Restless? Wistfullness? Disquieted?

Apparently, there are German words for this feeling -- sehnsucht and fernweh.

The north bay of Bear Head Lake

For 23 days, from July 24th through August 16th, I was on this year's road trip. We stayed at my mom's on the first night to have a birthday breakfast with her the next morning (it was her 80th!), and after that, it was tent camping every night. 

We went to Buffalo, NY to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site on the morning of the 26th, and cut across southern Ontario to Michigan afterwards. The border crossing into Canada was more adversarial than a trip we made back in May. I'm not looking forward to how our upcoming trip in November will go. 

A chandelier, converted to electricity from gas, in the library where the inauguration happened

the eastern shore of Lake Huron at Pinery Provincial Park

We stayed at Pinery Provincial Park that Sunday night, which I wish we'd been able to explore more of. Every one of the Ontario Provincial Parks we've visited or stayed at over the past few years are really amazing gems.

Pat wanted to visit some sites in the U.P., so it was across the Mackinac Bridge and into pasty-land. A quick stop in St. Ignace on Monday night was followed by drive through Marquette to visit an old fishing spot of Pat's, then a stay at Lake Gogebic and a trip to the Porcupine Mountains. 

Pat fished at Lake Gogebic. There's a reason they call it fishing and not catching.

A loon on Lake Gogebic

Lake of the Clouds in the Porcupine Mountains

We hiked the Presque Isle River trail to see where the river meets Lake Superior.

Pat standing partway up the stairs that lead down, down, down the trail to the mouth of the river.

Presque Isle River meets Lake Superior

We didn't stop anywhere in Wisconsin, as Pat wanted to go to the newly opened Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, ND. Since he had a flight home out of Casper, WY on August 2, that constrained when and where else we could go. We stayed a night in Minnesota about 20 minutes from the southern shores of Mille Lacs Lake (talk about redundant naming!), then drove across North Dakota. 

The "World's Largest Buffalo" in Jamestown, ND

a damselfly near Sweet Briar Lake

If you're going to go to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, make sure you know that you need timed entrance tickets. Sadly, we ended up entering around 3:30PM (well, our tickets were for 3PM, but the line to enter was slow). We spent about 2 hours inside, and could have spent more time, except my knee started hurting badly partway through. We also had a campsite in Custer, SD that night, and it was a longer drive than I anticipated. The "library" is more of a museum, taking you from TR's childhood through his post-presidency years. There's a lot of interactive features that allow you to form a "journal" of your visit, but a good amount of it is AI (such as the photos that insert you into various eras). Between the AI and the lines to do the various interactives, I opted not to do a lot of it, so my journal is kind of sparse. 

Before going to the library, we went to the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

A lone bison standing on a ridge at Theodore Roosevelt National Park

a takeaway I had from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

The last full day with Pat was spent at Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I suggested camping at Elk Mountain Campground and getting two nights there so that we didn't have to pack everything before heading to Casper to drop him off at the airport, and it made things very calm and easy heading into Sunday morning. 

Wild burros at Custer State Park

The Needles at Custer SP

A bison bull at Wind Cave National Park. During the rut, where there's one, there are usually more

Bison on the move at Wind Cave National Park

a fledgling robin near our campsite

night skies out west are incredible

The morning view from Pat's side of the tent

After I dropped him off, it was back to the campground, and the beginning of the lonely part of my trip. I'll (hopefully) complete this later in a part 2.

Chadron State Park, Nebraska's first state park

Planning

It's just about that time of year. 

The road trip is coming. 

An atlas is the best friend of a road tripper

So far, Pat has booked a flight into Denver, and a flight out of Minneapolis-St. Paul, plus arranged for fishing with RainyDaze Guide Service. Our plan so far is to go to Pikes Peak, maybe Rocky Mountain National Park, Wind Cave National Park and....??? before Voyageurs, where Pat's part of the trip will end.  

Why is Pat flying home on this trip?

Because I'll finish up the trip at Voyageurs at the second STEAM in the Park camp that I'll do this summer!

New River was the first STEAMinthePark camp I attended, and I touched something weird

In preparation for the trip, I've been going through our gear and cleaning, replacing and adding to it as appropriate. I did an "introduction to backpacking" session at Patapsco Valley State Park last month, and learned that backpacking backpacks need to be properly sized to avoid back injury. Since I've been looking at doing an overnight backpacking trip somewhere, this was important information!

This backpack was way too long for me.

After the session, I went to REI in Columbia to get sized and to try out various backpacks. Partly due to Naturalist Sam's recommendation on how well his Osprey packs had worked, I settled on a 65L Osprey Aura AG, then came home to order it since I had my REI Coop coupons and several gift cards from last Yule. 

I've also been streamlining other gear by cleaning up and listing our older Rhinowolf modular tents. We really don't use the original ones any more, since the version 2.0 is easier to set up and take down due to the center pole being outside the tent rather than inside. 

Rhinowolf tents are cool because they can zip together and have integrated sleeping pads and down blankets.

Beyond all that, I've already made reservations to camp in Curecanti NRA the night before I pick up Pat from the airport in Denver. Curecanti is essentially next door to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, so I'll finally check both of those off my Passports list! I figure that will be on the way "back" from the Bonneville Salt Flats, where I won't see Speed Week this time around. 

The Crosstrek looks at home on the Salt Flats

I'm getting antsy to head out. This'll be the fifth year of adventuring in the Crosstrek, so the hashtag we'll use is #FünfTrek (fünf is German for 5). Follow along if you want! 

note that links to Amazon are associate links and if you buy something through that link, I may receive nominal compensation. 
 

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