Camping, Deer and Flats

Note: Today we have two entries. Scroll down for Nick's post about Minneapolis. Read it first for correct chronological order.

We are in Sheridan Wyoming, at the public library. The gentleman sitting next to me is buying a Gibson guitar from Canada. He is also giving off a terrible odor. And this is coming from someone who hasn't showered in 3 days. Now he is singing along to the death metal on his headphones.

We've been camping ever since we left Minneapolis. Neither of us are much of woodsmen (Nick's only other camping outing was to buy Red Sox tickets) but we're learning as we go. We had a bit of an incident two nights ago involving a pocket knife can opener and a can of beans. Neither of us was really aware (and believe me we still aren't) of the proper method for using the tool. After a half hour of jabbing and stabbing and prying and bending, we decided that the can had won and resorted to peanut butter and peperoni sandwiches.

A friend of Nick's Grandfather in Chicago told us "You haven't seen space until you've been to South Dakota." Yup. The eastern half of south Dakota consists of vast expanses of fields and corn and flat. The western half consists of vast expanses of prairies. And then you get to the Bandlands. Half Prairie, Half Moon. Jagged ridges, canyons, rock formations and cliffs intermingled with prairie land. It's awesome. It's so good to be out of cities. I spend most of time in them and as unique as each one is they can really feel start to feel like the same thing one after the other. But the plains, the great plains, it finally feels like we've actually hit that freedom focused spirit of the road trip. You know? The goal of the whole shabang. No beds and comfy and easy. Just two guys a chevy and a tent that is just a wee bit too small. Yup ruffing it in these national park campsites with legions of RVs surrounding us. If we were a little more competent campers I'd want to do some backcountry.

We have been and intend to continue doing a bunch of hiking. We warmed up with a good 8 miles or so in Badlands. Some of the national park marked hikes are surprisingly badass. We took one up a rope ladder and out along some pretty thin ledges over looking some pretty deep drops out to some pretty amazing views. Another hike took us out through that prairie moonscape and apparently into the heart of deer country. We must have spotted 5 different groups of single mothers and two babies and one seven or eight large heard. We got some great shots and got within about 15 feet of one of the mother-kid groupings. This put the mother a little on edge and into an aggressive defensive stance. We shimmied along the edge of the trail as far as possible so as not to upset mama dear. I wanna see a mountain goat Nick wants to see a buffalo and both of us are tired of seeing cows.

After Badlands we set out to that All-American icon of South Dakota (it's on all the license plates) Mount Rushmore. It's funny after seeing it in so many movies and whatnot it feels like you've already been there. I mean it's so far away from the viewing deck it looks like a picture. But the intricate details (did you ever notice Roosevelt has his specs on?) carved into the rock are pretty awe-inspiring in real life. I got a great shot of Jefferson's nostrils. They forgot or ommitted Washington's.

After Rushmore we drove to Devil's Tower which is a gigantic rock plateau that crops out of the ground, is America's first national monument and was used in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We walked around it and got a campsite in view of it. What a jaw-dropping natural specimen. Google image it. Or wait for our pictures.

Oh ya, earlier that day we blew a tire on the Highway. Luckily AAA was there to rescue us and the local mechanic (In Sturgiss SD) was the nicest guy on the face of the planet. He was a large man. It was 90 degress in the sun. He specified that this WAS NOT big man weather. The layover took maybe two hours. We met some locals: a girl about our age working the desk at the air conditioned gas station who enlightened us about the Kanye West Taylor Swift incident at some music awards and an older gentleman who showed me a magazine from the mid eighties purporting to be about the annual Sturgiss motorcycle event but mostly focusing on dirty pictures of women on harleys. Seriously every page I turned to.

And that brings us to Wyoming. We will be in the wild for the next five days split between yellowstone and grand teton national parks. We would also like to apologize about our malfunctioning comments section. Our Technical service department is working round the clock to fix these problems. Please be patient.

Don't keep it too real,
Chris