7/3/99 -- First let's talk about yesterday, the 2nd
of July. Well, I woke up in a rest stop just East of Belvidere,
SD. My mission for the Day: get to, and experience as much as
I could of, the Badlands, and wind up in the Black Hills. In that
I think I succeeded admirably. But first I had a few things to
attend to. My car needed an oil change, and I'm carrying filters
and oil so that I don't have to shell out for the simplest of
car maintenance tasks. But I had no sealable oil pan, nor a waste
disposal grounds at which to dump the oil. So I stopped in at
Belvidere, and took care of some post that needed attending to
as well. Man, oh, man, this place, Belvidere... I've never seen
anything like it -- the sign said population 63. Let's have a
look at a typical Belvidere street:
Woah, that's a row of derelict buildings, in a town which doesn't have too many occupied buildings either!
Wacky. I pressed on towards the Badlands, stopping in Kadoka to take care of that oil change. I borrowed a pan from a local Amaco and they let me dump my oil in their collection drum -- nice.
En
route to Kadoka I'd seen signs for a "Petrified Garden."
It was right there in Kadoka, so I stopped in. Glad I did -- it
was quite funky, and I leaned how they think that South Dakota
was part of a massive inland sea millions of years ago, over which
logs floated, became sodden with water, sunk the the bottom of
the sea, and gradually had their cells dissolved and replaced
with calcites, silicates, and assorted other minerals. Actually,
again here's a case of me not taking enough note... if you know
exactly what minerals replace cellular mater in petrified wood,
send me email and I'll
just update this section here. Anyhoo, you can see all sorts of
amazing things in petrified wood, like clear growth rings, fossils,
both impressions and embedded critters like snails, clams, brachiopods,
and others. I took a host of pictures of these incredible things,
you should check it out. Some of them are indistinguishable from
regular wood to the eye alone, others look like rocks. They're
all smooth and hard to the touch. Oh yeah, the other thing about
the Petrified Gardens is that you can touch all the stuff they've
got lying around. I understand that the oil from our hands contributes
the the eventual breakdown of, well, everything, which is why
in many places you're not allowed to touch anything. But it's
nice to, anyway.
While I was strolling around the garden, I happened upon something
that amazed me. Shocked me. Damn near offended me, even. There
in the middle of all the informational billboards about how petrification
occurs, and all this geological hoo-ha, was this billboard:
Yes, it's a description of how petrification fits into the Bible.
Ok, I wasn't really offended, I was kidding about that. But I
was surprised. And amazed. I said that already...
Then I headed into the Badlands. Apparently the name, despite
it's fitting in quite well with modern colloquial English, comes
from the French fur trappers, who called it "les mauvaises
terres a treverser." Well, I've seen 'em now, and my first
reaction was "they outta call them the Badasslands!"
'Cause they are something and a half -- for sure the most majestic
thing I've seen in years, seriously. 
Man, I was not
prepared for the sight that greeted me when I pulled into the
first lookout point. Up until then I'd seen evidence of what was
to come, all of a sudden I began to notice rocky breaks in the
otherwise grassy South Dakotan terrain. I also stopped into a
preserved prairie homestead which can be found on the Badlands
loop (the highway which took me through the Badlands, State Route
240), immediately after entry. It was five acres of property,
with the original homesteader's hill-sided, sod-roofed house and
farm structures. Check out that sod roof in that picture -- there
were little cactuses growing out of the roof! 
While
I was there, I saw a bunch of these guys -- prairie dogs. Cute,
eh? The make chirping noises like birds, and make vast, extensive
towns under the earth.
But then I pulled into the Badlands proper, and was promptly blown away. I became so excited, I went running around on the narrow ridges, and just hung out there for more than and hour at that first overlook. Below is me, standing on a ridge.
That's me!
While I was there, marveling, and
being awe-struck, and saying things like "just... wow..."
to myself, I met Scott and Dierdre, two travelers headed to Alaska.
We talked for a while, and they said they were pressing on to
the Black Hills. Scott also mentioned an excellent campsite called
Sylvan Lake campsite, which I decided thereupon that I would go
to to spend the night. Well, I drove through the Badlands, I must
have stopped 10 or more times, checking out the absolutely incredible
landscape. I also stopped in at the visitor center, where I learned
a little about how the Badlands were created -- erosion, baby,
erosion. And the climate. And stuff.
I finally found my way back to the highway and headed for the
Black Hills. The Black Hills were so named by the Laquotas because
of their dark color when viewed from afar, which is due to their
being covered with pines. It's a forest on mountains, punctuated
with bare rock. Check it:
Those splotches are bugs on my windshield. Eugh. I squeegee my
windshield every time I gas up. Nevermind.
So I rode up through the black hills, waved at Mount Rushmore, and proceeded towards Sylvan Lake to make camp. I got there just after the sun had set, with enough light to unpack my trunk by, but I had to pitch my tent by the light of my lantern. Oh, BTW, this is my new tent's maiden voyage!!! I was exceedingly pleased with my first night in it. Due to it's roof of mesh, I went to sleep looking at stars. Oh yeah, not just the few stars I saw through my windshield when bedding down in my car the night previous. No, I was looking up at the Milky Way. As I strolled around, I decided that I would make the next day a leisure day -- no distance traveling. I would spend the following night at Sylvan Lake, after mooching around the Black Hills.
I spent much of the morning cooking breakfast, reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and dealing with digital image transferring. Then I set out for the Needles Highway, recommended highly by Skyler. By excellent chance, I was already on it when I left the campgrounds -- Sylvan Lake campgrounds is in the first few miles of the highway! When I noticed that the previous day, when scoping the AAA camping book, I knew it must be.
Anyhow,
the Needles Highway was incredible. (It seems that I'm using that
word an awful lot about things around here. It's because things
are like that here.) Treacherously twisty roads wind through towering
spires of the Black Hills, which jut out of the blanket of pines.
Three times the road becomes a one car's width passageway (exact
dimensions are posted, campers and RVs are not allowed on the
highway) between spires or a tunnel through a section of the mountain.
It took me an hour or maybe a little more to cover 14 miles. I
got out at every overlook. At one of them, a man was sitting
and carving little bison out of wood, and handing out sunflower
seeds to the tourists (oh, yeah, that's me!), and chipmunks would
come and eat out of their hands.
After the Needles Highway I passed through Custer, the town in the middle of the Hills. I outfitted a little, picked up some groceries, a cooler (which I should have had when I set out), and proceeded along to Jewel Cave National Monument, also recommended to my by Skyler. I took the historical tour, which meant crawling through the natural entrance to the multi-hundred mile cave network and stooping, climbing, and crawling through 1/4 mile of the caves with a candle lantern. This means I got no pictures. This one was also recommended by Skyler. That was a rocking good time, although I fear I made quite the impression on the rest of the gang on the tour, which I pretty much assessed as a bunch of straights. The tour guide, Jill, was pretty interesting, though, she'd majored in Recreational Activities at the University of Nebraska. Majored in Recreational Activities?!?!? Danm, perhaps I'm in the wrong line of work...
Which reminds me, I've pretty much decided that after school I need to move out West for a few years at least. There's just too much awesome and beautiful land out here, I need to be closer then 7 days hard driving to it, so that I can spend some more in depth, as opposed to the in breadth experience that I'm getting now, vacation time here. Wow, what a long sentence. I'll let it stand, though.
So, I returned from the caves to Sylvan Lake, set up my campsite (I'd had to move to different spot, the one I was on last night was reserved for this evening by someone else), cooked excellent stew, read more Zen and the Art, and wrote this journal entry. I didn't have time to go swimming like I thought I might, but this has been quite the excellent day. Hm, I definitely have run out of beer.
Oh, one other thing. Last night I noticed that my lantern was giving uneven light -- that is, it's intensity would gain and fade constantly. So this morning I took it apart to see what might be wrong, and couldn't find any problem. However, when I put it back together, it wouldn't work at all. That irritated me -- generally, if I can take something apart and know what all it's parts are, I'm not going to break it as a put it back together. I couldn't figure out what could be the problem. When I was in Custer, I got a new generator (that's the tube which takes pressurized liquid gas from the reservoir and forced it through a tiny opening at the top, atomizing the gas so it can do it's thing) and installed it. It still didn't work. I was getting ready to buy a replacement lantern, a $60 item. About this time two dudes in their forties, early fifties, perhaps, showed up in the hardware store where I'd bought the generator and was futzing with the lantern, to have keys duplicated. They asked what the problem was, and so I told them. They told me the light wavering problem was due to a lack of pressure -- meaning I wasn't pumping it up enough. Well, I told them, I'm sure I know how to work this thing, I've been using it for a while. But let's see, I pumped it up mightily, and lo, it sputtered, and generated flame for a moment, but wouldn't stay lit. About this time the dudes returned and told me I was low on fuel. No way, I thought. There was fuel in there...
Ok, yeah, they were right. And they told me that I had to go back to camp and tell everyone that two old farts from Michigan fixed the problem. Well, I didn't take the time to explain to them that I didn't have a camp as such... but I'm taking their instructions in the spirit in which they were intended. I can't believe I was such a moron. This calls for an idiot check. Let's see... am I an idiot? YUP!
Tomorrow I leave, hit Devil's Tower briefly, and head to Yellowstone. This area is so beautify it nearly breaks my heart to leave it -- but I know that there are more adventures ahead.
7/4/99 -- Well, I've finally gotten to
an area where my cell phone has reception, so I can upload now.
While I do I will eat my lunch. This morning I broke camp from
Sylvan Lake, and headed off to Devil's Tower, in Wyoming. I've
now crossed through 11 states.
I didn't go into the Devils Tower park, electing to press on toward Yellowstone. Now I've swung up further north than I wanted to go originally, but I needed to get to Sheridan, Wyoming, in order to get signal to upload the last two updates, one of which is due today and the other of which should have happened 3 days ago. But AT&T was messing with me, and all throughout South Dakota and I was unable to get a signal. Complex and boring story. Anyhow, Wyoming is cool, with grassy hills showing red earth in places. I'm right now passing the Bighorn Mountains.