Captain’s Log – Star Dates 08172009 through 08192009
Locations: Galaxies of Sun, Cloud and Rain
(Translation: Red Trails RV Park, Medora, North Dakota)
Trip Miles: 6852.4
Diesel Price: $2.65 per gallon; 32.2 gallons loaded on board
Engineer’s Report: Sweet! She’s runnin’ smooth as silk! Eide Ford in Bismarck replaced a failed Engine Gas Recirculation (EGR) valve and two clogged fuel filters.
Weather: Mix of sunshine and rain; windy in afternoons; CHILLY, with night temperatures around 48-50F! This is AUGUST – it’s supposed to be hot!

We strongly sensed the intense concentration of the young Chinese acrobat as he stacked twelve chairs in a vertical column…atop the necks of four empty champagne bottles…atop a small table…on the edge of the stage… less than four feet from Barbara’s face! We sat in Seats 3 and 4 in the front row…and we did not BREATHE until this young member of the Acrobats of Beijing finished his program of handstands atop the chair column. The slightest miscalculation on his part would have had us both being air-evacuated to a hospital in Bismarck!

This adventure was part of our viewing of the Medora Musical, a large show of cowboy music, dance and specialty acts, billed as the Greatest Show in the West! Set in a huge outdoor amphitheater, the energetic show was threatened by repeated sprinklings of rain. Medora is a small vacationers’ town set in the stark and beautiful North Dakota Badlands, located 24 miles east of Montana. The rustic town is the gateway to the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park…a park well worth visiting and touring! This park is home to bison, elk, wild horses and noisy towns of black-tailed prairie dogs. We were up-close-and-personal with the prairie dogs and spotted two enormous bison bulls as we drove the 36-mile Scenic Loop Drive around the park.

Amidon

Out of a vast silent green space…
It appears out of nowhere…
This small sign that says twenty five miles per hour…
Alert somehow, I obey that sign…
A wise move…as he sits near that sign… waiting…
The large man with a white cowboy hat
Seated casually in a big white Ford sedan,
The customary official black markings on its sides.
I give him no cause for concern
And we continue our southward journey…

A few miles down the lonely highway
We cross into South Dakota.

Tiny Amidon, North Dakota, was one of the infrequent towns we encountered on our southward ride into South Dakota by way of U.S. Highway 85. The rolling farmland was lovely but very lonely. In the crumbling center of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, we stopped for lunch at Bob’s Café. This was a scene right out of John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley”. It was a ‘50’s diner with Grandma doing the cooking in the kitchen and tape covering the holes in the lime-green plastic seats. Bob was nowhere to be seen…maybe he was dead. The young pregnant waitress slammed a plastic bottle of salad dressing on our table. We ate the passable food quickly but did not linger. Allowing your navigation system to choose your dining establishments can lead to some strange adventures.

The Black Hills, a vacation Mecca set in pine-covered mountains, came upon us suddenly. The Mt. Rushmore/Hill City KOA RV Resort where we are staying is the plushest RV resort we have ever seen. We were efficiently given reams of information on activities and scenic drives in the Black Hills. There is an on-site full-service restaurant here and a general store that Proudly Brews Starbuck’s Coffee. Sweet!

Mount Rushmore is only five miles away. We’ll have a lot of Black Hills information to pass on to you in our next blog post. I’m tired and plan to get a long night’s sleep.

Have a nice night – we’ll see you electronically in the morning!

Affectionately,
Captain Baldy