Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Yellowstone – Canyon, Waterfalls, Mammoth and Critters


It was a gorgeous day for everything we did today.  First thing we did this morning was take a narrated boat ride on Yellowstone Lake.  Among the many things we saw on the lake, there was, surprisingly, the wreck of a boat – the E.C. Waters.   Even in the beginning of the park’s history (1880s), there were concessionaires running tours in the park, but they often had VERY different ideas about what should be an attraction in the park.  E.C. Waters did boat tours (reasonable) and wanted to put what amounted to a theme park on one of the islands in Yellowstone Lake, including a zoo and Indian village (with Indians living there).  The park eventually kicked him out, but his boat stayed on the Lake.  One day it burned down (arson) and they left the wreck on the lake.  The arsonists had to pay a $400 fine for a $60,000 boat.

In addition to the beautiful scenery, we saw many animals today : 2 Bald Eagles, several Bison, a flock of Canadian Geese and Merganzer Ducks (one on each side of the road in a pond that crossed under the road), elk, and a mule deer.  We saw 2 of the 6 known osprey nests in the park.  They even still had chicks in them.  They were on top of very tall spires in the canyon which was very very windy.  A park ranger told us that the reason the nests don’t blow away is that they usually weigh about 500 pounds.  An eagle’s nest can weigh up to 1000 pounds!!!  We even saw a coyote catching his meal.  He was standing over a hole in the ground and while we were watching, he pounced straight up in the air, all four feet off the ground, and came up with something in his mouth. 

After our boat ride, we had lunch and ice cream at the oldest general store in the park.  Then, we headed toward the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, one of Sandy’s absolute favorite spots.  The first stop was to get a close up view of Lower Yellowstone Falls.  We went down Uncle Tom’s trail.  Uncle Tom was another of the park’s early entrepreneurial trail guides.  He “developed” the first version of this trail – people went down it on ropes and ladders.  The 300 stairs down 500 feet that we did was easy compared to that trip.  We saw a rainbow at the falls and absolutely phenomenal views of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  Then we walked several more overlooks to see the canyon and both the upper and lower falls.  By the end of all these up and down stairs walks, we were beat and it was late in the day.

So, next we drove the rest of the way around the upper loop of the park, taking pictures and doing short walks, until it got too dark to see anything.  We saw a lot of elk (like we get deer in Twain Harte) – all over the lawns in Fort Yellowstone near Mammoth at the northern end of the park.  Then, we went to Mammoth Hot Springs to see some of the Hot Springs there.  We didn’t get back to the campground til after 8:30 and we took over 600 pictures, though we have edited them down to less than 300 – that’s a good thing, right?!?!?!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Custer, SD to Yellowstone National Park, WY


Today we drove all the way across Wyoming to Yellowstone National Park, from Custer through Deadwood and Lead in South Dakota, to Cody, WY then on to Yellowstone.  We plan to stay there for 3 nights.  We left the campground at about 6:30 am and did not get to Yellowstone til about 7:30 at night. 

Most of the route we drove was in an area Buffalo Bill Cody loved.  The route from Cody, WY to the East entrance of Yellowstone was a favorite of his.  At one end is the town, Cody, that he helped build and at the other end is his hunting lodge, just inside Yellowstone National Park’s East entrance.  He managed a traveling show for 30 years with the goal of promoting the beauty of the landscape of the west, touring all over the United States and spending 10 years touring in Europe.  So, today was a day in the history of Buffalo Bill Cody and the land he loved. 

We stopped to look at the Buffalo Bill Dam, just outside of Cody.  When they started the town of Cody, Buffalo Bill thought it would be a good idea to create a dam in the area for irrigation, so they started the dam in 1906.  For the time, it was a magnificent feat.  By the time it was completed in 1910, they lost 7 men and 3 construction companies went bankrupt.  They had to cut out a road to get supplies to the area for the dam.  They did that with just pickaxes and black powder!!!

Just 10 minutes into Yellowstone, we saw a grizzly bear crossing the road.  That was a great end to a very long day and a great start to our visit to Yellowstone.


Monday, August 29, 2011

Fairmont, MN to Custer, SD


We started driving on I-90 this morning and stayed there almost all day.   We saw many more of the Sears barns as we were going down the road today, but couldn’t stop for more pictures.  Yesterday we saw oceans of wheat.  Today, it was oceans of Sunflowers showing off their bright yellow petals.  We drove through the outskirts of Badlands National Park in the rain.  It was still very pretty and we took several nice pictures of the rock formations.

After driving almost all the way across South Dakota, we stayed in Custer, near the Crazy Horse Memorial.  We only wanted to stop at Crazy Horse to see how it had changed since the last time we were here, but stayed a lot longer than planned and learned a lot more about the memorial than on our last visit. 

In 1947, the Lakota Indians asked Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish American who was a sculptor and an assistant to the Mt. Rushmore builder, to create a memorial to one of their Indian heroes, Crazy Horse.  They stipulated that the memorial needed to be in the Black Hills, because that is where Crazy Horse’s people lived and died.  Korczak agreed, created a detailed scale model of Crazy Horse on a horse, and started the carving out of a mountain that happens to be about 20 minutes from Mt. Rushmore.  The whole hill will eventually be carved out for 360 degrees to match the model, unlike Mt. Rushmore which is the fronts of the heads.  In our last picture, the white lines on the mountain are the ear and eye of the horse.   The whole of Mt. Rushmore would  fit in the head of Crazy Horse.  The memorial is to be the focus of a very large Indian cultural knowledge and training center, including a school and hospital.

 
For the first years of the project, Korczak climbed 714 steps multiple times a day carrying his tools to work on the carving.  For a long time he was the only person working on it, so when the compressor at the bottom stopped, he had to go all the way back down the steps to start it back up – one day he was up and down 9 times.  Korczak blasted out the hole in the mountain which is the start of the area under the arm.  That hole is 10 stories high!!! 

All sides of the face were completed in 1998, 16 years after Korczak died in 1982.  When he died, he left many detailed notes and drawings with the dimensions of the carving.   His wife and many of his 10 children now oversee the carving of the statue.  It is entirely funded by donations and admission to the memorial.  Korczak twice turned down 10 million dollar grants from the federal government because he felt the government would not complete the memorial.  Instead he wanted the funding to come from people who also shared the dream. 

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Woodbury, MN to Fairmont, MN


Today’s interesting town, Hastings, MN, featured a gas station that was established in 1896, though it looks like a modern gas station.  Kristy noticed the sign as we were sitting at the pump.  It was also advertising “Broasted Touchless Chicken Car Wash”, if you read the sign the right (wrong) way.

We also drove through Red Wing, the headquarters for Red Wing shoes.  It was a little hard for Kristy to not stop to look at (shop for) shoes, especially after seeing the plant buildings for Red Wing!  We saw a little bit of the Mississippi river as we drove down the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota.

We drove through Minnesota’s Root River Valley, a scenic drive through farmland with oceans of corn.  We also saw many barns purchased as kits by mail order for $500 to $900 from Sears and Roebuck.  They are still standing about 100 years later.  We made a collage of seven of the dozens of barns we saw.  We think the ones we got pictures of were first sold about 1918, but we think Sears and other companies sold barn (and house) kits starting in the 1890s.

Lunch was at the Aroma Pie Shop in Whalen, MN.  We had delicious sandwiches and of course some pie.  Janine had cherry pie, Sandy had blueberry, Kristy had blubarb (blueberry and rhubarb), and Grant had the rhubarb custard.   They were all delicious!  In fact, Grant gave give his pie the highest praise possible by saying it was as good as the rhubarb pies his grandma used to make. 

We saw Niagara, an alligator, fossils, Titanic, an elephant, a squid, a wishing well, bacon, and a chapel today, all in the same space in less than an hour.  It was at Niagara Cave in Harmony, MN.  The cave was discovered in the 1920s, after a farmer’s pigs were inexplicably disappearing in a field.  He sent some kids to look for them.  They found the pigs when they heard noises from the pigs underground – about 70 feet underground.  They survived the fall by landing in a bed of mud.  The cave has a 60 foot waterfall that reminded the first cave spelunkers of Niagara Falls, so they named the cave Niagara Cave.  There were several fossils in the walls of the cave, including one of a squid!  The rest of the items were names for formations in the cave.

Grant’s birthday was today, so we made hot fudge cake, but we burned the bottom!  Oh well, I think he was pleased anyway …