July Fourth!

We watched a parade in Deadwood SD - the whole town and all the tourists lined up on Main Street for the event - must have lasted 20 minutes with a marching band from Minnesota, as well as fire trucks and old cars, trick motocross riders and four wheeler ATVs.  The town has many buildings from the late 1800s that are now refurbished to provide restaurants, shops and casinos for the many tourists.

Had plans to watch fireworks in Rapid City but thought about the drive back to Hilda at night and decided to head back during daylight.  This turned out to be a good decision when we discovered the Black Hills National Cemetery - a perfect way to pay our respects to the Veterans on Independence Day.

And more...

Next stop was the town of Custer for lunch and planning our next destination, Hot Springs.  We had hoped to also go to the Spanish Mustang Preserve but decided a two hour busride to see horses was not on our bucket list.  

Too bad we missed this 113 years ago!

Hot Springs downtown buildings are all built of pink sandstone - looks more tan to me, but pretty anyway.

Looks like a cool brook - nope - it is 80 degrees and comes from the springs the town is named for.

Good place to sit and soak your feet.

Decided to do all of Iron Mountain Road on the way back to camp this afternoon.  We had done some of it last year and remember well the narrow tunnels - they arenot any wider this year!  The tunnel with the view of Mt Rushmore was too criwded to get a photo so I got a partial shot from an overlook.  Gorgeous scenery!

Will end today's post with the description of Iron Mountain Road.

 

Custer State Park and more

Woke (early again - this mountain time takes getting used to) to another sunny day in paradise!  

We left Hilda and headed to Custer State Park.  We drove the "Wildlife Loop" - an hour long drive - and were not disappointed.

 

We called him Big Daddy...

Some of Big Daddy's girls and babies

 

More of his harem...

Bad Ass and friend... (you decide)

A pair of sweethearts!

Black Hills South Dakota

After two hard days of driving we are settled in at a campground on the edge of Custer State Park.   For the first time in over a week we are getting rained on - it does cut down on the folks who want a tour of Hilda!  We have already had eight people touring...

We had to stop at Wall on the way here - everyone goes even if they were there last year during a huge hail storm!  Fun memories.  

We haven't yet determined what we are going to do here for two days and three nights - we did Mt Rushmore last year and have decided not to join the crush of tourists again.  We hope to take in some fireworks on the Fourth and explore the Custer Park.

Meanwhile we have some interesting photos from today's   drive.

The teepee is the motif for all the Rest Areas.



Corn again...

This appeared by surprise - I think he is a mutant from all the corn grown nearby!

Beautiful lake - we could have gone by the dam further down the road but Wall was calling!

Last year we stayed in a cabin right next to these giant silos.  The hail storm made a horrendous noise clacking on them - scary!

After miles of corn and then barren brown hills, we came to these in the distance.

  

Short Nights

We settled into the campground around 5:00 and met some vintage camper fans from Florida who came over to admire Hilda.  She was dwarfed by the big RVs as usual.  We watched lots of power boats flying by on the Missouri River as we got dinner going.  At nine PM it was still light outside.  At ten PM it was finally dusk!  Woke up to brilliant sunshine - at 6:00 AM!  This is definitely going to affect our biorhythms!  We are now packed out and heading to Keystone SD for three nights.

The early sunrise

Right on the wide Missouri...

Cornfield after cornfield...

Heading to South Dakota through Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska and seeing field after field after field of corn.  

We missed a few interesting looking stops (Lewis and Clark Learning Center, for one) but we need to cover close to 900 miles in two days, so maybe next time!

The skies are a gorgeous shade of blue,

A Day for Art

Friday was an art day all day!  We drove from Neosho to Bentonville Arkansas to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a gift to the world from the Walton family (Walmart founders for those who are not familiar with the name).  I cannot begin to describe how beautiful and unusual this museum is.  It is built over a creek ( thus the bridge in the name) and constructed of polished concrete, copper, and pine along with huge windows - in certain light the reflection from the water makes the entire structure look like crystal.  The grounds are hilly and left natural with exquisitely maintained and planted paths.  The featured exhibit until mid-August inside and outside is a collection of works by Chihuly.  The photographs give a brief idea of the wonders he creates.

" Belugas"


The weighs over 5000 pounds

My favorite work inside...and I love the table they are sitting on.

The museum has many galleries and we learned that one visit cannot cover all of them.  We will return.  

Our next art adventure was to The Log Cabin Gallery in Neosho.  The cabin is a wonderful one room chinked log building the artist and friends built with the help of some big tools and a cherry-picker.  It is the perfect setting for Eastern Indian paintings.  The artist, Doug Hall, has been painting "as long as he can remember".    The Indians come alive in the light that appears through his brush.  We interrupted him in the midst of the creation process for his next piece - he graciously spent an hour with us.  I did not photograph any of his paintings, so Google him to see them.

Doug Hall and our Neosho host, Judy Smith.