August 14 - Day 40

Hi Folks

Here we are in Custer, South Dakota at the Beaver Lake Campground.

Early this morning we stopped at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. First we explored the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, which houses a comprehensive collection of works by Albert Bierstadt, George Caitlin, Frederic Remington, Bob Kuhn, Carl Rungius, Charles Russell, Philip R. Goodwin and more. There was a reconstruction of Remington's studio that was amazing.

After the art, we toured the Cody Firearms Museum. The museum is noted for its exhibits of American firearms, including the Winchester collection. The museum, featuring some 3000 items, traces the development of firearms from the early 16th century. Donny says the collection was "mind-boggling"! There were so many firearms and so much information, it was difficult to take it all in. Donny did say that he thinks his Savage collection may be better than theirs!

After leaving the museum, we headed east on Rte. 16, passing through Greybull, Worland, Buffalo, Gillette, Moorcroft and Newcastle. At about 7:30 p.m. we crossed the border into S. Dakota at Custer.

Highlights of the drive today included the drive through part of the Bighorn National Forest and Powder River Pass (elevation 9666') in the Bighorn Mountains. Beautiful scenery all the way. The terrain ranged from dry desert, complete with cactus to lush grasslands and forests. The road was often lined with limestone cliffs carved by the elements into spires, peaks and outcroppings of every shape and color. We saw extensive oil and gas extraction facilities in Wyoming, as well as several coal mines and power plants. We saw many freight trains pulling cars loaded with coal - we counted 135 cars on one of them.

Crossing the last part of Wyoming, we began to see small bands of 10 - 30 pronghorn antelopes, and we counted over 300 before dark. Just before crossing into S. Dakota, we started to see quite a few mule deer. Just across the border, we traveled through the Hells Canyon section of the Black Hills National Forest, where we encountered over 60 whitetail deer before arriving at the campground for the night.

We did have some trouble with our camper today -- the clamp that held the airbag we had to replace in Fairbanks, Alaska got twisted around, and the bag got cut. Not sure if we will try to replace it, or maybe just try to get home the way it is. When we stopped to check out the airbag problem, Donny noticed that the front left tire was soft. He checked, and sure enough, it had some kind of a metal stud in it and was losing air. He got out his tire patch kit and was able to fix it without removing the tire. If it keeps leaking he will put on one of the two spares we have with us.

Tomorrow we will visit Mt. Rushmore, and a wildlife park called Bear Country where at least a dozen species of animals roam freely. They have wolves, bears, sheep, goats, badgers, mountain lions, bobcats, lynx, elk, and more. Maybe we will finally see a grizzly! Not the way we hoped, but at least I may get some photos. After that, we will travel through a section of Badlands National Park and continue making our way eastward.

Good night!

Don and Cheryl