MONDAY JULY 7, 2014
CUSTER, SD
We left Kearney this morning a little after 7 a.m. Central
time. Our route took us up I-80 and
then onto US-26 and US-385. This is the
longest leg of our journey being 420 miles in one day.
The landscape was beautiful. Starting in Kearney, NE with miles and miles of corn and flat,
long roads with only a few scattered homes in sight we began to slowly climb
from an elevation of 2016 feet to our present elevation in Custer, SD of 5548
feet. Compared to our home in Virginia
we are over a mile higher. I can tell,
too. As we climbed there was a slightly
noticeable difference in the power and performance of the truck. I’ve been told you lose up to 5% efficiency
for every 1,000 feet.
Back to the flatter lands, we stopped in Alliance, NE to see
Carhenge. Now, this is a crazy display
of old cars stacked and buried as an exact replica of Stonehenge. Every angle, height and piece was precisely
placed. There were old Plymouth’s,
Cadillac’s, Gremlin’s, Lincoln’s, Valiant’s, Jeep’s and more sprayed with what
appeared to be a coating of cement.
Really a strange exhibit.
As we moved further west our elevation continued to increase
as we reached The High Plains and the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The sand hills strangely resembled the dunes
near the ocean in North Carolina. This
is railroad country for sure. We saw
miles of trains loaded with coal heading up and down a set of parallel tracks
all along the highway. Farming and corn
were not as prominent and the landscape was replaced by scrub and grass with
only an occasional tree. Wayne
commented over the CB radio that if we were in the old west where they hung
outlaws from a tree that they would have to plant one and wait for it to grow
big enough for a hangman’s noose.
As wee crossed into South Dakota the landscape immediately
changed as the Black Hills appeared. We
had a lot of climbing and curvy roads to navigate. We had a strong head wind that pushed the camper and truck
around. My estimate would be 30 to 40
mph winds. Huge dust clouds engulfed
the highway thick enough to obscure visibility and left a gritty feeling in my
mouth even with the windows closed and the A/C running.
As wee went through Wind Cave National Park a herd of
Buffalo came charging across the highway. Wayne was in the lead and had to make a rapid stop to keep from
hitting a young bull. Nancy was
ecstatic and busy with the camera taking as many pictures as possible. It was exciting as we have never watched
wild Buffalo before.
We continued to climb hill after hill until we finally
arrived at our campground. I can’t say
it is the fanciest place we have been but we do have a full hook-up and a 70
foot long pull-thru site. The only
problem is we are on the side of a hill and it drops off pretty darn fast after
you hit thee bottom step coming out of thee camper door.
Tomorrow we will make a tour of Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse
and Deadwood to get an idea of what is around up. We will go back to thee sites that really interest us over the
next few days and spend some more time.
Speaking of time, it is 10:10 here, that equates to 12:10
back home. It just got dark a little
before 10:00 – another crazy experience.
Now Oscar is really out of sorts because his body is still expecting
dinner and bed based on Eastern time.
The air is a cool 65 degrees. Low tonight around the low 50's to upper 40's. Quite a change from yesterday!
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