Nebraska to Home!

I'm ready to wrap up these posts and this one will do that! I have enjoyed reporting back what I found OUT THERE in NC, VA, W.VA, and PA in my 2 weeks prior to Annie's Surgery then back to TN, KY, IN, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Northern Lake Superior area of Ontario Canada, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and now a quick ride through Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, TN, NC and back Home in SC!!! 

For me one of the highlights was the 3 days I got to spend with my sister in TN at our family cemetery decoration! There is no place on Earth more special to me than where my family is...and that is what makes me turn around and come back home.  I sure miss her now she is back at her home and we await the next time we get to be together.

roadside NE

The morning spent in Valentine, NE was chilly at 38 degrees,  I was only one mile out of town so made the decision to do a coffee and  biscuit at McDonald's!  

 I stopped to have a tire looked at in a Mr Tyre shop it was locally owned and operated and they suggested I put my spare on as the belt had broken in one of my front tires.  I had already purchased one new tire back in Williston, ND, wonder why they didn't catch that broken belt? SO the vibration I had been feeling was immediately gone when they switched the tire...SO Happy as I could not stand that vibration for 1700 miles!! 

 After my early Mr Tyre visit, and back on the road I spotted Valentine National Wildlife Refuge! OH have to at least make a quick stop.  So U-Turn!

took a short hike up this path armed on both sides with prickly things!

the white crowned sparrows were loving it..

I took a drive down one of the dirt roads in the refuge across a cattle gate to a few ponds..



some pied billed grebe, mallard, and red winged black bird was around, but not interested in my camera however these cows liked it a lot!

some Euro Starlings taking a ride on the windmill...

while these northern rough winged swallows were totally interested in this digger!

And a Great Blue Heron was almost hidden the grass

flushed mallards

It was close to lunch time so we had it here and then split! 

3 wood ducks for our lunch viewing pleasure

I stayed on Hwy 83 south down to 92/2 then onto I-80 East and exited onto Hwy 14 

Here I stopped for the night just shy of the Kansas line in Superior, NE and stayed in their Municipal park free! There was electric and water! Big mature trees each site paved really nice, all you have to do is put your name in a registry book...There is a train right beside the park...so be prepared. 

Superior NE Municipal  Park 

On the morning of Sept. 27th  it was back on 14 South into Kansas  I thought of driving the 35 miles to Smith Center since I had read about it in Belle Fourche, as being the original center of the USA, but that would mean a round trip of 66 miles...so maybe some other time?

So kept going on hwy 14 S....and then onto I-70 East bound.

Right thru the heartlands.....It was harvest time in NE and Kansas...

the dusty combines were hard at work and the trucks full of grain made tracks to the bins...I could feel the urgency as the wind chilled the air telling me to go home and telling them to get that crop in!

I stopped alongside a sunflower field full of Red Winged Blackbirds...

It was a hard day of driving!! I stopped only for gas, restroom and to eat and ended up in Columbia Missouri at a state park called Graham Cave for my second day of heading home.  $12, it had a nice shower house...and that night I blew up my DVD player! I think it was one of those issues of over charging the battery...2 loud pops some yukky electrical burn smell and it was toast! I tossed it in the trash can--I'm still looking for the perfect replacement. They now make a 10" screen on portable DVD players with a 5 hrs on one charge

Back on I-70 I breezed thru Kansas City...and it took me for ever to get through St. Louis, its a solid 60 mins of heavy traffic 

with Wilma keeping me straight I remembered why I had stopped using I-70 as an East/West route! So in the city I have to get on I-55 S for a short while then I-64 E, then South on I-57 to I-24 East

I did snap this one of the St Louis Gateway Arch!

 then Finally onto I-40 East at Nashville.  Seemed like I finally took a long breath once Nashville was in my rear view.  I always just want to get through Nashville and have never wanted to stop and see the sites in ...small towns ...YES!

After another hard day of driving I stopped in Crossville, TN, 

Crossville mural

not far from where I was born, appropriately since the next day was my birthday! 

Crossville Theatre

I stayed in the Cumberland Mtn State park, had electric, showers and all $18 kind of high...if it hadnt been so cool I'd have done the Walmart, but I sure needed that little electric heater to keep me warm all night.

Next day by 4 pm I was at Home!! Mom recalled how she had paid Dr Rhinehart $30 to deliver me 63 yrs ago on this day..I  photographed the Dr's grave when my sis and I were near here just a few weeks back when I started my solo journey...my circle was complete! 

I had a fantastic journey! I added 7 new birds to my life list, I forgot to mention the Merlin I saw on my way to the Writing Rock, I got one fuzzy shot if it..add to that the Ruffed Grouse, Swainson's Thrush, Franklin's Gull, Black Backed Woodpecker, Vesper Sparrow, Yellow Headed Blackbird, and actually the Green Pheasant makes 8 as I'm counting it as separate from the ring neck since it has NO rings!  

My list is my just for me list I'm not necessarily PC so I count it. 

                    Soon I will be back to posting in real time, I hope! My next post is about our Beach Trip!

 

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Bury My Heart...

Another cold morning and after breakfast and coffee....I decided to check my mileage to Home before leaving...

Dang its a 3 1/2  hard days drive for me to home from here! And that's like pedal to metal...And I had at least 2 other stops planned! Better get busy

Wind Cave was a great stop and I sure did like the little town of Hot Springs. After mailing my postcards in the post office on Sunday I once again turned it South on Hwy 18 toward Oglala, SD and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 

I didn't take any photos in the Reservation town of Pine Ridge, but it sure did look like a thriving town to me! They were in the middle of re doing the main street so that was bit rough but it's a necessary thing! Some signs of low income but I've seen that all along this trip. So I came down this way to visit the Site of Wounded Knee. I won't go far into the history as you either already know it or you can find it online....but it all started when they started to practice a new religious idea, the "Ghost Dance", in that they believed they would become bullet proof, So I just wanted to see what was there and the answer is not much...

I mean how hard would it be for our National Parks System to offer to make some kind of decent memorial for Big Foot and the 300 Sioux who died here?   Canada publicly acknowledged the WRONG they did to the Native people there...when will the USA do the same? So on the site I saw this...just a simple board with a text describing the events of the Massacre. 

And in the background you can see booths set up where tourists like me are normally asked to buy trinkets...A few locals were there bumming a dollar or asking for smokes, and trying to push their crafts... I listened to them and politely told them I have no budget for trinkets.  Which was the honest to goodness truth!! And I was left alone after that. 

You may not be aware that there was another uprising here in 1973 when the AIM (American Indian Movement) took control of Wounded Knee and there was an occupation of about 70 days! I had a conversation with this lady who was asking for money for a short history of the area, I gave her a dollar...she told me she did not agree with AIM, she felt they had not helped the plight of the Reservations.  AIM demanded that the Fed Govt review and make right all the promises they had made in the Treaties they made with Native Tribes.  Anyway...nothing ever became of the promise to review the treaties! ALL BS as usual. I do NOT support armed take overs of any kind...

Up on this hill (that's the woman who told me some of the history) is the Cemetery with a marker  with some names of the massacred. AIM burned the original church and a store next door, where arts and crafts were sold...it was never rebuilt, the church was but its pretty rickety now..

A list of some of the dead...

This is another store building on the site that is not open...the lady told me the guy moved back to Germany and he has no plans to reopen the store he sold trinkets and memorabilia of the Massacre.
And that's all there is on this site! 

So I continued north a bit on BIA Hwy 27, up to Sharps Corner and on to the Southern most entrance to Badlands NP, which is on Sioux land, 

 the White River VC is there and tho I had no time to explore the area...I did go inside meet the native ranger and get my passport stamp... 

More things to come back to see!  Mom and I toured the Bad Lands back in 1998 but we didn't cover every inch of the park.  We sure hit the highlights tho. 

I wanted to have my lunch break in the picnic area but as you can see by these flags there was a strong wind a'blowin so Casey and I had lunch in the van with our side doors open the wind was at our drivers side flank...so we enjoyed the sounds and sights out of the wind! IT is beautiful in this area...and I sure wanted to go exploring---> hard to turn back!!! This is where I have this conversation with myself..."life is not always fair" etc...etc...etc. 

I backtracked to Hwy 27 as it continues East then took 83 South..

and entered Nebraska, 

old telegraph pole 

I spent the evening in Valentine, NE in their Municipal park. $5.  It was small but suitable, it had only a few sites I had electric, there's hot showers in a not so pretty bath house but it worked! A small stream flows by the park and there is some hiking trails.  I took no photos there and Casey got a foot full of sand spurs! Ouch!

Up next more sights of NE and my ride back to SC. I'm trying to get caught up so I'm posting as fast as I can!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Hot Springs, SD

the Morning was COLD! See your breath cold...I made a fast coffee and breakfast then headed down to Hot Springs to resupply and do laundry.  I found one with free WiFi, and I was able to upload photos and make a  blog post while sitting there waiting...and watching the dryer tumble...I would live in Hot Springs, only leave in winter!  Its a small town of about 3800 people, a lovely little Western town.  

                                                       Hot Springs and the Fall River 

 There is a fun looking quilt shop I was walking Casey so didn't go inside...I love the name, Heart Song

We walked down down the river walk along the Fall River,  and then across and down the main street...and back to the River walk and park.. and there is a falls in town!  The water is warm as this flows from a warm spring. 

Up on the Morning Sunshine Coffee shop is this Blue Bison 

And check out this colorful mural...love this I'd like a poster of it.  

 

And Wind Cave National Park is only 8 miles up the hill from town!  

The Red Sandstone on these buildings was quarried right in this area. 

City Hall building 1893

George Custer Painting in a store window 

and there is something else here of interest just up a ways out of the Historic District... 

The Mammoth Site! It is an actual archaeological dig in progress!  

You do have to pay an entrance fee to tour the dig area, Seniors is $9.  Inside you see numerous skeletons of  Woolly Mammoth and 

and Columbian Mammoths in the old sink hole where this dig is.  This building was built over the site!!

 

Lots of cool stuff to see! There is a guided tour and they explain what they are doing and answer questions...you have to go see it for yourself!

the Columbian is more like the elephant and much bigger than the woolly mammoth as these plywood displays show the size difference. 

a work in progress

I was thrilled! AND they had Turned Pennies in the gift shop they sold them already turned...so I was thrilled again!  I keep  hoping they will clone a woolly mammoth one day! 

Got my laundry done, got some food to keep me going, even got some fast food at Taco John's, and then headed back to Wind Cave and Elk Mountain Campground for another night.  Again it was cold! I met some more Aussie's when I walked Casey in the morning, they had a very unique rig..no photos but it was a tent atop a trailer and it had a galley kitchen that was open air, they said the storm of the night before had nearly flipped them! They both got out of the tent and jumped in their Jeep! It reminded me of this type rig..

https://www.facebook.com/naturefreaksusa/videos/

I did like it tho it was soooo cool, not for me as I do desire some creature comforts, like being able to step right out onto the ground...

I didn't want to leave Wind Cave there were areas I did not get to explore,  but dang it was cold I had to wear all the bells and whistles, scarf, gloves, ear muff and hoodie, heavy clothes all over... reminded me of my days off back in Brooklyn LoL...so South I went!

Next up Wounded Knee...but one more Bison for the road!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.