A Full Day

BJ's RV Park in Lusk, just before we pulled out Saturday morning

If it is Saturday, there must be a yard sale!

A second sale at the stage coach museum

We came upon yet another fire as we got into South Dakota.

As of 7:30 tonight, it is still pretty bad.

On our way to Mt. Rushmore, these granite hills are magnificent!

We watched a great video about the planning and the men behind the work on this monument. It was originally thought of by a man named Doane Robinson. Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln, did the sculpture design. Gutzon did the work on Stone Mountain in Georgia. As hard as this work was, not one person died during the construction (1927-1941).

Somehow I got this picture with no other tourists in it!

A profile view of George Washington

This enlargement shows one of the courageous workers.

The rest of the day we strolled the town of Hill City with hundreds of other tourists, supper out and then home to rest. We are exhausted!

Around Lusk, Wyoming

Once it cooled off and after Jeopardy was over (probably about the same time: 7), we took a stroll around town. Lusk was bigger than I expected.

The town was founded in 1886 by Frank Lusk. A stagecoach route went from Cheyenne to Deadwood, South Dakota from 1876 to 1887 when it was replaced by the Wyoming Central Railway.

There was a definite stage coach theme going on here!

Cary noticed this 1960 Pontiac Catalina for sale--"beautiful, an original" and just $7000. We have no way to get it home though.

I wish the library had been open. Isn't it great?

A whole museum devoted to the stage coach, also closed when we walked by.

A neat building

The quilt store was also closed, probably a good thing.

I gather this is a government office of some sort.

James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan (remember the Beach Boys story?) was born in Lusk, Wyoming!

The day in Cheyenne

Cheyenne was built around the railroad. The gorgeous museum has been restored and holds lots of interesting information.

Lovely painted boots stand proudly in front of many shops and offices around town. This one is by the RR museum. Coincidentally, the two signatures in the guest book were folks also from Tucson!

I photostitched two pictures to get this panoramic (almost) view from the second floor.

Upstairs in the museum a miniature trains winds its way around the tracks. All of the display was hand done, including the miniature workers and town folks.

The gorgeous lobby of the museum

A sample of the kinds of china one would use in the luxurious Pullman cars--isn't that a great logo on the plates?

Oops, this picture slipped into the wrong spot, but it is late and I am too tired to rearrange it!

Cute quilt shop along our walking tour

I loved this museum, but didn't take any pictures inside. Next door is the gift shop where I bought a book on Western women. Wyoming, in an effort to keep pioneers from just traveling through the territory, was the first to "allow" women to own property. Later, and well before the 19th amendment, they were also allowed to vote. When it came time for it to be admitted to the union, Wyoming was asked to repeal its law. It refused, which delayed statehood for another year.

A great place for lunch--full of car memorabilia, sports stuff (I worried about the ice skates hanging over Cary's head while we ate!), large portions of yummy food. Luckily, Cary and I see each other often enough that conversation wasn't an issue, because it was way too noisy to talk.

Dineen was the first car dealer in Cheyenne. It still exists behind this building. It had a special hydraulic lift that raised the cars to the second floor using only city water pressure--it took under 50 seconds. Cars were shipped on end in boxcars to other places!

After lunch we visited the historical museum downtown, Free! The special glass display cases that housed everything made it difficult to get pictures, but here is an example of a forest ranger's outfit, designed to imitate a military look.

A typical sewing machine and spinning wheel of over a century ago

I did not take this photo of the beautiful capitol building, nor was there time to tour the governor's mansion. But that means there is something for another trip!

We ended the day having shish-kebabs and cheesecake with Jeanne and Carl at their very neat home not that far from our KOA. Jeanne taught English at Chaparral and also my Sunday morning aerobics class at the gym for a few years. It was great catching up. They hope to move back to Tucson eventually.

A 4-hour drive and most of it was in Denver!

When we got up this morning, the smoke was definitely settling into the area. Possibly after the winds pick up, it will blow elsewhere.

We had a long drive, not necessarily timewise, but it took awhile to get through the Colorado Springs area--lots of folks evacuating, maybe. We saw news trucks all lined up and water tankers, helicopters and planes loading up and flying over the fire. Very bad. The latest is that it is 5% contained.

Going through Denver was quite the experience too. We were looking for a Pilot service station for fuel, but after finding it, we couldn't get into the spot. Luckily we did find a Shell station, easy on and off.

Unable to stop at the Welcome station when we first drove into Colorado, we decided to stop at the one just this side of the Wyoming border. Very nice, great views, but I left my camera in the car. We had lunch here too.

Our first RV park plan seemed awfully far from town (Cheyenne), so we drove to another one. However, it was full except for a spot without water. The manager there called the nearby KOA and it did have a spot for us. We are glad to be off the road. I called my friend Jeanne, a former coworker at Chaparral, and we are about three miles away from her house! Shish-kabobs at her place tomorrow.

Clouds descended on us just after getting everything unhooked and plugged in. A little thunder, a little rain. Very nice.

The view out our back window at the KOA

Colorado Springs

You can barely see the planes flying over the wild fire near Colorado Springs. Smoky smell here at the campground, but no danger as of yet!

I took this from the parking area at the Camping World somewhere before Colorado Springs.

We managed to miss the turn to our camp--but that usually happens at least once on our trips--but we are now cooling off inside our air-conditioned trailer, while it is about 98 degrees outside.

I will get pictures later of the Golden Eagle Ranch Campground, not far from Ft. Carson.

Tuesday morning in Raton

Cary thinks he looks a little like a gnome here...I agree!

 Go Wildcats!

This is the RV office here at Cedar Rail in Raton. I highly recommend this park, run by a very nice couple.

 A beautiful morning, elevation over 7700 feet, but supposed to be 100 degrees later!

Santa Rosa and Raton

Just before leaving the Santa Rosa RV Park, I remembered to get our picture.

We see at least one unique RV on our travels. This is it for now!

An old service station along Route 66. The gas price was either 69 or 79 cents!

Several pretty neat old signs

These are our Texas neighbors (from the park) leaving. Note the armadillo on the back. His other RV is a yacht!

Looking from Route 66 in Santa Rosa

This diner, probably modernized, is original to the heyday of the Mother Road.

Not our RV, but this was a good spot to get a picture, "home" for the night in Raton, NM.

The town of Trinidad, Colorado was so close, we unhooked and went to town for fuel and get a few provisions at the Walmart.

Alamogordo

Cary and Wally graduated from Catalina High School 50 years ago. Yet, they remain teenagers.

Wally races at Bonneville every year, sometimes twice. He built this bike and has won several trophies, that if you look carefully, you can see on the rail above his head.

Another view--now he is constructing this trailer with hoists so that the bike, with very low clearance, can come off and go back on with a minimum of pain to his body! What a project. He has a hot rod he plans to get to when he feels he is too old to race bikes anymore.

This is where we spent Saturday night, Boot Hill RV, in Alamogordo. Nice park. We joined our friends at Casa de Suenos for supper.Oh, by the way, the antenna growing out of Cary's head really comes in handy when we are navigating our way to the next destination, Do you see the giant pod behind him? It is a cleverly designed alien transportation device that just landed here from Roswell. It is disguised as a giant pistachio nut, but no one is fooled.

Cary snapped this picture on his way to get fuel this morning! It may be another alien vehicle....

We are now in Santa Rosa, NM, on Route 66. I am on the computer up by the office because the antenna for wifi at our end of the park was stolen! It got over 100 degrees today, and it is quite windy.But our AC works great!