0060 10th July - Williston to Chadron (Where ??)

Woke up at 6 am, looked out the window, and all I could see was black black black – Rain, and heavy rain, was obviously imminent.  And out here in this part of the world, they don’t do weather by halves, and after the heat and haze of yesterday, I knew something was afoot today !!   So realising that, I said loudly “Ah ha”, (as you say when you know something is afoot), and sprang (loosely speaking) from my bed, and packed up.  Having breakfasted and packed, I toddled off for a shower at 6.30 am – Only to find that everything is locked up till 9 am !!  Crumby camp site.  So I was on the road by 6.32 am – A new record for this trip (apart from when we had to catch a 5.30 am ferry on Vancouver Island.)   A couple of pics of some of the motorhomes in the camp site which have had every space and hole filled with plywood and foam-filler to try to keep the cold out in the winter !!  Some obviously more successfully than others !!

 

As I mentioned, Williston is currently in the grips of a business boom – North Dakota apparently has one of the strongest economies and jobs growth currently in the US – and highway 85 is not only incredibly busy, but they have also, in their wisdom, decided to rip it all up and build a new highway – Over the top of the old one !  I had experienced some of the issues coming into Williston yesterday, but I met a really nice guy, Dennis, in the camp site who told me another route to go that avoided most of the road works.  For the first hour today I had to go on Hwy 85, and it wasn’t a lot

of fun – the oilfield starts early, and I lost count of the number of cement trucks and logging trucks of Halliburton and Schlumberger that I saw – Chaos out there.  But after a while I got off onto the smaller Hwy 68 and then 16, and it was a stunning piece of road – Well, by N Dakota standards, anyway !  Open rolling hills and grassland to start with,  passing through the Little Missouri National Grassland, and then the Golden Valley, as well as the Theodore Roosevelt National Park (south!). It rained quite a bit, and we passed lots of Buttes – You might say some

were beaut buttes.   And I was pleased to see that, after singing the song so many times as a child, there really is a place called Home on the Range – And I did see some deer roaming, but no antelope !!   After one heavy rain storm the sun came out again and we were cruising through more sweeping ranges and I came across some cowboys doing what cowboys – Herd cattle !  And they were doing it really well, with lots of whoopin’ and a’hollerin’, and crackin’ of whips !! (I stopped for a while to enjoy the show !!).

We then passed Crow Butte, and they even had a Mercantile there – Where else in the world do you find Mercantiles ??  After that, it got pretty boring for a while, with some of the straight roads rivalling those in Australia I think.  And the day warmed up – It got to about 26 deg C with the sunshine out.

Then it was off the highway and into the Black Hills of South Dakota, and much more scenic.  Very pretty – And lots of fishing here, it seems.  We wound through the beautiful hills, and eventually came into Deadwood – Also nice to see that this place really exists too – “Where the Wild Wet lives”, according to the sign.  After that, the weather really started to close in, with really black skies as we drove around Pactola Reservoir, and then as we climbed quite steeply, we had the most almighty hailstorm – You can see all the white hail lying on

the side of the road, and in the forest !  The poor Harley Davidson in front was not having fun !  And then the warmth of the road, combined with the sudden air temperature drop from about 26 deg to 12 deg in the hail, caused heavy steam on the road – And you can see that at one point the Harley almost completely disappeared !!    Then, after the beautiful road and drama of the storm, and a wonderful archway over the road, it was on into Keystone, just before Mt Rushmore itself, and oh dear dear – All the beauty of the past 40 miles disappeared in a puff of smoke as we entered Hicksville USA !!!  Casino’s, McDonald’s, hotels, flashing neon signs everywhere.  Hmm – On up to Mt Rushmore.

The heavens opened again just as I parked the car.  $11 to park, which is OK, I guess, but then they tell you “The pass is good for a year – You can come back as many times as you want in the next year, for free”.   Great.  The National Memorial is stunning – That one man could have carved these enormous faces is simply amazing.  Unfortunately the sky was so dark to start with it was hard to get a good photo, and then the sky lightened right behind the faces, making it even harder to get photos !!  But it certainly is something worth seeing.

From there it was off down the hill, through Hicksville as quickly as possible, and then on south.  I am making a sprint for Houston now – While there may be things worth seeing, my focus now is to have a break from travel for a few days with some very good friends, and get the car serviced and buy new tyres etc for part 2 of the journey.  So I am just going to put my head down and go.   Driving east this evening, by 6 pm the temps had risen to 32 deg C, and I finally called it a day at about 7 pm in a place called Chadron, Nebraska, just over the border from S Dakota.  I found a little state park, and just got the van set up when the heavens opened again.  So a quick meal inside, and as I write this, there is thunder and lightning all around me, and the rain is bucketing down.  Hope Troopie is waterproof tonight !!!

Pics here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0061WillistonToChadron?authkey=Gv1sRgCKjm8qD129TjigE#