The Devil Is In The Details

I spent five days in the Black Hills. I took some incredible pictures, it is one of those beautiful spots that Mother Earth gives us. Unfortunately, I had some technical difficulties where my photos were not transferring to the blog. Being the Germanic, everything must be in the proper order of my brain, I have not been posting any blog updates as I tried to work through this technical issues. Unfortunately, I have yet to resolve those issues, so I will have to skip the Black Hills and move on. Hopefully, I will be able to come back to blog about this because of course I have some incredible photos.

I moved on to Devil's Tower, Wyoming. Tony and I had visited it sometime in the nineties, but the memory is weak. I don't remember it having the impact on me then that it did as I drove up to it this time. I strongly felt the need to go watch the movie 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' immediately. There was a campground down the road that actually showed that movie every night at 8:00 pm. My campsite was incredible, right out my front window I had a view of the tower. It was a powerful sight. The tower rises about 850 feet from it's base. About 4,000 people climb it every year. During my Junior Ranger quest here, I learned all about modern day climbing techniques.

The Kiowa people say:

“Eight children were there at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified; they ran and the bear after them they came to a stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the star of the Pleiades.”

Looking Up

LookingDown

This campground was primitive, meaning that there were no hookups of any kind – no water, no electricity. There is a marked difference between these type of campgrounds and the traditional RV park. To me, it seems like people are just more open and friendly. In the RV parks, generally everybody just stays inside their RV, watch TV and they do not interact with their surroundings at all. Devil's Tower campground was not very big, if you were walking around the campground, it might take you about 10-15 minutes. I found I could never make the loop in less than an hour. There were always people reaching out and wanting to chat. Once it took me two hours. What was also interesting was the number of solo women travelers. When I started traveling, maybe five years ago, I was sort of an anomaly. Not anymore. Women are out and getting it done. 

One of my neighbors.  I'm seeing many more of these roof tents.  

The little black structure contained his shower and toilet. Oh, and his trailer had his Harley.

My next stop was Buffalo Wyoming, a small town about a half hour south of Sheridan. I had a friend there that I wanted to visit with. Colleen and her husband Pete had recently left North Dakota, bought a ranch and retired out in the wilds of Wyoming. Bonus, they had a couple of Icelandic horses – Bokki and Skeesa. 

Google was directing me to their place and told me to turn down this tiny little gravel road. I had to cross several cow guards and the road was uneven and narrow. I was a little worried about the road so I went extremely slow. By the time I found their place, my RV had overheated and was red-lining. Those of you who remember my travels last January will remember that I had an overheating problem and had to replace the radiator and several other things. This could not be happening to me again. At least this time, I had a safe place to be, Colleen and Pete were so gracious. Pete knew several trusted mechanics in the area and I was not all on my own. 

Turns out that back in January, when Crain Buick did some massive repairs on my RV, they forgot to put my fan shroud back on. My engine would not overheat when I am going fast down the freeway, but on a 95 degree day when I am putzing along some little gravel road, a fan shroud is a necessity. I called Crain Buick in Arkansas and told them what had happened. Can you believe they said, 'send us the bill, we will send you a check'. They made a mistake and a whole nine months later, they are taking care of it. How incredibly ethical is that? 

So, instead of the one night I was planning on spending in Buffalo, I ended up staying five nights. I was fed, I was driven around, I got to ride Icelandic horses – how great is that? I even got to do a factory tour of a woolen mill which was fascinating. There were tons of pronghorn antelopes and mule deer everyday to watch. It was absolutely lovely and a very pleasant place to stay. A very special thanks to Colleen and Pete for putting up with Miko and me. 

Bokki, Colleen and Skeesa

Miko learning how to be a ranch dog from her Springer friend Tessie

Wool before it has been cleaned - rather nasty looking stuff.  

It has to go through five different vats of water before it becomes white and fluffy.

You ain't nobody without a cowboy hat - Garrett and Pete

The Occidental Hotel bar - I think everybody in town was there

The herd and the view

Wide Open Spaces 

Trials and Tribulations (Of A Very Minor Sort)

My scenic site at the Erie Fairgrounds near Buffalo - it was just me and that other guy there - nobody else ever came by

I am awakened at 6:00 am on my last day in Buffalo by a loud rhythmic clicking noise. I jump up and it seems to be coming from the refrigerator. I turn off the refrigerator and the clicking continues. I turn off the main power switch for the RV and thankfully it stops. But then I hear a drip, drip, drip noise. Again from the fridge. I can't see anything happening inside the fridge so I open the front door of the RV to see if I can discover what is happening. There are two black panel covers right behind the fridge area. The top one contains all the fridge controls, the bottom one is the one that has the furnace controls. Water is pouring out of the furnace area.

I opened up the top panel and discover that the hose that sends water to the ice maker in the fridge is leaking like all get out. I tightened the hose and it stopped dripping. I opened up the furnace cover and there is a lot of standing water there. I mopped up the water and turned on the main power switch again. Click, Click, Click from the furnace area. I quickly turned it off again and tried to figure out what to do. Keep in mind, I am not the most mechanically adept person. I finally figured I needed outside help so I called my friend Dave back in Mpls and woke him up. He listened to my problem and then brilliantly said, pull the fuse for the furnace. I did that, turned the main power switch back on and the clicking stopped. Dave told me that the circuit board had probably gotten wet and just needed to dry out. Later that night, I put the furnace fuse back in and all is well. Kudos to Dave for crawling out of a warm bed to get me back up and running.

I had a fairly short drive to my next spot – Letchworth State Park – or so I thought. I normally use Google Maps to tell me how to get from Point A to Point B. The problem is that Google doesn't know I'm not a little car motoring down the highway, but a huge 18,000 pound beast. Google just wants to take me the shortest, quickest route, even if that means going down tiny little country roads or across roads with a 6,000 pound load limit. I normally check with a Motor Carrier map book that I have that truckers use to make sure there are no low bridges or unfortunate roads that I should avoid. Well, with my morning stress factor, I did not check the trucker guide. I ended up spending a lot of time taking unplanned turns to avoid the load limits and the low bridges. Did I mention that western New York is super super hilly? And who in their right mind puts a stop sign at the bottom of a super steep hill? I actually had no idea where I was going but eventually muddled through and got to Letchworth.

Once I got the RV in my site, I go to move the car also and I have a low tire warning going off. Luckily, the town of Perry is about three miles away so I drove over there and they put air in all of my tires. They were all about 3 to 5 pounds low.

Oh, I forgot to mention - when I started my drive, I needed gas.  I picked up about 65 gallons at a gas station at $2.29 a gallon.  Ten miles later, I drove onto Seneca Nation land where there were a ton of gas stations with gas at $1.79.  Oh well.

I guess that every now and then, days like this happen. I am just grateful that everything worked out. If the furnace circuit board hadn't dried out, it would have been a very cold rest of the trip. All is good and I will spend the next few days exploring Letchworth which has been voted the 'Best State Park in the Nation', or so they say. They don't tell me who voted or where this vote took place, but they sure do have a lot of signs announcing that fact.

This post is already long enough and is severely lacking in pictures. I will make up for that in the next post. It will probably be all pictures, no talk.

My site at Letchworth, much more to my liking

The President Speaks

September 1901 – Buffalo is the site of the Pan-American Exposition, which was sort of like a World's Fair. This was a huge deal, almost like hosting the Olympics nowadays. The city of Buffalo went all out, people came from all over the world to see the newest and latest of everything. President William McKinley even came along with most of his cabinet to take part in this extravaganza. Alas, he didn't have a very good time as he was shot by an anarchist and died a few days later. Theodore Roosevelt was vice-president at the time and was summoned to Buffalo to take the oath of office. He took the oath of office in the Ansley Wilcox house which is now a National Historic Site.

This was an interesting place, not only because of what happened here but what the park service has done to the house. They have restored  three rooms of the house but the rest of the rooms have many interactive electronic displays from videos to voting machines to a re-creation of Roosevelt's office. Some of the displays compared issues that were important in 1901 to issues today and I could not believe how many issues are just the same as back then.

Roosevelt took the oath right where that little table is

Frank Lloyd Wright. I never really understood what the big deal was with Mr. Wright. Yeah, his houses were interesting, but so? I have toured a few of his houses and generally speaking it has been no big deal. I think I get it now after touring the Darwin D. Martin house here in Buffalo.

This house was built 1903-1905 for a self-made millionaire. When you think about the type of grand houses that were being built at the time, Wright was a renegade. He was thinking outside of the box and his thinking was unlike anything anybody had done. The Martin house is in the process of some serious renovation. There is no furniture and most of the inside is a construction zone, but even with all that this house was friggin' amazing.

From the Website:  Martin House

_______________________________________________________________________________ The complex consists of six interconnected buildings designed as a unified composition, including; the main Martin House and a pergola that connects it to a conservatory and carriage house with chauffeur’s quarters and stables, the Barton House, a smaller residence for Martin’s sister and brother-in-law, and a gardener’s cottage added in 1909. The landscape design for the grounds of the complex is highly integrated with the overall composition of buildings. The Martin House is a prime example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie House ideal, with strong horizontal lines and planes, deeply overhanging eaves, a central hearth, prominent foundation, and a sheltering, cantilevered roof.  The complex contains 394 examples of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed art glass, including the famed “Tree of Life” window __________________________________________________________________________________

On the way back I stopped at Wilkeson Pointe Park, a small city park on the Buffalo Harbor. Why? Whirligigs!!!!!!

I now leave you with this breaking news: