Dam It

Posted on September 24, 2024 by admin

Plenty of people visit places simply because they’ve been in some famous bit of entertainment, and can’t say I’m immune to the impulse. Still, my choices are a little more – obscure. Eccentric? I’ll bet the Grand Coulee Dam never appears on formulaic lists like these, mainly because the compiler (he, she or it) has never heard of the Woody Guthrie song of that name.

Or the version I like best, by the King of Skiffle himself.

I’d probably have heard of the Grand Coulee Dam anyway, but would we have gone maybe an hour out of our way in eastern Washington to see it, but for the song? I’m going to say no, because how many dams are there, even very large ones, on the rivers of North America? A lot. How many had skillful publicists like Grand Coulee? Not as many.

The Bonneville Power Administration paid Guthrie to write some songs about the mighty Columbia, and write he did, including “Grand Coulee Dam.” Fairly obscure, maybe, but not unknown more than 80 years later. I’d say the agency got its money’s worth.

They got some extraordinary verse.

In the misty crystal glitter of that wild and windward spray,
Men have fought the pounding waters and met a watery grave,
Well, she tore their boats to splinters but she gave men dreams to dream
Of the day the Coulee Dam would cross that wild and wasted stream.

The dam doesn’t disappoint, if you’ve a eye for infrastructure.

How is it that human beings can building something that large?

“Grand Coulee Dam, The Eighth Wonder of the World” gets right to the point of awe-inspiring comparisons.

“Holding in check the mighty Columbia, at a point where the river flows through a lava-rimmed, 1600-foot-deep chasm on its way to the sea, the dam dwarfs the efforts of the Builder Cheops, to whom is accredited the largest of the pyramids at Gizah, Egypt,” the booklet says.

“The ancient sepulcher of kings is surpassed in size nearly four times by the Grand Coulee Dam…”

The payoff.

Roosevelt Lake provides irrigation and recreation, but the core function is its hydropower generation capacity, which is 6,645 MW. Number-one in the United States and still among the top dams worldwide, on a list that’s mostly crowded with Chinese structures these days.

By the time Guthrie wrote the song, he was able to include this rousing verse.

Now in Washington and Oregon you can hear the factories hum,
Making chrome and making manganese and light aluminum,
And there roars the flying fortress now to fight for Uncle Sam,
Spawned upon the King Columbia by the big Grand Coulee Dam.

The dam has a visitor center with a mid-sized museum about the dam, including such artifacts as building tools, enormous corona rings, the wheelchair available to President Roosevelt when he came to dedicate the dam, bottles that held water from each state and territory that were used in a ceremony at the dam in 1951, and film and stills from the construction itself. Woody Guthrie and the song get a mention, as did ordinary dam workers and people displaced by the creation of Roosevelt Lake. There is a map illustrating the 31 dams of the Federal Columbia River Power System and a plaque for workers who died on the job.

Grand Coulee wasn’t the only dam we saw. On our return trip, we paid a visit to the Bonneville Dam, also on the mighty Columbia, just further downstream.

Also mentioned in a Woody Gurthrie song, “Jackhammer Blues.” The one I prefer is a late Weavers’ modified version.

Hammered on the Bonneville, hammered on the Butte
Columbia River to the five mile chute…

Hammered on the Boulder, Coulee, too
Always broke when the job was through

One more dam, much smaller, but impressive in its way. The Jackson Lake Dam in Grand Teton NP.

Holds back the Snake River to form an enlargement of a natural lake.

Not mentioned in any song that I know of, but a tip of a massive reservoir system.

Riverfront Park, Spokane

Posted on September 23, 2024 by admin

Until we took a stroll through Riverfront Park in Spokane, I’d forgotten about Expo ’74. Turns out the park is a legacy of that world’s fair.

I’ve enjoyed visiting world’s fair legacies over the years, beginning with the many times I visited Hemisfair Plaza in San Antonio, but also the Expo ’70 Commemorative Park in Osaka, the Biosphere in Montreal, the Unisphere in New York, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Forest Park in St. Louis, the Parthenon in Nashville, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and even the Eiffel Tower, if you want to go back that far. If the Crystal Palace had been still standing, I’d have gone to see that.

I’m sure I heard about Expo ’74 at the time, but it was in distant Spokane, which I’d only ever seen on maps. With no likelihood of a visit, I probably didn’t give it much thought at 13. Or afterward. Not until 50 years after the event, on August 25, 2024, when we decided to spend a few hours in downtown Spokane before heading to Seattle.

A river runs through it. Namely, the Spokane River, which is a tributary of the mighty Columbia. (Every time I write about that river, I will use “mighty” just as “stately” always comes before Wayne Manor.) The Spokane roars around an island, formerly known as Canada Island, and still called that according to Google Maps, dividing the upper falls.

In 2017, the Spokane Parks Board decided that “snxw meneɂ” (sin-HOO-men-huh), a Salish word, would be a more fitting name. Salmon People, to render it in English. Once upon a time, the Salish caught salmon there.

The river travels over a small dam, then to the lower falls.

Back in the late 19th century, the area was industrial.

The location wasn’t quite as valuable for industry by the 1960s, so it was picked as the site for the world’s fair, whose formal name was the International Exposition on the Environment, Spokane 1974. Some 5.6 million people showed up for it, compared with 6.3 million for HemisFair in 1968 (and I was among those).

The legacy park.

A pleasant place to stroll on a summer Sunday. Lots to see, such as site of the former U.S. Pavilion.

The handsome Washington Water Power Co. building, dating from 1907. Not actually in the park, but highly visible from the park.

A reminder of long-ago native inhabitants of the area.

For even better views of the river, there’s a sky ride. Its course parallels the river near the lower falls, and then turns around and comes right back, taking 20 or so minutes.

We took a ride. Of course we did. That’s how I was able to take photos of the lower falls, posted above.

Going-to-the-Sun Road

Posted on September 22, 2024 by admin

No point in burying the lead. Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier NP is famed for its splendid mountain scenery, and for good reason.

The road is also an epic feat of civil engineering. With its large pullouts for auto tourism, it dates from what you might call the golden age of road building in national parks, which was spurred by the prospect of auto tourism. Beginning about 100 years ago, that is, and a key factor in making Glacier a tourist magnet over the years.

Nearly or over 3 million visitors have visited each year since 2016, except for 2020. In 2022, Glacier was tenth-most visited of the 63 national parks.

On August 24, we drove westward on the two-lane Going-to-the-Sun Road, which winds across Glacier for 50 miles or so. Hard to believe that such a poetic name is government sanctioned, but so it is, named for the nearby Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, which in turn had been named that by the remarkable, and mostly forgotten, James Willard Schultz. Apparently he took it upon himself to name features in the future Glacier National Park long before it was a park, which it became in 1910, with President Taft’s signature on the bill.

The eastern entrance to the road has a visitor center, which flies two flags of nearby nations, along with the Stars and Stripes.

The less familiar one is the Blackfeet Nation.

The Blackfeet Reservation, at 1.5 million acres, is half again as large as Glacier NP, which comes in at about a million acres. The reservation is due east of the park, and in fact they share a border on the eastern side of the park. Indeed, much of the park was part of the reservation until the tribe was obliged to cede the land in the 1890s.

Another digression: “The Chief Mountain Hotshots are a Native American elite firefighting crew based out of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation located at Browning, MT with Glacier National Park as their backyard,” the Bureau of Indian Affairs says.

“The Chief Mountain Hotshots are a highly trained self-sufficient hotshot crew working in wildland firefighting. On average, the Crew works 15-20 large fire incidents and travels 10,000-20,000 miles a year.” More about the hotshots is here.

All good to know, but I’m glad there were no wildfires in the vicinity for them to fight. As the road passes along the north shore of cold-water Saint Mary Lake —

— clearly there has been some wildfire.

The road rises from the lake, elevation 4,484 feet, toward the Continental Divide at Logan Pass, elevation 6,646 feet.

Logan Pass is the kind of place we would stop, but there was no available parking. This pic was taken by a photographer named Ken Thomas, who thoughtfully put it in the public domain.

No trucks or RVs allowed on the road, since they wouldn’t fit in some (many) places. That doesn’t keep drivers off the road, however. During the warm months when it’s open, Going-to-the-Sun is a busy place.

Even so, much of it still has that classic mountain appeal of low traffic.

Except when there are knots of traffic. Just a few.

Mountain scenery has a broad appeal.

Toward the east end of the park, the road parallels McDonald Creek for a number of miles before it connects with Lake McDonald, the larger of the park’s two major lakes, and the lower, at 3,153 feet elevation. Some of the creek has more of a river look.

Closer to the lake, the creek is rocky.

The water is bound for the Flathead River, a tributary of the mighty Columbia. We stopped at a wooden bridge across the creek.

Pedestrians can cross, but a sign warns that horse traffic has the right of way.

Not something you see too often. I assume that’s horses with riders, as part of a horse-riding trail, though maybe wild horses might have the right of way too. Like bears or moose, they’re large and might insist.

Bears!

Posted on September 20, 2024 by admin

Nosing around the other day, I was a little surprised to find a National Park Service web page called “Deaths in National Parks,” which details mortality in the wider universe of NPS properties, which is about 430 locations, not just the 63 formal national parks. For a six-year period including calendar years 2014 to 2019.

Among other factoids, taken verbatim: motor vehicle crashes, drownings, and falls are the top three leading causes of unintentional deaths in parks, in that order; half of medical deaths (50%) occurred while the individual was engaged in a physical activity (e.g., hiking, biking, swimming); suicides account for 93% of all reported intentional deaths.

People die while hiking and walking, and swimming and boating, in other words, but the number-one risk is driving. The graph for Unintentional Deaths by Cause affirms that auto accidents are indeed number one, but drowning and falls are popular ways to die, too. A very rare way to die, on the other hand – only three times in six years – is “wildlife.” Which could involve an angry bear, but maybe not. Could be a mountain lion or even be a poisonous snake.

Even so, we boldly took our hikes out West, at Glacier NP and later Grand Teton NP, armed with bear spray. So did a lot of other people. The distinctive shape of the can, with the spray nozzle up top, was attached to a lot of people’s belts or, as we did, in an exterior pocket of a backpack. Though attacks are very rare, better to have one, I figured. I don’t want my last thought to be about how statistically unlikely my death is. Bears aren’t known to care about statistics. Rather, I want my last thought to be, There, I just sprayed the bear! Doesn’t seem to be working…

This is quite the rabbit hole. (Bear cave?) Bear encounters used to be a worse problem, at least in Yellowstone NP. The site Bear Aware has an article called “History of Bear Feeding in Yellowstone National Park,” which includes some astonishing information.

“In the 1920s, the National Park Service began actively encouraging bear feeding as a way to attract visitors and generate revenue for the park,” the article explains. “Feeding stations were set up throughout the park, and rangers would even bring food to bears in order to ensure their presence in certain areas.

“As the popularity of bear feeding grew, so did concerns about the impact on the bears and their natural behavior. Bears became increasingly habituated to humans and dependent on handouts, leading to a rise in aggressive behavior and dangerous interactions with park visitors.”

By 1970, the NPS had figured out that decades of feeding bears was a bad idea, and ended the practice.

“Since the 1960s, the recorded number of negative encounters between humans and bears has dropped from 48 to 1 annually,” the article notes. I like that term, “negative encounters.” I suppose just seeing the bears at a distance, and safely moving away, as we did at Glacier, would be a “positive encounter,” or maybe neutral.

But do Yellowstone bears, in as much as they remember their history — maybe more that we realize — recall the days of ranger-sanctioned feeding with warm nostalgia? Stealing picnic baskets was no big deal, the older bears tell the younger ones. Yogi was a role model.

Glacier National Park

Posted on September 19, 2024 by admin

“Did you see the weather forecast for today?” the young-faced NPS ranger said to us at the Many Glacier entrance station of Glacier National Park on August 23. Skies were clear that morning and the air had the makings of a warm day, but I confessed that we hadn’t. That was a bit of carelessness, considering that we were planning to take a hike. I think he wanted to tell us that, but thought better of it.

“There might be a thunderstorm this afternoon,” he continued politely. “Or not. Weather’s unpredictable here.”

I thanked him and we went on our way. What to do with that information, anyway? Cower somewhere dry? No. The hike was on.

Another way to refer to Glacier is Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, since the much smaller Waterton Lakes NP, a Parks Canada unit, is just north of Glacier on the other side of the Canadian border. Single park, my foot. You still need a passport to go to Waterton, at least if you drive, and I assume you pay separate admission. Still, the road to Waterton has a cool name: Chief Mountain International Highway (Montana 17 and then Alberta 6).

The part of Glacier NP we first visited was about 20 miles south of the border, and I think the closest we came to Canada on this trip. We had our passports, in case we wanted to go. It’s good to have options. But we didn’t have the energy for the rigmarole of two border crossings.

A short drive from the Many Glacier entrance is the Many Glacier Hotel.

The hotel has views. Looking out on Swiftcurrent Lake.

Many Glacier Hotel dates from the 1910s, the handsome sort of place railroads were building at the time. Swiss style, to go with the notion of Glacier NP as the Switzerland of America. These days it is priced as a luxury property, only open in the summer. This year, it closed just this week. During the winter, I suppose, management hires a fellow like Jack Torrance as a caretaker. Well, maybe not quite like him.

A trail starts the hotel and goes around Swiftcurrent Lake, as well as the adjoining Josephine Lake, making connections with harder trails that lead into the mountains. Packing water, hats, walking sticks, plastic ponchos, and bear spray obtained at a big-box retailer in Helena, we headed off to do a circuit around Josephine Lake. To get there, you hike around the southern edge of Swiftcurrent.

It ended up being about a four-mile walk, with views of the mountains.

Anyone with a smartphone can now do homages to Ansel Adams. Pretty good ones, too.

There are still glaciers in Glacier NP, but they are receding. One forecast of their total disappearance is by 2030.

Views of the water.

Møøse!

Toward the end of the walk around Lake Josephine, we spotted bears frolicking in the water, too. At just the right distance. That is, pretty far away, especially because it was a mother and two cubs.

Eventually, the trail leads back to the hotel. We were fairly tired by then, so it was a good thing to see.

After the hike was over, we saw bison.

On my plate at one of the hotel restaurants. A nice buffalo burger, if a little expensive. You know what they say about room for all of God’s creatures, except that I didn’t have any mashed potatoes with that meal. Next to the French fries, then.

Remember the weather forecast? During our hike, and the meal afterward, skies were clear and temps warm. We needed those hats and that water. As we were leaving Many Glacier Hotel, however, we noticed dark clouds massing to the north. A moisture invasion from Alberta-British Columbia.

By the time we (almost) got back to our campground outside the St. Mary entrance to the park, the thunderstorm had arrived. Rain and then a few minutes of hail. I pulled over under a tree that offered some protection, but luckily the hailstones weren’t as big as in Wyoming, and didn’t even put any dints in the roof of the car.

One-of-a-Kind Montana Shops

Posted on September 18, 2024 by admin

US 287 north from Helena, Montana, is a little short on signs of human habitation.

Eventually, you come to the Census-designated place called Augusta, pop. 300 or so. Part of its Main Street is US 287, featuring the sort of things you expect in a small-town main street.

A main street in Montana, that is.

There are other ideas about what the flag should look like, and considering the wave of new state flags, it might be changed.

Then there was this house stuffed to the gills with stuff, offering that stuff for sale. A lot of stuff. A resale business dealing in stuff, let’s say. No formal name that I could see.

We couldn’t pass that by. The mind boggles at how this accumulation accumulated, and you should boggle your mind every now and then. The place was so jammed that I had to be conscious of every movement, lest I bush into something and cause of avalanche of stuff.

Lots of stuff outside, too.

Say, whatever happened to Lash LaRue?

Just curious. I’m not enough of a fan to buy a beat-up $20 comic book, though I bought a few postcards unrelated to LaRue or Westerns or even movies.

In fact, I didn’t know much about LaRue, so I later read one of his obituaries. He died only in 1996, with B Westerns having long passed him by. Even by the early ’70s that was the case, as reflected by the Statler Brothers’ catchy 1973 bug-in-amber song, “Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?” (Who died in 1987.)

Just west of the western entrance of Glacier NP, on US 2 in the town of Columbia Falls, Montana, is Ten Commandment Park, a.k.a. God’s Ten Commandments Park. I hadn’t read that Roadside America article or heard about it in any way. But I saw it. Couldn’t pass that by either. Not retail, strictly speaking, but there were items for sale inside. Or, I suppose, available for a donation.

The welcome center is along a U-shaped driveway that sports many billboards.

Some exhorted one and all to follow a specific Commandment; others were pro-religious quotes from famed U.S. presidents; and yet others lauded Jesus.

I had to go in.

A fellow of about my age, large and gray bearded, was there to greet me. Frankly I expected a bit more witnessing from him. Instead, he told me to look around, let him know if I wanted to buy anything, and he offered license plate-sized Ten Commandments and Jesus magnets for free. Also, a few free snacks. That was it.

Helena, Montana

Posted on September 17, 2024 by admin

Missing a hike around Devils Tower meant we had time for other things, including a fine second breakfast in Hulett, Wyoming (pop. 300+). I asked the waitress what it was like a few weeks earlier, during the Sturgis Rally.

“Crazy,” she said, adding that the rally started on her third day on the job, for that extra measure of crazy.

She and her husband and daughter had been living on a boat for five years until recently, she also said, including a sail through the Panama Canal once. She mentioned that almost in passing, as if five years on a boat is something people often do, followed by relocating far away from any oceans. Though not Sturgis-busy, the place had more than a few customers, so I wasn’t able to get more detail.

We had time to look around Sundance, Wyoming before we left. Turns out Harry A. Longabaugh spent some time in the local jug for a bit of thieving near Sundance, and so he became known as the Sundance Kid. The town of Sundance (pop. just over 1,000) wants you to know this, communicating it to passersby with a memorial in the town’s main municipal park.

Despite his long history of criminal shenanigans, that was apparently the only time he was imprisoned. Guess you can get away with a lot when you have the dashing good looks and vim of a young Robert Redford.

The drive from Sundance into Montana and on to Helena took up most of the day on August 21.

Billings, Montana, bears further investigation if we’re ever out that way again. All it takes to impress me sometimes is a terrific lunch, and that we found at Spitz Mediterranean Street Food in downtown Billings. It didn’t seem like a chain – and I’d never heard of it – but there are about 20 of them, and it seems that Billings can support one. Other locations are in such usual-suspect retail markets as southern California, Denver, Portland, Ore. and DFW.

We spent the night in Helena and woke the next morning to more than a hint of a wildfire in the air, from elsewhere in Montana, but less than an air action day.

We planned to drive to the entrance of Glacier NP that day, but we couldn’t leave the capital of Montana without seeing the capitol. Front and back.

Inside.

Stained glass is a little unusual in a capitol, but not unheard of.

Murals are more common. Some clearly from an earlier period.

More recent murals depict scenes like this, the cooperative spirit between native and settler women.

On display in the Montana House of Representatives chamber – and the reason its door is always locked, to protect it, a sign said – is the painting “Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross’ Hole,” by Montana artist Charlie Russell (d. 1926). It is a highly esteemed work of his.

In situ:

Only a few blocks from the capitol is the Cathedral of St. Helena, which is undergoing exterior renovation.

It was open.

Some magnificent stained glass.

Before leaving town, we visited downtown Helena.

Soon we made our way to N. Last Chance Gulch Street, which is a pedestrian thoroughfare. At least, that’s what Google Maps calls it.

The Helena As She Was web site says of this street, in answer to what its real name is:

“The answer is: Both. Last Chance Gulch is the name of the actual gulch in which gold was discovered in 1864. The thoroughfare which was built down the Gulch was originally named Main Street. It remained that way for some 85 years, until July 20 1953, when acting Helena Mayor Dr. Amos R. Little, Jr. signed an ordinance officially changing the name of Main Street to Last Chance Gulch. Both names are still used locally for what was once the grand thoroughfare of Helena’s business district.

“Last Chance Gulch meanders as it does because it was originally routed between mining claims; it was not designed that way to lower fatalities from stray bullets, as some promotional literature has claimed.”

Stray bullets, eh? Helena wouldn’t be the only place that trades on a history of (fortunately) long-ago violence. That kind of thing is a dime a dozen west of the Mississippi, and not unknown to the east.

Along N. Last Chance Gulch. And there is a S. Last Chance Gulch, though we didn’t walk that far.

We found Taco del Sol on N. Last Chance Gulch. Unlike Spitz, a standalone operation.

If you want tasty nachos in Helena, Montana, Taco del Sol is your place.

Devils Tower National Monument

Posted on September 16, 2024 by admin

Days are still fairly long in mid-August, so spending some time at Badlands NP before driving to Wyoming wasn’t a bad idea. As long as we got to our campsite with some light left, setting things up wouldn’t be difficult.

I’d checked the weather for our destination, Devils Tower National Monument, and the only time rain was expected was the late afternoon on August 19, exactly when we would arrive. Ah, well. Nothing to do about that but press on.

Skies were cloudy and the wind was up by the time we got to Wyoming.

The monument isn’t far from the border with South Dakota. Take I-90 to Sundance, then US 14 and then a short stretch of Wyoming 24 to the monument. Soon after we got off the Interstate, that ominous gray cut loose some fierce rain, so heavy at times that it was best to find a wide place in the road to stop and wait for it to pass. That happened more than once as the rain variously intensified and slacked off.

Even so, we got the the entrance to the monument – and the campground just outside the entrance – well before dark. No worries. Did it snow here while it was raining on us a few miles away?

No. That was hail. Some fairly big hailstones, too; not quite golf ball-sized, but not too far off the mark. We went in to register to find that the campground had lost its power.

“Storm knocked out your power?” I asked the clerk, a middle-aged woman. It had, she said, and done a lot of other damage, including to vehicles parked in the campground. She also explained that the places where tent campers go was probably covered by melting ice. She offered to do a refund for the day’s worth of camping we’d paid as a down payment on two days — as soon as the computers were up again.

And she did. Cell service was possible in the area, to my surprise, and I looked into a couple of motels in Sundance, about 20 or 30 minutes away. The Bear Lodge Motel had what we needed: two nights at a middling price. The motel was a comfortable independent with a fairly traditional streak when it came to motel décor and amenities, though (damn it) no bottle opener attached under the sink outside the bathroom and no Sanitized For Your Protection ribbon. Nice beds, though, and bathroom for that matter.

The next morning was clear and after a simple breakfast in the room, we returned to Devils Tower with the idea that we’d hike the trail that circles the tower. This time I had the leisure to document the approach to the monument.

Soon we discovered that the monument was closed. People from their cars and tour buses found out the very same thing.

I asked a NPS ranger at the entrance about it, and he said that a lot of trees and maybe rocks and other debris had fallen on the road inside the monument, and he didn’t know when it would open again – though he guessed not today, stressing that that wasn’t the official word. I thanked him and we figured, not today was about the size of it.

We wandered around a bit, taking a look at the thing. “Bear Lodge” is the translation of native names for the tower. The reference to the Devil was a Victorian-era creation (another of the four fonts of the modern world, and a particularly big one).

Impressive. If I understand what I read, scientific opinion isn’t quite solid on the exact process that caused the rising of the tower, but there it was: an igneous tower rising over sedimentary plains. Lording over the plains? There’s nothing that can’t be anthropomorphized.

Speaking of which, bipedal and stretched-body space aliens of a distinct green hue can be found in the main gift shop outside the entrance (not a NPS shop).

Remarkable, the ongoing influence (though admittedly minor) of a movie that came out nearly 50 years ago. Guess that shows the value of putting a catchy tune in your movie.

I hadn’t thought about that movie in years, much less seen it. In fact, I’ve seen it only once, as a new movie in late 1977, in those heady first months of having a drivers license, which meant I could take girls out. I did to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, though I’m not quite certain now which girl I took.

If you asked me, the gift shop had too much space alien bric-a-brac and not enough Teddy Roosevelt. His name is on the presidential proclamation creating the monument, the very first one under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

I sent a picture of the tower to my old friend Tom.

Tom responded with a text: *Hears the movie theme to Close Encounters*

Me: Looking at the gift shop, you’d think there was a permanent alien settlement on top.

Tom: *Looks around shiftily.* Isn’t there? Have you actually been up there to find out? They could have their own Starbucks up there for all we know.

Me: The truth is out there.

Tom: And it might be caffeinated!

Badlands National Park ’24

Posted on September 15, 2024 by admin

A little over 19 years ago, we visited Badlands National Park, which is easily accessible from I-90. Our visit ended up being short.

Lilly wasn’t impressed. Could have been the heat. Must of been pushing 100 F. pretty hard. Also, the austere beauty might have been lost on a seven-year-old.

On the afternoon of August 19 this year, conditions were dry and warm at Badlands, but not oppressively hot. This time we spent a few hours longer.

At the entrance, I also made an investment in my future travels. One that has already paid off: an America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass, of the Senior Lifetime variety. You need to be 62 or older to get one, but if you are, the NPS employee at the entrance station can issue you one on the spot. If I can keep track of the physical card – which is exactly the same size and composition as a credit card – I can use for admission to NPS units until I go to that jurisdiction beyond federal oversight, namely the Great Beyond.

All for $80. Considering that vehicular admission to this particular park is ordinarily $30, I was already on my way to my money’s worth. Later on just this trip, we used the pass for admission to Glacier National Park (ordinarily $35), Olympic National Park ($30), Craters of the Moon National Monument ($20), Grand Teton National Park ($35) and Yellowstone National Park ($35). A good deal. You’d think the government was encouraging old people to travel.

I don’t need the encouragement.

“For hundreds of years, the Lakota people have called this area mako sica, which literally translates to ‘bad lands,’ the NPS notes. “When early French fur trappers passed through this area, they called the area les mauvaises terres a traveser (‘bad lands to travel across’). Since the French trappers spent time with the Lakota, it is likely that the French name is derived directly from the Lakota one.

“The Badlands presents many challenges to easy travel,” the NPS publication notes wryly. (Government pubs get to be wry?)

Except, of course, for the road that dips into the park and runs through the North Unit. Other parts of the park, which extends to the southwest away from the reach of paved roads, look remote indeed.

“When it rains in the Badlands, the wet clay becomes slick and sticky, making it very difficult to cross. The jagged canyons and buttes that cover the landscape also make it hard to navigate. The winters are cold and windy, the summers are hot and dry, and the few water sources that exist are normally muddy and unsafe to drink. These factors make the land difficult to survive in, and evidence of early human activity in the Badlands points to seasonal hunting rather than permanent habitation.

‘In 1922, when Badlands was first proposed as a national park, the suggested name was Wonderland National Park!”

One more detail. A little more bad in the badlands.

No buboes so far, so I figure we’ve avoided the plague for now. But I can’t say I wasn’t warned. In case you’re curious: The three most endemic countries for plague are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru, according to WHO. Not South Dakota, at least not yet.

South Dakota Dash ’24

Posted on September 13, 2024 by admin

The first day of the trip was a slog from Illinois through Wisconsin and most of southern Minnesota. The second day, August 19, we woke up in Luverne, Minnesota and went to bed in Sundance, Wyoming. Less of a slog, mainly because we stopped a few places in South Dakota along I-90.

First of all, Sioux Falls. How can you stop in Sioux Falls and not see the falls?

Hard to believe, if you crop things right, you’re in a city of around 200,000. Sioux quartzite, it’s called.

Once a hub of water-power industries — the ruins of a mill are on the grounds — these days the falls travel through the municipal Falls Park. Sioux Falls has thoughtfully erected an observation tower on top of a rise in the park, for better views.

Naturally, we went to the top, for the view of the falls, downtown Sioux Falls, and – off in a different direction – a major Smithfield meat processing plant. Sioux Falls isn’t just about credit card HQs, the result of a race-to-the-bottom concerning usury laws. It still has industry, too.

Before leaving town, we sought out the Cathedral of St. Joseph, a work by Emmanuel Louis Masqueray (d. 1917), another of those famed architects mostly lost to time. Among other things, he was chief of design at the 1904 St. Louis world’s fair (one of the four fonts of the modern world).

It was open. Not all city churches can say that on a Monday.

Nice. Westward on I-90, at one of the rest stops, we found a much smaller religious structure, though elegant in its simplicity.

It too was open.

Lunch that day was in the burg of Kennebec, SD (pop. 281), which happened to have a place, Benji’s Diner, with a distinctive ag-town vibe, and serious meat on the menu.

It’s a little hard to tell, but there’s beef under that sea of gravy, and I found it mighty filling. Signs on the highway promote the SD beef industry and beef eating on principle, and they get no argument from me.

We took a look around town. When I saw this, I concluded that every town, no matter how small, has one of these murals as a little expression of civic pride. Seems that way, anyway.

Kennebec is the Lyman County seat.

The built environment isn’t just buildings.

Despite our large lunch, we managed to stay awake for the drive to Wall, SD, stopping for a few minutes at Wall Drug and then Badlands National Park, where we spent a few hours. That decision factored heavily into what happened next in Wyoming, more about which later. Enough to say that by the end of the day, we were in Sundance, Wyo.

But we weren’t done with South Dakota. For reasons I won’t bore anyone with, especially myself, we had to backtrack the next day to take care of a minor issue with the car, so it wouldn’t be major later on. For that, we went to Rapid City, which we had bypassed the day before. I’m glad we got to go, because the mechanical issue didn’t actually take long to deal with, which left us with time to see a bronze James K. Polk.

Plus U.S. Grant, Franklin Roosevelt, and Calvin Coolidge, among other U.S. presidents at street corners in downtown Rapid City that I managed to see.

“When a local man noticed people interacting with a temporarily placed statue of President Lincoln outside the Hotel Alex Johnson [in downtown Rapid City], an idea sparked. This man was Don Perdue, and he came up with the idea to put a president on every corner in Downtown Rapid City,” explains Visit Rapid City.

“It took a lot of convincing, a lot of fundraising, and hours of research before it started. In 1999, Perdue proposed the idea to the city as a way to honor the legacy of the American Presidency. The project was approved and in 2000 the first four presidents were unveiled: George Washington, John Adams, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush… Over the next ten years, a group of local artists worked to create and place all 40 of the remaining statues.”

I didn’t have time to see all of them. Or the inclination. It was in the low 90s F. that day, so I only wanted to spend a few minutes seeking them out, while Yuriko more rationally waited in our air conditioned car.

She was willing to get out and look at Rapid City’s older attraction a few minutes later, however: Dinosaur Park. I later checked with my brother Jim. He said he does indeed remember, a little, our family’s visit to the park in 1960, before I was born.

There’s a good view of Rapid City from atop the park’s hill.

But you’re up there to look at wire-mesh-frame dinosaurs with concrete skins, originally dating from the 1930s but obviously maintained into our time and (maybe?) tinkered with a little to more closely match current thinking about dinosaurs.

Even better, I learned that the park was originally a WPA project, consciously designed to draw tourists to Rapid City with something distinctive. Of all the various WPA projects one can encounter, this has to be unique among the lot.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling