ROADTRIP Part 2 - SOUTH DAKOTA TO OREGON, June 2008

The first night out of Loveland, we stayed in Cabela's RV Park beside the chain's flagship store in Sidney, Nebraska.  It is hard to remember the name of the town because we were just calling it Cabela, Nebraska.  The store and corporate offices are way bigger than the tiny town and people drive from miles around to work here. Cabela's is a big sportsman's chain that started in Sydney.  Each of their huge stores feature a fresh-water aquarium of local sports fish and a diorama display of (stuffed) game animals.   It was an ok full hook up rv park for an overnight stop--walking to the store and browsing the aisles was a fun and different way to do our usual evening walk. 

We were heading for South Dakota, where we had to be before August to renew our drivers' licenses (we've been residents for five years now and that's how many years the license lasts).    Click here for information about our South Dakota residency: 

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/03/a-south-dakota.html

As long as we were in the state on our "official business", we checked out these two favorite spots:

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/06/custer-state-park-south-dakota.html

http://travelingrainvilles.typepad.com/traveling_home/2008/06/chief-crazy-horse-monument.html

In the Spring or summer, after we stay in Colorado (and then South Dakota this time) we head to the Northwest to visit family and old friends.  To get there, it is necessary to drive through part of the State of Wyoming (which I usually spell WHYoming -- as in WHY do we have to be here?)  Yes, poor Wyoming is not my favorite State.  Part of it is not really the State's fault -- by the time we've visited our kids in Colorado, we are ready to be in Oregon and Washington visiting the rest of them.  The adventure is kind of gone at this point and we need a jetpack!  But the other part of it is that this state (other than the beautiful Teton/Yellowstone corner) is really not very scenic AT ALL. 

 

 

 

 

Usually, when you cross a stateline there isn't any obvious difference at all from one side to the next.  But when we left Custer in SD we dropped down in altitude and, as we crossed the border into Whyoming, the terrain changed immediately from the lovely Black Hills into dry and uninteresting high desert country.  And there were a lot of open pit coal mines -- pretty horrible to look at, in my opinion.  We have a bit of a disagreement about this though.  Bill agrees that they're not beautiful, but he would very much like to tour one to see how they operate.  I'd rather try to pretend they aren't really there.  Someday, we probably will take that tour -- and then I will learn something in spite of myself. 

The Wyoming terrain is apparently perfect for pronghorn antelope.  We see hundreds of them on any trip through the state.  Although wildlife watching is one of our joys, there are so many pronghorn that we now often don't even bother to comment.  It would be like saying "there's a cow."  Wildlife has to be little bit hard to spot for watching it to be a sport!

Our first overnight stop in Wyoming was in Casper.  We wanted to visit the Teton plant, so that we could save shipping costs on some parts we needed for our rolling home.   When  we picked it up from the factory two years ago --  and when we visited the city to tour the plant a few years before that -- we had stayed at a little RV Park called Fort Caspar.  That park is on the North Platte River and it is next door to a historical museum.    It's not a bad place to stay at all because of the river.  This year, it was full and we had to stay at a nearby KOA.  We aren't crazy about KOAs -- they are expensive and usually not in the most scenic part of an area.  One reason they cost so much is that they have a lot of activities for families.  This probably makes it worth the extra expense when you're camping with kids, but we don't care about game rooms and so forth, so those are wasted amenities for us.    At least it was just for one night. 

The next night we were in Rock Springs, where we also had to stay in a KOA.  This is Independence Rock, one of our rest stops during our 243-mile day between Casper and Rock Springs.  (I have mentioned that we don't rush our road trips, haven't I?)  Independence Rock, which is on the Emigrant Trail, was called that because wagon trains heading from Missouri to Oregon or California needed to make it to this landmark by July 4 in order to reach their final destination before it snowed in the mountains.  It was a tradition for emigrants to carve their names in this granite rock.  It's an easy climb and there's a big parking area-rest stop right near the rock, so it's a great short stop for us.

We shared the rest stop with several big busloads of kids on a summer camp experience along the Trail.   All of them were wearing pioneer clothing.  It was cute to see -- they looked authentic, except for their modern running shoes. 

We had a three-state day when we left Rock Springs.  We almost never travel over 250 miles or so in a day, so a three-stater isn't at all common when we're in the West.  But we breezed  through Utah and spent the next night in Declo, Idaho at a very nice RV Park.  Lovely family-owned and run park called Village of the Trees.  It was aptly named.  There was even a small fishing lake with a walking path around it.  The park was next to the beautiful Snake River and it was amazingly quiet, even though it was just yards off of Highway I-84.    Wish they could all be this nice.   http://www.villageoftreesrvresort.com

We actually might have been tempted to stay another night at this park and explore some of the surrounding area -- but we were eager to get to Oregon.  Maybe another time.  It's a travel dilemma -- so many new places we want to see, so many old places we'd like to visit again.