We stopped for lunch at the Desert Center Cafe in Desert Center, California, and then made another stop at the Trader Joe's in Palm Desert to pick up a case of Two-Buck Chuck wine. We arrived in Ontario and checked into the Motel 6, then walked over to the K-Mart next door to pick up a couple of light jackets -- we hadn't brought any with us since it had been hot in Quartzsite, but was cool in Ontario. We had dinner at the Marisco Eldorado, a Mexican food restaurant near the motel.
We got up early the next morning, had breakfast at the Plum Tree Restaurant in Montclair, and then headed to the factory. We arrived a little early, so walked Maxx around for a bit before going inside.
Most of the morning was spent doing the walk-through of our new rig, and in signing all the paperwork. About noon, the ICC driver showed up, and we headed off for Ehrenberg, Arizona where we were to take possession of the Lazy Daze. For the first part of the trip, Earl road with the ICC driver, and I followed in the car. At a rest stop, Earl and I changed positions, with Earl driving the car, and me riding with the ICC driver.
We arrived in Ehrenberg around 4:00 PM, appeared before a Notary, and signed all the paperwork necessary to take possession. We then headed back home with our new rig. Had dinner that night at Taco Mio to celebrate.
We spent the next few days loading up the Lazy Daze in preparation to head out after the Fourth of July holiday was over. We could only do loading during the early morning hours and at night since it was simply too hot during the day to put in much physical exertion.
The day before we were going to leave, we fueled up both the Honda and the Lazy Daze, sent off the paperwork to our mail service, Alternative Resources, for registering the Lazy Daze in South Dakota, and had dinner at Mark's Family Restaurant.
On Wednesday, July 7, we headed off to the Escapee's park in Casa Grande, Rover's Roost -- a trip of 234 miles. That night we had dinner at the Cracker Barrel and fueled up the Honda.
Until we get to Alamogordo, New Mexico, where we will have all the tow equipment installed, Earl is driving the Lazy Daze, and I am following along behind in the Honda. That night we had dinner at the Cracker Barrel and fueled up the Honda.
The next day, we went back to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast, then drove 164 miles to the Elks Club in Willcox, Arizona where we spent the night. Prior to arriving in Willcox, we stopped in Benson to have lunch, and put gas in the Lazy Daze.
Friday, we drove 136 miles to the Escapee's park in Deming, New Mexico, Dream Catcher. Since our appointment with the towing equipment installer isn't until Monday, we decided to spend a couple of days here. After parking, we went to the Post Office to pick up our mail and then had dinner at the Jumbo Chinese Restaurant.
On Sunday, we drove 129 miles to the Elks Club in Alamogordo, New Mexico. We did laundry after arriving, and then had dinner at Applebee's.
The next day, we drove down to Rick's Automotive and Lube where we were having all the tow equipment installed on our motorhome and car. Since we didn't really have anyplace to stay other than the Lazy Daze, we hung around while they were doing the work, walking down to have lunch at Clark's Family Restaurant and drove the car to Wal-Mart to do shopping. All the work wasn't completed on Monday, so we returned to the Elks Club that night.
On Tuesday, we returned to have the work completed on the installation of the towing equipment. After everything was done, we paid the bill, hitched up, and headed off to spend the night at the Valley of the Fires National Recreation Area about four miles west of Carrizozo on US-380 -- a trip of only 73 miles. This campground has water and electric hookups for $11 ($5.50 with the Golden Age Passport). The last time we were here, it was raining, so we hadn't taken the one-mile trail, with interpretive displays, through the lava flow. We did so this time, and found it to be very interesting.
Valley of the Fires National Recreation Area:
The Valley of the Fires Recreation Area is on the northern tip of a lava flow that stretches up to five miles wide, and is 165 feet thick and 44 miles long. Between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago, a series of steaming vents fractured the valley floor, spewing molten rock south across the valley. The lava here did not come from an actual volcano. Instead, the lava escaped through vents, flowed south, and buried everything in its path except for sandstone hills called kipukas. At the edge of the recreation area, you'll see Little Black Peak, thought to be one of the last vents to open.
When taking the self-guided walk, you can see jagged aa and rippled pahoehoe lava surfaces as well as buckled pressure ridges. Other sights are large round holes formed by gas bubbles and lava tubes where molten rock flowed through channels beneath a thin surface of cooled lava.
On Wednesday, we drove 164 miles to the Elks Club in Las Vegas, New Mexico where we spent a couple of days. That night, we had dinner at the Pizza Hut, and the next night we walked next door to have dinner at Kocina DeRaphael, a Mexican food restaurant.
While we were in Las Vegas, Earl went to a doctor to have a cortizone shot in his shoulder which had really been hurting. The doctor also gave him a prescription for Pravachol -- which he had been on before, but had never bothered renewing his prescription.
Friday morning we left Las Vegas and drove 242 miles (one of our longer days) to the Vogel Canyon Picnic area. Vogel Canyon is located in the Comanche National Grasslands, a few miles south of LaJunta, Colorado. We had stayed here the previous year and decided to come back -- it's a pretty area, and very quiet.
Vogel Canyon is a tributary of the Purgatoire River Drainage and two permanent springs, located at the bottom of the canyon, support a variety of wildlife. American Indians lived in the canyon between 300 and 800 years ago and left rock art which is visible on the canyon walls. During the 1870's, a spur off the Santa Fe Trail (Las Animas to Trinidad) was developed by the Barlow and Sanderson Mail and Stage Line. Sections of the stage coach road and ruins of the station can still be found near the picnic area.
Before leaving LaJunta, we stopped at the Safeway store to do grocery shopping, and then stopped at the Flying J in Limon, Colorado to get gas for the Lazy Daze. We ended up staying the night at the Municipal VFW Park in Brush, Colorado, a trip of 188 miles. The first night at this park is free and has electric hookups, plus water and a dump are available (after the first night, the fee is $10).
On Sunday, we drove 220 miles to Chadron State Park, the oldest state park in Nebraska (located south of Chadron), stopping to have lunch at Runza in Sidney, Nebraska and to do laundry in Alliance. The fee at this campground is $16 for a site with electric. Water and a dump are available. We tried to find one of the places listed in the Don Wright's Guide to Free Campgrounds book, but we couldn't find it. The next day, at a lunch stop, we found out the place we were trying to find was actually south of Chadron State Park, not north of it, as Don's book had indicated!
Chadron State Park:
Monday, July 19, was Earl's 65th birthday. We celebrated his birthday by traveling 193 miles to the Ainsworth RV Camper Park in Ainsworth, Nebraska. This is a city campground with electric hookups for $7 per night. Water and a dump are available for an additional $3.
We spent two days in Ainsworth doing grocery shopping, and taking the Lazy Daze to the local Ford dealer for it's first oil change.
On Wednesday, we finally arrived "home" in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after having driven 257 miles. After setting up at the Westwick RV Park (not one I would go back to, but it's one of the ones in Minnihaha County that we can use for registering to vote), we drove down to Alternative Resources (our mail service), to pick up our mail. That night, we ate dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, finally celebrating Earl's birthday!
The next day, we went down and registered to vote and then did shopping at Sam's Club. I also made online reservations at a U.S. Forest Service campground near Rapid City. Normally, we do not make reservations when we travel, but with the Black Hills being such a popular tourist destination, we thought it might be a wise thing to do.
On Friday, Earl went golfing at Prairie Green Golf Course. Afterwards, we did grocery shopping at Wal-Mart.
When we left Sioux Falls on Saturday, we drove to DeSmet, South Dakota to visit one of the Ingalls' homestead (as in Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame).
The house "Pa" built on their DeSmet homestead:
The Ingalls moved to DeSmet in 1879. When they first moved here, Pa had promised Ma that they would never move again, and he kept his promise: Pa, Ma, and Mary lived in DeSmet until their deaths. Five of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books were written about DeSmet and the surrounding area: By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years.
After touring the Ingalls Homestead, we went on to Huron and spent the night parked next to the James River at the Lakeside Use Area -- free, no hookups. Drove 177 miles today.
The next day we drove up to Aberdeen to see the Peter Toth sculpture, but found that it was no longer there. The last information I had about the sculpture was from 1993, and at that time, it was in need of "urgent" treatment. Guess either the termites or the weather finally did it in.
Peter "Wolf" Toth is originally from Hungry. He settled in Akron, Ohio, in 1958 with his family after fleeing the Russian military there. He traveled the country for 30 years, creating wooden Indian faces, called the Whispering Giants. He's carved at least one in each state. Toth says he shares a kinship with the struggle of the American Indian, and his carvings are his way of honoring them. "Wolf" is an honorary Indian name.
We stopped to do laundry while we were in Aberdeen, and then went on to Roscoe where we spent the night at the Roscoe City Park -- $5 for a site with electricity, with water and a dump available (total mileage, 128). One of the front tires on the Lazy Daze was flat so we pumped it up. The next morning, it was down a few pounds, so we pumped it up again and drove by a tire shop to have them check it out. The guy took the tire off, checked it thoroughly, but couldn't find a thing wrong with it, so put it back on (we've never had another problem with it, so don't know why it had gone flat).
The next day, we drove 124 miles to the Farm Land State Recreation Area east of Pierre, South Dakota, stopping in town to put gas in the Lazy Daze and shop for groceries.
On Tuesday, June 27, we made it to the Badlands. We stayed at the Cedar Pass Campground in the park near Interior. It was a bit too hot to do much exploring -- we need to come back in the spring or fall when the temperatures are cooler!
Badlands:
This area was once part of a large salt water sea -- for about 30 million years, layers of mud, sand, and gravel were laid down. Upheaval and volcanic activity pushed the sea floor up. As the water drained away, it left behind broad, marshy plains where three-toed horses, sabre-toothed tigers, and other prehistoric animals roamed. Rivers flowing to the east from the Black Hills cut into the deposits and with the help of wind, rain, and snow, thousands of tons of sedimentary deposits were carried away.
When we left the next day, we took the Badland Loop Road through the park to Wall. We had breakfast at Wall Drug, and then stopped by the Western Art Gallery (part of Wall Drug) to visit with Carol, a woman we'd met at Cotton Lane RV Park who works here during the summers.
The story of Wall Drugs starts in 1931 when Dorothy and Ted Hustead bought a drugstore in the town of Wall. They gave themselves five years to make a go of the drugstore, but by 1936, business was still bad and they were wondering what they would do once their five years was up (this was before Mount Rushmore had been completed, and it was during the Depression).
During July of that year, while Dorothy was trying to nap but couldn't because of the noise of all the cars going by on the road, she came up with the idea of putting out signs along the highway advertising free ice water. And the rest, as they say, is history.
After visiting with Carol for a few minutes, we were back on the road headed for Oreville Campground in the Black Hills National Forest near Hill City.
The next day, we visited Crazy Horse Memorial. We had first visited this monument in 1990. Below is a picture from our first visit and one from this visit which shows the progress during the intervening 14 years.
Crazy Horse Memorial
1990 visit:
2004 visit:
The sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, was born in Boston of Polish Descent. In 1939, Ziolkowski was asked by Gutzon Borglum, the Mt. Rushmore sculptor, to be his assistant. Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear invited Ziolkowski to carve a monument in memory of the Lakota's hero, Crazy Horse. The memorial was dedicated and the first blast took place on June 3, 1948. The first blast took off just 10 tons of rock...millions of tons have been removed since. Ziolkowski, and after his death, his family who continue the work, accepted no government funding, either from the federal government or from the State of South Dakota. All work is funded by the public through entrance fees, sales, and private donations to the nonprofit Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.
On Friday, we took a drive on the Needles Highway and visited Mt. Rushmore, stopping in Custer State Park to have lunch.
Views from the Needles Highway:
Mt. Rushmore:
We left the Black Hills on Saturday, July 31, stopping in Custer to dump our tanks. We drove 125 miles to Gillette, Wyoming where we spent the night at the High Plains Campground.
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