Yellowstone

We had an eventful trip from Medora. Upon inspection the tow dolly's tires appeared bald on either side of a perfectly fine 1.5" treas pattern in the middle and the tread on the sides. Hmmm. After worrying about it all the way to Billings I found a tire center that inspected them and pronounced them serviceable with a "normal" wear patter for a bias ply tire. REALLY!!! BALD IS NORMAL!! Its been some years since I've had bias ply tires but I never remember them looking like that. $216 later we had two brand new radial beauties I hope I won't be worrying about any time soon. We went through Bozeman and south on 191 and after a few miles we saw a lighted sign that read, "expect delays of 30-40 minutes on rt 191 mile marker 54-56. Hmmm. We were at mile marker 85 and West Yellowstone was at mile marker "0". Not good. We started with a 525 mile trip and a one hour delay for the tires before seeing this warning. We arrived at the "delay" to find the road had been reduced to a one lane mud track. Very messy. Our luck was good and we drove up to the back of the line just in time to be the last one they let through. A rock slide had taken out the road completely for over 1000 feet. The crews were working feverishly to regrade the debris into a new road foundation. Most of what had been blacking the roadway had been moved aside. Something like this really gives you a sense of how large the scale of things are here. Looking up is a steep slope that goes on for over 1500 feet. Big stuff compared with Calvert Cliffs.
We went to the park today and hung out at the Yellowstone Inn at Old Faithful. I injured my knee getting out of bed the other day and had to buy a brace in Medora. Not going all that well really but it's getting somewhat better. I'm hoping for the best.
The eruption of Old Faithful proved to be as advertised and we ended up in the pub watching the local birds catching something or the other from the courtyard to feed to their young.
The trip in and out of the park was also eventful. We saw one elk and 500-1000 buffalo. They are everywhere including ambling up the only road in the entire zip code. Naturally traffic was stopped. That coupled with the folks in front of you that have to stop in the middle of the road if they THINK they MIGHT have seen anything. Ah well, that's driving through our National Parks:)

Medora

Teddy Roosevelt National Park in Medora North Dakota is a beautiful combination of extraordinary scenery and many varieties of wild animals. Last time we were here the deer and buffalo were absent. This time we had a herd of Buffalo totaling over a hundred great beasts.

Mt Rushmore and Devil's Tower

Top photo is the view from our campsite at Mt Rushmore, next is the view from our campsite at Devil's Tower Wyoming. The chainsaw carvings are a weakness for us. They are usually to big and heavy to consider bringing home but.... Tomorrow we head fro Medora, ND home of Teddy Roosevelt National Park, one of our top three all time favorites. Our stay in Mt Rushmore was great. The campground had everything including a wonderful restaurant that was open for breakfast, lunch and diner. We had at least one of each:) Wonderful super friendly folks everywhere - we're certainly not in Maryland any more:)

The Rushmore Monument

These shots try to do justice to a truly grand sculpture. Hard to believe the small heads are actually 60' high and 450' up from the spot of the photos. The talus is the debris from the carving finished in 1941 just a few weeks before Pearl Harbor.

The winding road

Here is a shot of route 385 as it winds through the hills in somewhere in northwest Nebraska or southwest South Dakota. We got off I-80 is Ogallala (yes really, you can't make this stuff up) then drove 300 miles north to Hill City SD to a KOA campground just outside Mt Rushmore. You can see the road disappearing in the upper left of the photo. Below are some shots of the scenery along the way.

Railroads across America

Taking photos from a speeding RV is somewhat problematic. Patti did a great job of capturing a few of the trains we saw on our sprint to the west. The first one might be in Cumberland???

The sprint west

Our sprint to the west will take only four days. On the morning of the third day we crossed the mighty Missisip and we finished up southwest of Omaha in Nebraska. High winds in the afternoon every day made driving a white knuckle experience. The map is filling up nicely. When we return all the blocks visible in the photo in the northwestern USA  and Canada will be filled. Not bad for only five years.