More Trip details..

So, we've been home for almost a week. I need to "close out" the trip blog, and move back to "life" I guess. This will most likely NOT be the final "trip" post (until the next trip.. anyway)....

On the 12th, we played tourist, and saw some of the cooler sites around the Black Hills. Being a corridor to Mt. Rushmore, the roadside attraction is alive & well between Rapid City & those famous faces. All billboards (and there are a LOT of them) say that they're on "the road to Rushmore."

We piled into the car, and made our way to the Reptile Gardens. We were just in time to catch the alligator show, which was really cool. On most of these, the presentation is crucial, and we were lucky not just once, but several times in having a good host. The guy doing the alligator wrangling was funny, and also very educational.



He tugged this one out into the center of the "pit" and showed us several cool things...



Cute feller, huh?

I won't re-hash the entire performance; suffice to say that if you're ever in the area, you should go.



I will point out that if I were doing the show, and had to do this bit, where you show that their eyes go down inside their skull for protection, I'd do it AFTER this other bit...



Where I put my hands in that mouth.

After the 'gator wrangling, we went through the "Sky Dome" as they call it. This is where they keep their avian & reptile collections (separated, unfortunately). Some random pics from in & around the dome:



(taken through netting & a chain link fence)






This guy was posing & dancing for the cameras. Feathered Ham...



peek-a-boo...



A few words about photography here... Shooting at the Reptile Gardens is difficult! Lighting inside the dome is diffused, and unnatural feeling, as you can see in some of the photos above (which are un-touched). Shooting the reptiles themselves is darn near impossible with a point & shoot camera, as they're all behind scratched, smudged, cloudy glass & plastic. Even with all this, the camera performed brilliantly, it's primary limitation being the guy holding it. Take a look at these two pics, just for reference.. Same subject, same ambient lighting, just different settings on the camera...





I like the lighting on the top picture, but the textures and the colors come through much better on the bottom one. The trick is learning how to get both in one picture.

Just one example of many. Most of the trip was spent experimenting with the camera, finding different ways to shoot things, and getting things to look on the camera how I saw them in my mind.

My favorite pics from the Reptile Gardens have already been posted...

After Reptile Gardens was the awe inspiring wonder of Thunderhead Falls, Underground Waterfall! I'm going to do you a favor here, and save you $ 5.75. I'm going to spoil the entire experience. Here it is in a nutshell. After drive 10 miles off the main road, you pay a person in a shack, who tosses you a brochure, and pushes a button. The button starts a recording that plays over a ratty old loudspeaker, telling you how wonderous the sight you're about to see is (sales pitch after you've paid). I won't say the recording is old and tinny, but let's just say it brings to mind the Flintstones' phonograph. At the end, I half expected to hear "it's a living."

The You walk down the damp, ill-lit cave that looks like this....



Until you see this:



Say it with me now.. "ooohhh" "ahhhh" "Wait, we paid how much to get in here?! Where's the rest of it?"

Oh, and if you have a point & shoot camera, you get a picture like this:



After that, it was the very long trip back to Sundance that we were becoming accustomed to.

The 13th we went fossil hunting out by the Belle Fourche Dam. Unfortunately all the good spots were under water due to their late spring rains & floods. On the plus side, it was over 100 degrees out. No pics, as I didn't want my camera to melt.

After that we went out to the Homestake Mine museum, perched on the precipice of the open pit. Active off & on (mostly on) from the mid 1800's to 2001, first as an open-pit, then as a deep underground mine, it left one hell of an impact on the local landscape.



We had a lot of fun, and as a result, I didn't take a whole lot of pictures.

Monday the 14th... Joe's Mom's Car went into the shop, so I rented a nice little Chrysler to continue playing tourist. This is the day we went out to Bear Country, USA, another big roadside attraction on the way to Mt. Rushmore. This is another one that I've already posted some of my favorite pics from, though somehow the bears themselves got neglected.



So, there's your bear picture.. If you want to see more bears, feel free to look at the web album.




And yes, I know that's your cat Yancy & Amy.. And no, I'm not sure why he's there...

The 15th was a trip to the Roo Ranch...



Tell me, does that look like a giant white lab rat, or what?

They let you in one area where you can get close to a kangaroo, and pet it. All the other "roos" are behind double fences, and they were almost all asleep when we were there. An interesting asside to this visit... People always want to pet the kangaroos, and cuddle with the babies, which I expected. What shocked me is that they have kangaroo jerkey, and all sorts of products made from kangaroos on display there. It seemed a bit morbid, on the wall, across from where they keep the babies.

We also stopped at Tatanka, Story of the Buffalo. It's a sort of American Indian museum on the hill above Deadwood. Educational, kinda neat, but I probably wouldn't go back to it. The most interesting part is the HUGE bronze sculpture of a buffalo hunt they have outside.



The 16th was our last whole day in Sundance, and the day I took my long solo ride through the hills. almost 200 miles on dirt! This post is already a bit long, and a bit heavy on the graphics, though, so the rest will just have to wait until later.

Okay, I realize I've been lazy, and don't have another post up from the trip. Hopefully, this will keep folks interested for a while. It's a slide show of pics from the Reptile Gardens in the Black Hills. It was a lot of fun. I'll get another post. They're big pics, so if you're on dial-up, you might want to move on.

the "Big Post" Part 1

I've been waiting for a while to get a "real" post put up. Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. I had to wait until I had both the time, and the internet access to do this.

There are a ton of pictures up on my Picasa site, which you can view here. There are old & new pics up there, but all the ones from the trip are sorted by date. Vacation pics start in the 7.05.08 folder and continue from there. The good stuff is here as follows (some of these pics were probably already posted. Deal with it) :

So we left out of Sequim on July 5th. The bikes were VERY loaded. Believe it or not, we sent two boxes of stuff home from Sundance, including clothes and souvenirs and gifts, and we still have more crap on the bikes today than when we started the trip.



Our first day on the road was pretty uneventful. We went over North Cascades highway, and ended up getting a hotel room in Tonasket for the night. No particular reason, just convienient. We did stop and take a few pics at a waterfall going over the North Cascades:



I like this particular pic because it looks like Joe's standing in front of an oncoming flood.

Now, I've never been one to claim that my memory is that good, but I'm a bit surprised to find that I don't have any pictures from the 6th. In all fairness, it was a kind of a long day, and it was familiar territory.

Moving on... On the 7th, we left out of Libby, MT. to drive through a seldom-used entrance of Glacier National Park, in preperation to drive the Going to the Sun Road on the 8th. Some very pretty scenery on lake Koocanusa, just outside of Libby.



I did get some pics of Glacier NP from that western entrance, but not really anything memorable. On the 8th, we really hit the park, and I did get some shots I was happy with.

This one is pretty cool. They call it the "weeping wall," and if we had been headed the other direction, we would have gotten soaked. This whole section of the wall is just a continual waterfall, showering the west-bound lane of the road. I already posted my favorite Glacier pics here.



After Glacier, it was a very long, very boring, mostly very hot drive. Joe was in a hurry to get to his Mom's, so we logged a 500+ mile day on the 8th, and went all the way down to Billings, MT. By the time we got there, it was dark, we were very sore, and very tired, and very determined not to have another 500 mile day!

The 9th was mostly just more heat, but we went through Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. They have a pretty neat display inside the visitor's center, though everything is behind glass. It was fun watching folks with the cheap-o digital cameras trying to take pics. Score one for the expensive camera. This is a diorama of the battle.



In the past 20 years or so, the site (run by the National Parks Service) has undergone a pretty big change, even being renamed (it was formerly known as Custer's Last Stand National Monument). There is a lot more from the Native American's perspective now, including this outdoor sculpture:



We also had our first "incident" at Little Bighorn Battlefield Park (LBBP). Once we crossed the Washington / Idaho border, helmets become optional. While we would never ride on the highway or in a busy city without a helmet on, we did take advange of this in a few instances... Moving bikes at a hotel, moving from the gas pumps, etc. Well, LBBP was about the half-way point of our day. Our day of riding in 100+ degree heat in full gear (jackets, riding pants, gloves, etc.).

There is a 5 mile loop through LBBP, with pullouts, plaques, memorials, etc, with a 20mph speed-limit, so we decided we were going to cool off a little bit, and ride that loop sans-helmet. We secured our helmets to the back of our bikes, and proceeded to ride the loop, and out of the park to a gas station right by the freeway. No incidents, no cracked skulls, or any such thing. After paying for some ice & water inside the store, Joe found that his helmet was missing. We both feared that someone had snatched it from his bike while we were in the store, but we figured we'd ride back through the park to see if we could find it, just in case. Luckily, a very nice lady on a Harley Davidson had caught the glint of the shield in the grass, and picked up the helmet, and their traveling companions on a Goldwing remembered seeing is riding. They were on their way to turn the helmet over to a park ranger when we rode by them. So, Joe's lid was scratched to hell, and had some missing plastic, but was still serviceable until we could get a city and get a replacement. The thought of driving the 60+ miles on a freeway to a city without him having a helmet was scarey as hell!

We made it to Joe's Mom's house in Sundance that night. The next day, we went out (by car!) to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. A pretty cool place. I had no idea that there was a huge prarie dog city out there. Got some cool shots of those little guys. They barked up a storm, and wanted to be fed



Devil's Tower itself was pretty spectacular. For some reason I kept thinking about mashed potatoes the whole time, but I digress...



The 11th we had a nice light day. We got to sleep in a bit, and headed out to historic Deadwood, SD for some good old-fashioned gambling. No big wins, no big losses, but air-conditioned! On the way there, Joe's mom took us out to the Roosevelt Monument. Basically this big rook-looking thing up on a mountain overlooking half of South Dakota. Even the Panorma doesn't realy do it justice, but here it is anyway. It's nine full-size pics, and the source file is huge. I'll play with it a bit more when we get home, and I have a 22" monitor, instead of my 12" laptop.




So this is going to conclude part one of the adventure. I'll continue this soon, as we'll be home in a few days, and it will be a LOT easier to edit photos, and write with a real monitor, and a real keyboard, and for heaven's sake, a MOUSE instead of a touchpad. Oh how I miss my cable internet.

Breakdown

Our first, and hopefully only issue of the trip. Yeah, he had to
unload the bike, and yeah, he had to take the seat off. Butt, all
things considered, not too shabby. Only about 25 minutes of down time.

The Road to Yellowstone

We took the road less traveled into Yellowstone today. This picture
is from Dead Indian Pass. A twisty, beautiful road through the
foothills of the Rockies, topping out somewhere in the 8000'+ range.

It rained on us in Yellowstone, and we missed Old Faithful, and this
hotel's wieless doesn't work. But it still beats the hell out of a
day at the office!

Cattle Drive

I went for a long solo drive in the black hills yesterday, ending at
the Crazy Horse Monument, and then Mt. Rushmore. If you ever have to
choose between the two, go to Crazy Horse! Mt. Rushmore was the most
expensive, busiest, over-commercialized park I've ever seen. You can
buy those four heads on any tacky, sparkley piece of Chinese plastic
you could think of. About the only thing I didn't see was a Mt.
Rushmore condom.

Avoiding crowds was a primary goal, and I made it almost all the way
from Sundance to Hill City on dirt & gravel roads.

Flying through one of the paved sections (which were all mountian,
twisty roads) at about 60mph, I flew around a corner, only to find the
road gone. Well, not gone, but under several tons of cow. I had
stumbled across a good old-fashioned cattle drive! One of the cow-
boys (yes, real horse-riding, roping, hat wearing cowboys) asked me to
"help" by blocking a driveway, so he didn't have to. Pretty cool, huh?

Finally, some WiFi!

So, I've got some wireless internet for a bit! So, I'm going to post some of my favorite pics from the last week or so.



One of the exotic birds from the Reptile Garden



I forget what kind of snake this is, but it's my favorite shot from the Reptile Gardens, just because it came out exactly how I wanted it. Shooting through scratched, smudged glass into a dark enclosure is a challenge, and I'm glad that I'm learning my camera well enough to actually do it!



This is one of the wolves from Bear Country USA. I'm going to post two pics from Bear Country, and guess what? No bears!


A cute little river otter from Bear Country, USA. He wants to come home & play!


So, that's it for now. More to come!

Tatanka

> Kevin Coster, after filming "Dances with Wolves" and learning the
> plight of the plains Indians and the buffalo that the relied on,
> bought the land and commissioned Tatanka, Story of the Buffalo near
> Deadwood, SD.

This is a picture of one of the huge beautiful bronze sculptures near
the interpretive center.

Bear Country, USA

Just another quickie post. This is one of the racoons @ Bear Country
USA, a good old-fashioned all-American roadside attraction on the way
to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. I've got lots of other pics of this
place, but alas, still no Internet, other than my iPhone. I'll have a
monster post with a ton of pics when I have the time & access.

Some more pics

Just time for a quickie post & a few pictures. I've found some WiFi, but people are waiting on me, so I'll just put some choice pics up really quick.

From the road up to Glacier:



Another From Glacier





That's really all I have time for right now. I'll be uploading a lot more when I have a good WiFi connection, and some time.

Devil's Tower

> There is a big prairie dog population at Devil's Tower. Joe got
> close enough to get this shot from his iPhone. I'll upload some
> better pics when I get some Internet access.
>

Devil's Tower

Still waiting to get somewhere with wifi, but we did go out to Devil's
Tower today, which was neat. It's just too damn hot out to do much
else.

We're Here!

The good news: We made it to Sundance, WY!

No major incidents, catastrophies, or tickets.

The bad news: No Internet, short of my iPhone at Joe's mom's. So, no
pics for now. I'm sure both of my readers will be horribly
dissapointed.

Sent from my iPhone

Montana

So after two days of no cell service, we made it through Glacier
National Park, and we are headed to our camp site for the night.
Hopefully it has wifi, so I can upload some pics, and write a "real"
blog entry.

Sent from my iPhone

Good stop!

So we stopped in Winthrop for a quick break. Bought a drink, and the
cashier gave me a $2 bill, which is good luck! So I bought two scratch
tickets (pictured on the bike). First one was a $10 winner. Not
bad. Second one was $100!! :-p

All this and I don't have to work tomorrow, either.

First "Stop"

> Our first "stop." Waiting for the Port Townsend / Keystone ferry.
> Yay!
>

The List

Original idea from here. Modified just a bit to suit my personal philosophies.

Remember, Life is what happens while you're making other plans.


1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to.

3. Buy a DVR and tape your late night shows and get more sleep.

4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, ‘My purpose is to __________ today.’

5. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.

6. Play more games and read more books than you did in 2007.

7. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, tai chi, and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.

8. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.

9. Dream more while you are awake.

10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.

11. Drink green tea and plenty of water.. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts.

12. Try to make at least three people smile each day.

13. Clear clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.

14. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.

17. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the energy flowing.

18. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

20. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

21. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. Move on.

22. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.

23. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

24. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: ‘In five years, will this matter?’

26. Forgive everyone for everything.

27. What other people think of you is none of your business.

28. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

29. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

30. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

31. Envy is a waste of time. Remember: happiness is wanting what you’ve got, not getting what you want.

32. The best is yet to come.

33. No matter how you feel, get up, suit up and show up.

34. Do the right thing!

35. Call your friends often. (Or email them to death!!!) Hey I’m thinking of ya!

36. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for __________. Today I accomplished _________.

37. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

38. Enjoy the ride. Remember this is not Disney World and you certainly don’t want a fast pass. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy the ride

39. If you’re having a bad day, do something extraordinary for someone else. Few things can bring a smile like making someone else smile.