Wyoming Adventure, Part II-b

Oops! Blogger went haywire and I lost the back side of this post! I will now try to re-create it in all it's eloquence! Haha! :)

Visiting Mount Rushmore - I took many photos here because like Devil's Tower and Crazy Horse before, I felt like if I didn't keep my eyes on those presidents in stone, they'd somehow disappear! What an awesome feat! The Visitors Center (nice and cool) shows a timeline of the work on the carving, the geological facts of the mountain, and other related facts. The National Park Service Mount Rushmore website, here, has all the information about the conception, the funding, the carving, and the completion of this symbol of the birth, growth, development, and preservation of the United States of America.

Me, Clare, Jenn, and David and the four presidents in stone.

Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln.

Also in the Visitors Center, there was a display of small quilts, part of the "Find Your Park" challenge for the 100th year celebration of the National Park Service on August 25, 2016. I liked this one of Rocky Mountain National Park beautifully rendered by Marilyn Remboldt of Lincoln, Nebraska.

We were all getting quite wilted and hungry, so before leaving the park, we went into the Memorial Team Ice Cream Station to sample the TJ's vanilla ice cream, based on Thomas Jefferson's original recipe brought to the United States in 1780. . . delicious!

We left Mount Rushmore and journeyed back to Gillette, stopping in Custer so that Jenn and Cassie could look in a tee shirt shop they'd spotted on the way up, of all things! Made it back to the CAM-PLEX in time to grab dinner at the new Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom and then we settled in to watch a movie ("London Has Fallen" - very bad!) with Dave and Jenn. Thursday would see us staying close to camp to watch Team Utah in Performances 8 and 9, 2nd Round. 

 

Ah yes! A frosty Lemon Shandy.

Bright and HOT for Performance 8 (2nd perf of the 2nd round).

Friday morning was grandson Ty's second, and final, run at a steer; he made a good, solid 5.95 second run. However, with his earlier run of 15.05 seconds, he would not be in the top 20 for the Short Go Saturday evening. Clare and I decided to pull up stakes and head for home via Cody, Wyoming. Since this part of the trip was quite different and I took many photos along the way, I will post it as our Wyoming Adventure, Part III!

Wearing red in honor of our troops.

More later.

               

Wyoming Adventure, Part II

Here is one of many coal mines outside Gillette. This country is rich in coal, oil and cattle; and, wind!
When we returned from our trip to Devil's Tower, we grabbed dinner and headed back to the arena for Performance 5 of the First Round. I took a photo of this precious little baby girl for Alternate 2 of Rinda's 2016 Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt since I am uncertain that I will ever find #17, twins, before the September 22 deadline.

I did post this on Instagram too.

Plans had been formulated with our son and daughter-in-law and another Utah rodeo couple to leave early Wednesday morning for Mount Rushmore; since we were within 150 miles of this renowned monument, we figured that we'd take the opportunity to see it. Not far from Rushmore is the Crazy Horse Memorial so we took in that too. We entered South Dakota and the Black Hills 10 miles out of Newcastle, Wyoming on Highway 16. This country is truly beautiful forest and it was a curvy but very pleasant drive to Custer and then on to the two monuments.

Crazy woman at Crazy Horse.

The sculptor's, Korczak Ziolkowski, vision. More information can be found here.

We watched the video presentation in the Visitor Center and came away from that quite impressed with the determined effort not only of the original visionaries of this memorial, but with the continued dream of the family and the organization they have built.

Ziolkowski's original generator used to power the drills he used to make the first holes. According to his narration in the video presentation, it was not terribly reliable and would "kaput" just as he had climbed the stairs to get to the top of his drilling site; hence, the sign out of the exhaust stack.

It is difficult to describe the size of this monument although the crane boom seen at the top of the hand (which is currently being carved) looks very tiny and is, in comparison to the face.

We journeyed on through the Black Hills National Forest to Mount Rushmore - I spotted so many gorgeous wildflowers along the way but stopped myself from asking Clare to stop so I could photograph them . . . it would've held up the caravan behind us! There were White Yarrow, Purple Prairie Clover, Blanket Flower, Black-eyed Susan, Sunflower, Wild Meadow Rose, Lupine, Aster, and Green-headed Coneflower among many others. What a feast for the eyes! 

Arrived at Mount Rushmore along with hundreds of other summer tourists and made our way to the viewing point:

The flags depict all 50 states of the United States of America and the dates each entered the Union are inscribed underneath.

Wyoming Adventure (and a bit of South Dakota) Part I

 We are back home here on Vine after a nine-day trip to Wyoming. What an adventure it was too! Our grandson had qualified in steer wrestling for the National High School Rodeo Finals being held in Gillette, Wyoming this year (last year it was in Rock Springs) so, because it was our last chance to go, we loaded up the motor home and set out Friday morning, July 15.

Set to travel. 

Sunrise over the Oquirrh Mountains.

East on Interstate 80.

Twelve hours later, we pulled into CAM-PLEX Multi-Event Facility in Gillette; Ty got checked in and stalled the horses while we settled into our reserved camp spot in BoxElder RV Park #2. After that long drive - stopped to re-set the awning on the motorhome which ballooned out at the mouth of Weber Canyon (caught by the tornado-force winds); stopped three times to fuel up the truck and let the horses stretch; and, stopped for breakfast and then lunch - we were all very tired. All of us slept like the proverbial logs, despite the wind buffeting the motorhome and people pulling in in the wee hours.

Saturday morning.

Saturday, most of the nearly 1,500 participants, their horses, families and friends, pulled in to set up camp for the events beginning Sunday evening with the first performance of the first round. The six RV parks on the CAM-PLEX grounds and area hotels/motels were quickly filled with high school rodeo folks from 42 states, five Canadian provinces, and Australia.  Our son and daughter-in-law arrived Saturday evening and set up their trailer next to our motorhome. Not long after they settled in, the wind came up and the clouds rolled in; then, the heavens let loose with a true downpour for about 20 minutes. Cooled things down nicely.

Sunday was a good time to familiarize ourselves with the surroundings both at the CAM-PLEX and the town of Gillette. Of course, there was the inevitable Cowboy Trade Show at the Wyoming Center hall and we (me and most definitely my daughter-in-law) had to check that out. But first we checked out where the ponies were spending their days in the horse stalls. Here we are - with the two dogs - on the golf cart (which was the approved mode of transportation besides trucks, for getting around the CAM-PLEX grounds).

A view of BoxElder RV Park - well filled.

By late afternoon, another storm came in delaying the first rodeo performance by about 30 minutes. However, the show went on and we were on our way to 11 more performances Monday through Saturday morning. 

Monday morning dawned with high hopes for Team Utah steer wrestler Dawson Stewart, so we packed ourselves into the golf cart and buzzed to the Morningside Park grandstand to watch. 

Timed events arena and grandstand.

The wind was whipping grandstand flags and the clear sky was making us think all was well after Sunday night's storm. However, there was another downpour in the afternoon but that ended before the evening's rodeo and our grandson, Ty, made a tough run of 15.05 seconds - a lot of cowboy grit demonstrated on that one. (That can be seen here at the 1:20:15 mark.)

I just had to capture this view of the moon rise and sunset looking southeast of the arena.

Tuesday morning saw us at the arena again for Performance 4 of the First Round. After the steer wrestling was done, Clare and I decided to take a sightseeing venture to Devil's Tower National Monument, 62 miles northeast of Gillette. Not only is Devil's Tower the first declared U.S. National Monument in 1906, but it served as a backdrop for the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in 1977. It is also held sacred by various Native Americans, most notably the Lakota tribe. More information can be found here and here. Although it was very hot and bright, coming up on the Tower from highway 24 was a breathtaking sight. Following are various views:

Approach from the highway.

       

At the Tower trailhead.

Climbers spotted. 

                                                                 

View from the Visitor Center.

 

Ah yes! An ice cream salute.

The National Monument also boasts a 40-acre prairie dog town; residents were not shy!

A tunnel opening in the center, dog running away to the left, and one standing guard to the right.

Prairie Dog Town.

We took a short detour towards Hulett at the Devil's Tower Junction and saw this aptly-named ranch:

Makes me wonder if this could have been the original white man's name for the tower.

Stay tuned for Part II of our Wyoming Adventure!