Bad to the Bone

After a pause in the story, I'm back with part 4 of my road trip. You might want to read the lead up to this first (part 1, part 2, and part 3)

My little campsite in the morning; the White River is just beyond the trees in the background

After staring at the beautiful night sky well past midnight, I awoke early (for me), showered, ate a quick cheese-and-bagel "sandwich," then packed up and headed back to Badlands National Park. I didn't really plan on spending much time there, but also wanted to beat the heat. The previous day was 100F well into the late afternoon, and heat resistant though I am, it is wearying and dangerous, especially if you run out of water. 

"King Tut," a fossil turtle on display at the Badlands' Ben Reifel Visitor Center

I started by going to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center to see if there was anything new and interesting in the gift shop (and get a few post cards for friends who had expressed that they wanted to receive them), and the fossil prep lab was open. I spoke with the paleontologists there a bit, and was told that if I wanted to find a fossil, the best bet was to go off trail. I must have looked horrified -- after all, most parks stress stay on the trails to prevent ecological damage -- and she told me that because Badlands erodes so much (up to an inch a year!), staying on trails isn't as important in this park. 

After saying "hi" to Ranger Paul (who is one of this park's secret treasures; he has some great stories to tell about people asking questions like, "When do you paint the rocks?" and "So this road is currently closed? Does that mean I can't go here?), I headed back to Norbeck Pass and the Fossil Exhibit Trail end of Castle Trail. I figured I'd hike a bit down Castle Trail, then head out of the park via Sage Creek Rim Road to look for wildlife. 

Right away, I saw some bighorn sheep across a ravine in nearly the same place that Pat and I had seen them last year. Unlike last year, I had my zoom lens and Canon DLSR with me, so I could actually get some decent photos of them. 

As I took some photos of the rams, a couple of other hikers came by, saw me taking photos and of course started congregating where I was. So, I continued on down the trail until I found an area that enticed me to go off trail, and off trail I went. 

Beefy surveys his domain

What have we here???

Those are definitely bones

After seeing the bones, I took several photos, recorded the GPS coordinates, and headed back to the visitor center. They weren't terrible far from the trail and so obvious that I was pretty sure they'd been reported previously, and sure enough, that's what I was told. They are pre-Columbian bison bones, so between 800-1000 years old. Not quite "fossil" material, but I still got a patch for doing the right thing. 😁

If you report a finding instead of disturbing it, you get a patch and allow trained professionals to obtain information from the finding that is shared with everyone

At this point, it's later in the day than I really planned on staying in the park, and it's hot AF. 

I don't care if the humidity is low, this is not pleasant. BTW, that's 2:08 EDT, because I don't like changing the clock

It was time to go down Sage Creek Rim Road, visit the bison and the prairie dogs, and then maybe go to Custer or something. 

You get more colors in the landscape along Sage Creek Rim Road

Prairie with grazing bison

A horned lark at Roberts Prairie Dog Town

Sorry guys, I didn't bring any apples

As I approached the park exit, I started to see more and more and more bison. In fact, there was a bison in the middle of the road. 

The truck's driver said he'd been waiting about ten minutes for the bison to move when I came along. I only had to wait for a few minutes

There were a ton of bison here, kind of like when we were surrounded by bison at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in 2019 or at Custer State Park last year. I was driving super slow (20-30mph) because they were right next to the road, walking into the road, etc. and clearly some people didn't care that a collision could occur. Two trucks passed me and damn near hit multiple bison. 

This was the first of the impatient people

It looks like a fence separates us, but there was a wide open gate just up the road

Beefy is excited to see his people

This was the second of the impatient people to pass me. I'm pulled over here, because these two bison were in the road. The garbage truck barely slowed down as it approached them and fortunately, they moved

So many bison

From Wall, I decided to go up to the South Dakota Air & Space Museum in Box Elder. It's basically just outside the main gate to Ellsworth AFB. Mom and I had visited here in 2015, but this time the indoor exhibits were still closed. I'm not sure if that's because of funding, lack of staff or what. I wandered around the outdoor exhibits (which are still open) before making a reservation at the Custer/Black Hills KOA and heading that way.

Titan I 

B1-B Lancer, or as Pat says, "Bone".

VB-25J used by Gen. Eisenhower during WWII

Minuteman Missile; Ellsworth AFB is one of the bases that takes care of the silos

F105-B Thunderchief

EB-57B Canberra

F102-A Delta Dagger

The route that Waze had me take to the campground took me through Custer State Park, though since I wasn't using the Wildlife Loop or any of the trails, I wasn't charged admission. As I got into the Black Hills proper, the temperature dropped and became very comfortable, if not a little on the cool side by the time dusk came. 

After setting up camp, I went back into Custer proper to briefly meet up with Kari from #ParkChat, who was closing up shop. She's a teacher, too, and we chatted about parks, road tripping, teaching and more before she headed home and I headed to Mt. Rushmore Brewing for dinner. 

Had another quick but awesome tweetup with another fellow #parkchat friend today! 😁 @CamaroWRX, I'm so glad you could stop by and say hi amongst your adventures!! 😍 Safe travels, my friend! 🚙⛺ I know we will get together again! 😊 pic.twitter.com/CHCYhra76h

— Nature Tech Family 🏞️🚙📷 (@naturetechfam) August 3, 2022

I had an elk burger and a flight before choosing a few cans of to-go beer and going back to the campground where I got the firepit going. 

and then....

I blame Kari. She made me want a s'more.

Ursa Major (Big Dipper) from the campground; I could see more, but my phone couldn't capture all of the majesty

The morning view was <chef's kiss>

I still had no plans come the next morning, so I figured I'd go to Wind Cave. 

note : some links are associate links where a click will result in minimal compensation to me if you also make a purchase through that link

Fire Pit : Finished!

So, for Pat's birthday -- back in April -- I told him I'd buy a fire pit. We looked at some kits and fire bowls and the like, and decided to do a DIY project. I bought a fire ring from Lowe's and stuffed it into the back of the Camaro, dug out a pit once he'd decided where he wanted it to go, and voila! Instant campfire feel.

First fire in the new ring. Trying to set down some ashes and settle the pit before adding paver stones to the outside.

A photo posted by Karen (@kiirenza) on May 3, 2015 at 7:10pm PDT

We finally got the paver base just about a month ago, and at that point, Pat picked out what color stones we wanted. So, with my plans for a trip to Hersheypark this week getting stalled out due to car issues, I asked if I could use the truck today to pick up the retaining stones. He said it was okay, and so this morning, I ordered the stones online and went to pick them up a little while afterwards.

I wish Pat had warned me about how awful Lowe's online order-pickup at store deal was. I got the email saying the order was ready at 12:53PM, and got to the store just before 2PM. After getting my invoice at customer service, I proceed to wait outside until 2:30 when a cart-return guy (I think his name was Leon) asks me if I need some help with something. I told him what I was waiting for, and he went inside to check up on my order. He came back a few moments later and said I should talk to the customer service guys that were in the garden/landscape area, which I did. Finally, I got to talk to the guys who would be doing the heavy lifting, and took the truck around to where it would finally be loaded up. An hour after I'd arrived, I finally had the stones.

Once home, it took no time at all to construct the rest of the pit.

First layer

I started with the initial circle using the ring itself as the template. Pat came home just as I was finishing the first layer, and I asked him if he still wanted a second. He said yeah, and started bringing stones over too. In under thirty minutes, the last of the stones was in place.

Twenty-four stones later...

I'd bought 26 stones total, knowing each layer should only be twelve stones, but accounting for the possibility of breaking one or more.

So, if it finally stops raining and stays relatively cool, the new-and-improved fire pit will be even more awesome! :)

Pseudocamping

It was finally cool and dry enough to get a fire going in the fire pit last night. The wood was still pretty wet, but I had a nice little flame going for a few hours.

Slow Day

Well, we were going to head out to western Maryland this morning for more fishing and camping, and I'd finally convinced Pat to try out Paw Paw.

But after he made a quick run over to Bass Pro Shops for an Ugly Stick fishing rod, he realized that the brakes on the Lightning were not in good shape, at all. Since Strano hasn't linked up with Amazon for same day shipping, and he isn't willing to put crappy brake pads on the truck, even for a few days, we scrapped the idea of going out this weekend.

Take the Camaro, you say? Well, yeah, it's having some clutch issues (I think the throw-out bearing is shot, but it has needed a new clutch for a while anyway), plus we would be able to get maybe one bike in it, not both, and getting the rest of the camping stuff, plus fishing rods would be a stretch.

So, we ran over to Lowe's to finally grab some paver base for the fire pit.

Now all we need are some stones to finish it.

So, maybe I'll do some other stuff around the house this weekend. Or finally change the oil in the Camaro. Or just sleep. :) Next week's exam week, and I'm only giving one exam to a handful of students; the rest of the students in that class opted to do projects that I already graded. The six remaining anatomy students have a research paper to turn in first thing on Monday morning, and I should be able to get those graded before the seven or so astronomy students come in for the exam. That exam is multiple choice, so my grades should be pretty much done before the end of the day on Monday.

I'm ready for summer. Even though I'll have to work at least twenty days of it, it will be relaxing compared to some of the drama I've put up with during the school year. Plus, I've already blocked out three weeks at the end of July/beginning of August for a long road trip out west with my mom. We'll go to the salt flats (of course), and some places that she and dad didn't get to last time they were out there.... because, they thought, "We'll go there next time." :(

I'm ready to chill by the fire pit now, maybe with an e-book in hand, or to do anything that just takes my mind off the ugliness of the real world for a while.

English ivy creeping at the base of a maple tree in the back yard

UPDATE : I decided to clean up my bike, lube the chain and attach the bags and rack I got via Amazon earlier this week.