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I’ve got to admit, even though we’ve seen the most amazing and exotic locations, the Colorado Rockies still call to me in a way more special than most anywhere else. Today we headed into the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) to sample the Bear Lake Road and the Trail Ridge Road. Right off the bat, we discovered the Bear Lake Road was still closed to private vehicles and was only available by shuttle bus from downtown Estes. Oh well, we saw Bear Lake Road a few years ago when we came through on the way to Steamboat Springs. On to Trail Ridge Road. The Trail Ridge Road winds its way to the top of a pass at 12,500 feet and back down to the Colorado River on the other side. The scenery is spectacular and changes dramatically as you wind your way through beautiful Ponderosa Pine forests to granite and tundra scenery above the tree line. The total drive is about 55 miles to the other side of RMNP and Grand Lake just outside the park. We had packed our lunch and ate it at an overlook at the old Grand Lake Lodge. The Lodge overlooks Grand Lake from an elevated viewpoint and the views are great. After lunch we returned the same way over the Trail Ridge Road. We then drove to the Fall River Pass road and stopped at the Alluvial Fan. The Alluvial Fan is a really cool waterfall accessible from a relatively short trail. The falls are surrounded by boulders that were very popular for climbing. We really enjoyed the falls even though the thin air makes climbing trails and boulders more challenging. We continued down this road to the Endovalley Picnic Area. This area was not very crowded and we were able to let Maverick explore the river and small falls off leash. We had a great time following the trail up the river and exploring without anyone else on the trail. We chose not to go further down the road because it becomes one-way and ends high on the Trail Ridge Road we just travelled earlier. We decided to save that for tomorrow. We headed back into Estes Park and walked the downtown strip and had french fries at Penelopes that were really tasty.  Later we had dinner at Bird and Jim Restaurant.   We ate outside with beautiful views but got a little too cold.    The food was good.

The drive today was pretty short and easy. Its all interstate until Loveland CO where you take Hwy 34 into Estes. Hwy 34 spent a lot of time going through town which was curvey and slow. Hwy 34 is very scenic following a river through the canyons and mountains. We are staying at the Spruce Lake RV Park just outside the National Park for the next 3 nights. It will be nice to be stationary for a few days. The sites are very wide and full hookups. The views at the park are great. The temperatures here in Estes are 66 deg F for a high. Very nice. We ate lunch at the nearby Other Side Restaurant and the food was very good. We thought about driving to Bear Lake in the National Park but signs warned the parking was full. We decided to check out the visitor center and the return tomorrow instead. Before heading back to the coach we checked out the nearby Mary’s Lake Recreation Area. Maverick really enjoyed a quick swim and climbing on the rocks.

This is another stop to shorten the drive time to our next attraction, Rocky Mountain National Park. The drive was ok except for the first 20 miles of Hwy 20 in Wyoming. This stretch was under construction and was as bad as any roads we traveled in the last 7 months. For most of the 20 miles we could only go about 15 mph without risking damage to the coach. Cheyenne is a decent sized city and the RV park was well equipped. The sites were a little close but not bad. It was kind of hot when we arrived but then a thunderstorm hit and cooled it down. The temps tonight started in the mid 60’s and were in the low 50’s in the early morning. We drove into town so Donna could have some well-deserved retail therapy. Maverick and I washed the car. Afterwards we ate at Texas Roadhouse.

 

The main purpose of this stop is to limit our driving time. The drive itself isn’t that interesting, but it was pretty easy with good roads and little traffic. It turns out Fort Robinson is more of an attraction than we expected. The Fort was active from the 1800’s into the 1940’s and has been pretty well preserved. There is a lot of camping, including the full hook ups we selected. There were a lot of people in the campgrounds and cabins. You can even rent rooms in the old Officers Quarters and other buildings in the old Fort. The area is pretty scenic with some neat rock formations and plateaus. Our RV site was spacious with trees and very nice. It is hot, reaching 93 deg F today.

We started off today headed to Wind Cave National Park. As it turns out the road we chose led us through Custer State Park. It cost $20 for a week pass into Custer. The pass was worth it even if we only were here for the day. The road through Custer is very beautiful with many huge rock formations that were really cool. There were beautiful lakes, giant rock formations, and beautiful forests.  There were several very small, narrow, one-lane tunnels through the rocks at different locations.  The scenery throughout was great. I would come back just to spend more time here. At about lunch time we came to Wind Cave National Park. The land around the caves is pretty but not spectacular. At the visitor center we signed up for the shortest cave tour about an hour in advance. We used the time to eat our picnic lunch and walk Maverick. The actual cave tour took about 1 ½ hour and I thought it was underwhelming. While neat in some ways I found this cave less interesting than most I have been in and nothing near as grand as the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. If I were to come again I would spend time exploring the Black Hills National Forest and the Custer State Park. Those are the real attractions and are great for driving or hiking.

Today we drove from Medora ND, to Mount Rushmore KOA Campground near Hill City SD.  The drive took us 7 hours with lunch break, which is long for us.  The KOA turned out to be the biggest campground RV resort we’ve been in yet. This place has two pools, a water slide, a splash pad, mini-golf, horses with trail rides, a burger joint, an adult grill and taproom, and more. The campground has about 500 campsites. Wow. After setup we headed to nearby Mount Rushmore National Monument. The monument was really interesting and impressive. After the monument we went back to Hill City to the Miner Brewery. We thought it might be a good place for dinner but it was primarily a brewery with snacks that weren’t great.

We drove into the park today to check it out. The park has dramatic Badlands scenery and some wildlife. We didn’t have super high expectations and had a really good time on the 28 miles scenic drive. We stopped frequently at the scenic turn-outs and hiked a few of the very short paths to elevated viewpoints. We saw tons of chubby prairie dogs, wild horses with very young foals, and herds of Bison with many young calves. We ate dinner at the RV park “steakhouse”. We were very hopeful, but alas, it turned out to be just fair. We were the only customers and that never bodes well.

The drive today was nearly as boring as yesterday. The terrain became a little more rolling hills as we got closer to Medora. We are staying in Buffalo Gap Guest Ranch on the edge of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The ranch setting is quite scenic in a rustic sort of way.  After setting up the coach we drive 6 miles into Medora ND to check it out. We ate at the Farm to Fork restaurant and it was very good. We are pleased that the temperature is a little cooler at low 70’s today.

The drive today was very boring. From Shelby to Glasgow is plains or wheat fields as far as you can see. The drive was a little over 4 hours and Donna drove about half to break up the monotony. We are staying in the Shady Rest RV Park that provides full hookups including 50Amp electric. The outside temperature hit a high of 95 deg F so we need good electrical to run the A/C. At check-in the lady said Glasgow hit 114 deg F in the last couple of weeks. What?! McKinney only hit 108 deg F this year.

We finally made it back to the lower 48 today! We drove the 4 hours to Shelby MT enjoying the 4 or 6 lane highway, straight, and smooth roads. The drive was king of boring though as it was just hours of plains with some wheat agriculture along the way. The border crossing was uneventful but took about 30 minutes. There isn’t anything special about Shelby, but I was able to get 50Amp full hook ups reserved in advance. Also, the drive today was exceptionally hazy from the distant forest fire smoke. The smoke haze has really hurt the views ever since entering British Columbia and have continued all the way to Shelby. Today is the best internet service we’ve had since being in Anchorage. While internet was pretty good all the way through Canada the first time, ever since leaving Anchorage we’ve had very little bandwidth. Calgary internet was horrible and seemed to be that way for the local businesses as well. This afternoon I made RV park reservations for nearly every stop along the way home. We will be hitting some popular places in South Dakota, Colorado, and Texas and recent experience showed we needed reservations or we wouldn’t have hookups. Most places the temperatures are high enough now that dry camping is too hot to sleep comfortable and most dry camping locations you can’t run the generator at night. I also got this blog caught up through August 4th.