We did stop, as we had always planned, at Mt. Rushmore. Linda was a tiny bit disappointed
because she thought that the faces would appear bigger, but we were both in awe of the
effort and art that went into the construction. In addition to the sculptures themselves,
we also enjoyed the Black Hills. In the midst of the flat prairie lands of South Dakota and
the high desert of Wyoming, they are a welcome relief. While in the Black Hills, we drove
around behind the Mt. Rushmore monument and over to the Crazy Horse Monument that is
being carved. We chose not to pay the $14 fee to get in, so I couldn’t get any pictures, but
that is another monumental sculptural enterprise, but it appears to be only in the early
stages.
After we left the Black Hills and started west through Wyoming, and while on U.S. Route 16, we were involved in a freak fender-bender accident that could have been a lot worse. It was quite windy, and just as we were about to pass an oncoming car, a 4x8 sheet of composite board or plywood that they were carrying caught the wind and ripped the carrier right off the car. The wood sailed into our lane, and I hit it, breaking the grill and a headlight, and denting the hood of our car. We were very lucky that it didn’t do more damage and that no one was injured, but when you consider how few cars were on the road, we were pretty unlucky that it hit anybody. In any event, we can get home with the car the way it is, but will try to get the headlight replaced if we can. It just gives us one more reason to be eager to get home.
On Saturday (4/29), after taking care of accident reports in Gillette, WY, we traveled to
Butte, MT. The day started out wet and windy, but in fairness, over the last week when I
have not been commenting on the weather, it has been, on the whole, very nice.
Mostly, what we did was saw scenery in eastern Montana that was very unexpected. I don’t
know if my memory of eastern Montana is faulty, or if I was just in a different part of
Montana in the northeast, but I had always thought of Montana east of the Rockies as being
very arid and boring. What we saw was some pretty, rolling prairie lands (around the Little
Big Horn) and a lot of short but grand mountain ranges. It was a very pleasant surprise.
On Sunday (4/30) we woke up to a very clear morning with frost on the ground. I don’t know
how cold it got during the night, but it was the coldest night that we have camped. We
drove from Butte to Lewiston, ID by way of the Lolo Pass Road.
In one day short of three months (two days short of 13 weeks), our camper covered 14,558
miles. We went through 31 states and the District of Columbia and did 28 volkswalks (for
292 kilometers or 181 miles) in 19 different states and the District of Columbia. We
learned that there is more to see in any one area of the United States than can be seen in a
single trip and that many of the sights would be best if we could see them once a month to
account for the changes in season. We learned that the 1957 stereotype of the south,
taken from news accounts of the civil rights struggle at the time is outdated and that
nearly all of the people that we have met were friendly, kind, and courteous.
All in all, we have had a very successful trip, and we will start planning the next road trip,
probably in the late summer or early fall of 2001, and will concentrate on southern Canada
and New England.
That is really a spectacular
drive. Maybe its just that we come from an area of large, steep mountains and clear,
babbling rivers, but this was, in our opinion, the prettiest scenery that we have seen on the
trip. We have also noticed the profusion of lilacs as we have come down the west side of the
Lolo pass road. It might have had something to do with the near perfect weather, getting
to about 80 degrees by the time we got to Lewiston. As we are nearing the end of our trip,
everything seems to be on a positive note.
What turned out to be our last day on the road, Sunday (5/1) we went through the wheat
fields of the Palouse country in Eastern Washington and into Walla Walla. After some
shopping there, we went down to Pendleton, Oregon with the intent of spending the night
with my brother and sister-in-law, Pete and El Rae. After spending the afternoon and
having a pizza with them, we decided that we were too close to home to stop. We left
Pendleton at about 7 PM for a final dash home. Appropriately, the weather took a dive on
the way home and we wound up driving through a hard rain to get home at about 10:30. It
was nice to be home.
Summary
