (raised sidewalk over very hot, fragile earth.)  There are warning signs all over for people not to step off the walk.  We got our first whiff, feel and force of the steaming water coming from miles below the surface. 

Tower Falls, which we took the 3/8 of the steep hike down to the falls brink and watched the tons of water plummet over the edge.  Then on to Grand Canyon of Yellowstone  which was beautiful in color, and size.  A beautiful turquoise river is at the bottom of the canyon.  

Mud volcano was next, which was is really muddy, steaming, bubbly water/mud mixture, bubbling like oatmeal in a pot.  The steam is really hot, and smells like a mixture of sulfur and ...we are not sure, however it reminded me of the smell of an over cooked roast.  In a weird way it made me hungry!  Go figure! LOL

We then found ourselves crossing a large flat prairie area, and the traffic stopped.  We stay parked or only go about 50 ft in an hour.  What we find out is the bison have decided to go from one eating range to another, and the highway is in the middle.  The stoppage in traffic was due to the small groups of bison crossing the road, plus all the tourists taking pictures, running back and forth from their cars.  

This delay enabled us to watch a lone Bison make his way from his area in the shade, down to a small river, swim across, and come up the other side - towards our car!  This was a wonderful moment!  We (Lucas) took a string of pictures as he made his journey within 30 feet of our vehicle.  The traffic then began to move, and the bison crossed the road about 10 cars back from us to the other grazing area.  These are tremendously big, furry animals so it was exciting to see it so close.  

We continue to make our way to our hotel, stopping at Fishing Bridge and eating at the Lake Hotel restaurant.  We are told it is an hour wait, however we did not mind, they had a large lounge area filled with patio furniture, and windows all around to take in the view of the lake.  After a great supper, we arrive at our hotel and drop in our beds.

Thursday is the day we see all the famous sights of the Yellowstone Park.  This included West Thumb  geyser area, with the “paint pots” and then on to the Midway geyser basin area which had the Prismatic spring.  This was my favorite place - so colourful.  We again do the walks, and overhear a park guide tell a group of tourists traveling with Disney Tours, that the best view of the Prismatic spring is to take the Fairy Falls hike trail for 15 minutes and then climb the bald mountain.  We decide to quickly backtrack, do the hike to get a view from a higher elevation.  What a spectacular view!  It was worth the steep dirty climb.  This is alone made our trip worth it.

Old Faithful was faithful, and our timing was perfect.  It was predicted to erupt at 11:47 and we arrived at 11:45 and saw the whole thing from beginning to end.  Was spectacular and noisy, the force of the steam just does not compare to what comes out of your kettle at home!  

We then continue our trek through the various basin geysers and paint pots and head out of the park towards Cody, Wyoming.

This drive out of the park - we expected to hit the plains, however we went through the Shoshone National Forest and Wapiti county.  This was a most wonderful surprise.  It reminded me of the Bryce Canyon.  Orange colored towering rocks and pinnacles. The views were spectacular!

We make it to Cody Wyoming just at dusk, and wait 1/2 hour to get into the Wyoming’s Rib and Chop house.  It was awesome food, and if you are ever in Wyoming, you must eat at this place.  The service and people we encountered in Cody Wyoming were a cut above the rest.  

They have a “right to work” policy which means in this state,  min wage ($2.50) and that is all an employer has to pay.  Our server made $2.50 per hour, however with her tips she is able to work 4 days a week and support herself and a child (single mom).  

Our hotel staff in Cody were the same, they could not do enough for us.  Hmm...there are a lot of places in Canada and the US where service staff could learn something from the people in Cody, Wyoming.  I would love to come back to this area again.

Well, tomorrow is another day and we look forward to our trip continuing further east...

The Caverns

Tuesday Aug 23, 2011

Lewis and Clark Caverns

This morning is so exciting - we get to tour the caverns today.  They were discovered not  by Lewis and Clark, but by a hunter in the late 1800’s.  The hunter saw something like smoke rising from the mountain so decided to check it out.  He found a hole in the earth with steam (condensation) coming out of the hole.  He and his hunting partner threw a rock down the hole, and soon discovered it was a deep deep hole.  The hunters decided to make a trip back to explore the “hole”

About 6 years later one of them came back to explore the caverns. He discovered that the hole he threw the rock down was more than 90 fee to be exact.  When he explored inside, he told all his friends, and started tours of his own.  The rest is history.

The walk to the caverns was a warm hike today as it was 33 degrees, for the 3/4 of a mile hike up...but a cold cave welcomed us.  It is a 2 mile walk all together, and a 2 hour tour, which included 600 stairs, over, around and underneath cave walls.  So fun!

The caverns were awesome.  We were so excited to finally be here! The caverns did not disappoint! They were fantastic!  However...my camera did disappoint - it on the fritz!  My flash just would not work inside the caverns. Thus, our memories will need to be locked away in our minds, and I only have a couple pictures that kinda turned out.  BIG disappointment for me.  We comforted ourselves by the fact that they would have a picture book at the info & gift center-they did not, much to our chagrin.  So we have the experience, and the sights locked to memory.

After the caverns we were off to Virginia City, which was a little south.  This was also a surprise - if anyone comes in this area and thinks they should see it - don’t bother.  Nothing really to see that you haven’t seen in Barkerville, and I must say Barkerville is 100 times better. Other than a few things in a couple of widows which were of interest (fits like a glove corset was my favourite... something to aim for....how did they breath!)  there just wasn’t much here of interest.

Yellowstone National Park is our destination for Wednesday and Thursday, so we are so looking forward to doing some hiking and seeing the natural beauty.