iron Mountain Road, Monday 17th August

So here's the thing. Iron Mountain Road is supposedly one of the most scenic in America, but its a narrow road with no turning round space and three low tunnels. The lowest of them is 12'2". Our RV needs 12'... Can we really trust either Cruise America, or the tourist board on that vital two inches? Supposing the tunnel is at the bottom of a dip? Then the front and back wheels of the RV will be higher, lifting the middle of the RV as it passes beneath the lowest point. That two inch clearence could easily vanish. Hmmm.

Anyway, first we had to leave Custer State Park, which was damp but pretty and served us well, letting us recharge a bit. We hit the road, turning left onto 16A with its warnings about those low bridges ahead. Halfway along there was another road which would allow us to skip the tunnels, but also the most dramatic bit of the route... We pulled in at the National parks office and consulted their map board. Good news! The tunnels were all listed as being 12'6" - a whole four inches higher. Inside though, the maps disagreed: 12'2". So which was right? The staff were nonplussed "what maps outside?". Er the big maps in the centre of the information board. Much scratching of heads ensued with everyone agreed that that they had no real idea. Bright smiles all round, goodbyes and let's keep going for a bit.

Winding up to the top of the pass was picture perfect. This is where many of the 150,000 of Custer's Buffalo live and there were scores of them loafing about beside the road (quick factoid: they are actually Bison, but known as Buffalo because of the French description of them as Boef-alo). There were donkeys too - which ambled over to cars looking for handouts. They were wonderfully mild-mannered, slow moving animals with soft heads and warm brown eyes. It was so nice to see them just lazing about in the sunshine as opposed to working for a living.
We found a lunchstop overlooking fields and woods rising up to a cliff several miles away which on closer inspection turned out to have four familiar Presidents looking out of it. It was easily the most dramatic view of Mount Rushmore. No people, no razmatazz, just four quiet faces contemplating the landscape. We whiled away an hour or so there before making the decision that we'd come this far and by jingo we would take on those tunnels!

The pass got narrower and the hairpins more frequent and then round a corner to the first single lane tunnel. Headroom 12'4". PT jumped out to see me through. I pulled in the wing mirrors and edged through the cool stone with Tom in the passenger seat urging me on. No problem and a big thumbs up and smiles from a couple on Harleys at the other end waiting to go through. A quick breather at an overlook, which had more views of Rushmore and an info board saying the lowest tunnel was in fact 9'7". No way. Having come this far we weren't inclined to turn back and couldn't believe that the other signs could really be so wildly out of step with this one. Round another bend and there it was - 12'2". OK, mirrors in again line up in the very middle and...crunch! grind! smash!

Stop it Philippa. It was absolutely fine. Phew! The last tunnel (an unremarkable 12'6") framed Rushmore perfectly as you emerged through it. We curled down, not stopping in the touristy town of Keystone with its whip-racking cowboy in the middle of the road, and off towards the Badlands.

For about forty or fifty miles we cruised through open flat prairie and farmland and then suddenly we were surrounded by a grey moonscape of jagged cliffs and flat-top buttes. It was an eerie and startling sight with no sign of life. We passed Scenic at a distance and saw a jumble of ancient buildings on its main street. And on through this wierd landscape until we got to Cedar Pass and our National Park campsite on the edge of a rocky escarpment. It was just a field really with sheltered picnic benches and a tap but the simplicity was exactly right.
After supper we drove to a boardwalk trail and walked up to a high point to watch the sun go down, lighting the rocks pink and gold as it set. We drove a little further and the sky was a splash of crimson, rose and violet. We stood by the road watching the colours and a little bat fluttered around us so slowly and so close that you could see its mousey face. What a fabulous place. (pictures above)

Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore - mile 2121

Tom was genuinely excited about the prospect of seeing the real actual Mount Rushmore that he had read about in "Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures - the Mount Rushore Calamity" (available from booksellers). We were looking forward to it too. Philippa had been here on a filming trip which was memorable chiefly because she was Not At All Well and had to come home suddenly. I had been here aged two when, I am reliably informed, the Lister family car wheezed around the car park without stopping for fear that it would never start again.

Anyway, up into the hills, round a corner, and there they were! Looking somewhat smaller than we had all expected, but quite extraordinary just the same. Hats off to Mr Borglum who was responsible for this. Using dynamite and pneumatic drills he and his team really caught the likenesses of all four Presidents (Trivial Pursuit question - which ones? *) which is astounding given where the sculptures actually are. The National Park Service has had its work cut out managing the hordes that go to see it but the walkways are pretty good and we spent about an hour wandering around a long loop with about a hundred thousand other people, admiring the different aspects of the four faces.

But for all this, there is something deeply grating about what this monument has become. There is no charge to see Mount Rushmore from the road, but to park will cost you ten dollars. There are sightseeing helicopters buzzing around it and official souvenirs for sale all over the place. All this honest capitalism wouldn't be so bad if at the same time this monument wasn't being pitched as the "Shrine of Democracy" which is now its label. People kept talking about it with a rather unsettling sort of national fervour. Even a ranger at the Custer campground insisted that no matter what our nationality, if we weren't patriotic about America before going to see it, we would be after. The sculptor is hailed as a national hero ("His legend will enhance your patriotism") and the soaring granite obelisks, and avenue of flags around the viewing platform have a distinctly nationalistic edge that I found really unlikeable. Its become the National Park equivalent of that overbearing "USA, USA" chant that turns people off at the Olympics.

That also means there can be no honest telling of the history of the region. The Park Service info boards talked about the Indians living there for thousands of years before America's expansion westward which lead to "many different cultures using the land in different ways". Well yes. Once the Indians had been driven out, slaughtered in great numbers and forced into reservations. And what better way to remind those people who had been victorious, than to blast images of Presidential faces in cliffs overlooking former Indian hunting grounds. There was a nod to the Indians who had been driven out in one corner. Three crisp teepees and some animal skulls, but no explanations of any kind. History is written by the winners of course but it is also messy and complicated and the losers have a story too... Folks, its not really a Shrine to Democracy. Its an amazing sculpture of four extraordinary politicians, and a big, big money spinner. But don't believe the hype.

OK, spleen vented.

On the way back we found a three mile walk through some open pine woods, studded with tremendous boulders which we scrambled about on before heading back to Custer to find a bijou coffee place of the sort that we Eastern pinko liberals tend to favour. Custer is a great little town of broad streets and handsome false-front buildings. But it really is closed on Sundays. Nevertheless, Philippa persisted and eventually found the perfect place, behind a door, down a corridor and at the end of a row of closed shops. It had coffee, milkshakes and WiFi. A shrine to modern America...?

*George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln and Warren Harding. OK, Thomas Jefferson.

Tea and Custer

Saturday August 15th

Its grey and damp outside and we are holed up in the RV with cups of tea and books. An hour ago the rain was drumming on the roof as thunder crashed over the hillside.

We are all somewhat weary after a big hike this morning. Fortified by a big Saturday morning fry up, we marched off to the Little Devil's Tower up a rocky track that got ever steeper. Tom told us a complicated story the entire way (about an hour and a half - PT said at one point, "my ears are bleeding...") until we got to the rocky peak itself, which we climbed. It was steep and quite challenging in places but when we emerged at the summit, the view was terrific.

We could see the Black Hills surrounding the park and then off across the plains of South Dakota to a horizon which must have been a hundred miles away. Custer really is a very pretty park with lofty granite spires and ridges, trimmed with fir trees. It looks like the backdrop to a Western movie and any moment you expect to see an Indian on horseback at the top of a bluff.

It was windy and cool at the summit and as we had lunch on our peak the clouds gathered and darkened and lowered and generally acted tough so we decided not to chance it any further and started back down. Tom resumed his story and bounded ahead. PT and I failed to keep up with either the narrative or his pace. Still, apart from a few drops it didn't really rain on us and with a few shafts of hesitant sunshine, Tom was inspired enough to want to swim in the lake when we got back. Rather him than us... We gave him his trunks and waved from the shore as his little head bobbed off towards one of the rocky islands fifty yards away...and bobbed back again. Yes it was a bit cold in fact, so back to our cosy little home on wheels. Its actually quite nice to have an excuse to take it easy after a full-on few weeks.

Its really pouring now and looking out at this lush green campsite through a haze of rain it feels like we are a million miles from the arid desert of a few weeks ago. I think another movie is on the cards after supper and we'll see what Mr Custer has in store for us tomorrow.

More Custer please

Chadron Nebraska to Custer State Park, South Dakota.Friday 14th August.Mile 1951

Our only day under overcast skies. Still, we had a walk near our campsite up on the Black Hills Overlook - a walk that turned into a half hour run, as Tom insisted on the "tag" theme throughout. Then it was off north. Not much reason to come back to Nebraska, though thanks to Helen's email tipoff, we did both see a meteor streak through starry skies before we went to sleep last night.

Mile 37 - RAIN !! But not for long.

We amused ourselves a little, working out the economics of petrol prices - rockbottom in Wyoming (Cheney country), shot up in Nebraska, then dropped again by twenty cents a gallon as soon as we crossed to South Dakota. These things matter when you're filling up a thirsty RV....

In South Dakota, we stopped in the town of Hot Springs. Didn't look much, but with every corner turned, we became more intrigued - like seeing the auto mechanic who was lovingly restoring Chevrolet trucks (think 'Mater' in the "Cars" movie) from rustbuckets to sky-blue, smooth-hulled beauties; or the handsome sandstone buildings towering above their ramshackle neighbours; or at the end of a rundown row of shops, a cafe of fantastic character called the "Blue Bison", where we stopped for soup and sandwiches and, in T's case, a "birthday cake" flavoured icecream. The cafe further endeared itself to us with piles of reading material: Tom fell upon the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, and we loved the local history books that showed how Hot Springs had really taken off in the 1890s. Its heyday was long gone, but a sense of character - and eccentricity - survived.

On the way back to the RV, we dipped into a door labelled "Smith Fargo Antiques & Mercantile", which turned out to be a huge and dusty emporium full of oddities: some stuff that only your great-aunt could love, some that was probably a real find. I unearthed boxes of old magazines and came away with, among others, the edition of Newsweek dated May 12th 1975. I had to buy it as soon as I read this on its contents page: "America's agonising struggle in Vietnam ended last week...." Cost: one dollar. Plus a Watergate issue, and another intriguing U.S. glossy called "Look" from 1966, with a cover story about England in crisis, facing devaluation, and moral decline...

Then as the skies stayed grey, we headed north towards Custer State Park - we'll have three nights there - to do our last hiking, and check out Mount Rushmore. As we got inside the park boundary, a big road sign warned "Large Wildlife on Road". Then another, "Buffalo are Dangerous - Do not approach". Hmmm, chance'd be a fine thing. All green green grass, and nowt else. When I saw "Slow Turtles Crossing", I started to think, is this satirical?? But a few buffalo and some pretty deer later, honour was somewhat satisfied.

We're at a state campground at Sylvan Lake - sounds kind of 1950s and feels that way too. The lake is very pretty, with folks scattered around it fishing, swimming, or hanging out at the wooden cabins nearby. Some sort of Garrison Keillor timewarp.

When we'd taken the trail back to the RV, we made pizza, then it was family film night again - Jurassic Park III - which had the nice side effect of spooking Tom enough to have him sitting on my knee. Ahh, that doesn't happen much now he's nearly seven. The movie prompted him to volunteer a few wise observations about evolution... "fish became humans didn't they?"... "so humans lay babies like dinosaurs laid eggs?"... We avoided the birds-and-bees talk for now by making popcorn, R and I had some rather nice chardonnay, and all was cosy and quiet.

Outpost Cafe on the Loneliest Road

Thursday 13th, Guernsey Wyoming to Chadron, Nebraska

Guernsey lake was mirror flat in the sunshine when we woke up. After croissants warmed in the michael, Tom ran off to the little beach in front of the RV and we all went for a swim in the cool water. The sun got hot and jetskis and speedboats started buzzing across the lake. It would have been nice to spend the day there but we have some distance to make up so after drying off in the sunshine we headed off.

We stopped briefly a few miles down the road to look at a stretch of the old Oregon Trail. The deep ruts cutting through a sandstone bluff were a legacy of hundreds of wagons which rolled through here a hunded and fifty years ago. It was a quietly impressive monument to those pioneers, and a journey that was cut from six months to two weeks, once the transcontinental railway was complete in 1869.

North then on on 270. It's a winding road through the prairie with so little traffic that drivers coming in the other direction give a nod and raise a finger from the steering wheel in acknowledgement as we pass.
The prairie itself is grand in its own modest way. It's shaggy with grasses and not at all flat. It rolls and curves off to the horizon, snaked with narrow green river beds, now dry. Small rocky outcrops rear up every so often, the last remnant of the giant cliffs that were here millions of years ago. The grasses shimmer and wave, changing colour in the sun and the wind; deep green to sage, pale blue and gold, glowing and dancing under a milky blue sky.

The sky in Utah seemed much more dazzling and electric in its blueness. Its softer in Wyoming somehow. There are more cows too. In Utah there were constant signs warning about cattle we never saw, though it seemed complete madness to graze them in such a sparse and fragile environment. Here, glossy black cattle are sprinkled every few miles, often gathered around the water tanks filled by the tall steel bladed windmills which are another feature of this landscape.

Every now and then great gusts of wind sweep across this open place, slamming into the side of the RV and forcing quick corrections to stay on the road. There are blizzard breaks at strategic points and level crossing-style barriers at major junctions to close the road off when the snow gets too deep. That seems hard to believe in this buzzy heat. There are tiny communities along the way including Hartville (population 76) which is the oldest continuous settlement in Wyoming (1884) according to the peeling wooden sign. It's a street with one-room Wild West buildings facing the narrow street, many sagging and in disrepair, though some are being kept up. There are three churches - with a sign on one "home and church for sale". On the way out, an empty stone house with a rusting tin bath in the weeds at the back.

Then we hit Highway 20 - the "Loneliest Road" which stretches from Oregon to Maine. Heading east we hit Lusk and the Outpost Cafe where we stop for lunch. Its a great cavern of a room, with slow ceiling fans and venetian blinds over the narrow windows - no-one comes here for the view. The waitress ("I'm new") is an older lady with a soft brown face and no sense of urgency. We wait to order, then wait and wait for the food. After half an hour we watch our plates pile up on the serving hatch - as does she - while she works the cash register and does hidden duties in the kitchen.

The food is hearty though, a brunch for Tom - pancake, scrambled egg, sausage, bacon. An omelette, home fries and toast for PT and an open face beef sandwich with gravy and mashed potato for me. Its about twenty to three and we eat like people possessed.

Further on is Van Tassel (Pop. 16) which seems like it is struggling to hang on. A tiny clapboard gas station set back from the road has tall grasses growing where the gas pumps used to be and an old car parked up.
Philippa snoozes with cello music on her iPod, T watches a DVD and I cruise along the loneliest road watching the freight trains chuntering along the railway line running alongside.

It's a quiet drive, broken by a stop at Fort Robinson State Park: a sprawling nineteenth century complex, all neatly clipped and painted now, having been decommissioned decades ago. I felt a bit uneasy about it. It was built to mop up the final few Indian bands holding out in the West. This was the supply point for the Battle of Wounded Knee, and Chief Crazy Horse was killed escaping from here in what was actually an appalling act of treachery (though not spelled out on any markers here...). As late as 1909 troops left the fort to round up a group of starving Utes who had escaped their reservation, and forced them back to South Dakota. It's not really a piece of history to be proud of and too much is glossed over amid the hayrides and cookouts.

What IS impressive is the tiny Natural History Museum which houses the extraordinary fossils of two giant mammoths which died locked in combat - their tusks fatally entwined. It's a great little exhibition and also has a video about dinosaurs which Tom declares to the lady at the door to be the "best movie I have ever seen!".

Its getting late now and we push on the Chadron State Park, ignoring the usually reliable satnav which tries to send us off in exactly the wrong direction. Our space is green and quiet, there are crickets singing outside and I've had a text from Helen saying tonight is a good time to look for meteor showers. We will.

Cheyenne Country - Mile 1799

Fort Collins Colorado to Guernsey State Park in Wyoming.Wednesday 12th August.

Taking our time about getting up these days. Tom brought his comic book to join us in bed. Then after breakfast, Richard brewed up strong coffee, and we did a bit of home-schooling (me realising Second Grade is only DAYS away!) I'd bought a "Summer Skills - Daily Activity Workbook" with me for rising second graders. 90 pages of it - to get it all done, he'll have to get through 3 pages a day before Minneapolis.

This morning, unusually, he was really up for it. He was grumpy then suddenly thrilled when he learned how to "carry over" numbers in his maths page. And then we had a genuinely sweet moment when he realised the final exercise was to survey 10 people about their favourite meal of the day. He jumped up from the table and started tugging on his shoes. "Come on we need to find lots of people!" We trotted round the campsite, Tom mentally rehearsing his spiel, and he was great, this little English voice piping up "Good morning! I need you to help me with my school survey." We made a few instant friends, had a fun time, and half an hour later, it was switches, hatches, steps - and all away north to Wyoming.

Over the border, our first stop was the cowboys-and-proud-of-it state capital, Cheyenne. We'd meant to have a coffee but spent hours there - and it so reminded me of last year's trip around Wyoming and Montana - just love that frontier vibe... First stop, the laundromat - the luxury of handing over a huge bundle to someone else to clean.. Next stop, a big Barnes and Noble - ahhhh, how lovely to gather a stack of news magazines (P) and cartoon books (T) and stoke up on caffeine and put photos on the blog (R).

Then we were free to wander around while the laundrette lady sorted our stuff. I took custody of Richard's camera (he likes to remind me that I once said, why do you NEED another camera, and now I'm the one who lives with it slung over my shoulder). Really enjoyed snapping shots of rooflines and sixties ad hoardings and neon signs set against that clear blue western sky. There wasn't much of the historic downtown left - like so many places, the spirit of the town seems to dribble away into anonymous malls and suburbia. Having failed to find the classic diner of our imaginings, we had sandwiches in a tiny cafe in the County Government Buildings. Tom was thrilled to be queuing for his drink next to a man with uniform, holster, gun and curly earpiece. "Are you a real sheriff?" "Yes I am" said the security guard.

Last stop was a casual one, a peek inside the Cheyenne Depot, home of the massive Union Pacific railroad. The museum was pretty much empty, but enthralling. From the making of the railroad, to the marketing of "frontier" Cheyenne, to posters for the war effort in the forties.. and upstairs there was a brilliant recreation of the "baggage depot" in the original space, with trunks 'scattered' around and period clothing and toys and letters and artefacts, all of which the visitor is basically encouraged to play with. As soon as we spotted the tiny cowboy boots with spurs, Tom got into them, and got into character (how DOES he know how to do that "howdy pardner" routine....?!). He was also wearing a belt with a capgun in a holster. It was too big and at one point as he was swaggering around he said (still in character) "Ah think mah pants'r fallin' down".

Thankyou Cheyenne, thankyou laundry lady, and we were out and heading north. There's not much there for a lot of Wyoming - those'll be the plains the cowboys used to ride I guess. Blue sky above, green grass below. For miles and miles and miles.

We've pulled into a little oasis - Guernsey State Park. Didn't really know what to think. But we got lucky - our reserved space is at the end of the busy campground - a peaceful, shady spot - and right next to the sandy beach leading into Guernsey Lake. Tom insisted he did NOT want to leave the RV again today; I insisted he just take a look. Of course once he put his toe into the water, he ran back for his fastest ever change into swimming trunks. He hit the water as we cracked open the camp chairs and a couple of cold beers. Ah, peace perfect peace. Five minutes later, he was still swimming - away from shore. Ignoring shouts to turn around. I did actually finish the beer but then it was my fastest suiting up ever - and into the lake after him. Not my planned end to the day, but a lovely one in fact.

A bit of supper - tilapia, stirfry, newps. It's ten pm, Tom is actually snoring, and we will be soon to bed.

Weigh a Pie - mile 1647

Tuesday 11th of August
Grand Lake to Fort Collins

With the thermostat up and double layers on, last night didn't feel quite so cold. Tom was up with the lark and pottering about before seven; shafts of sunlight streaming through the cracks in the curtains. We made the most of Elk Creek Campground's water and lekky for hot showers, then breakfast and off.

A couple of miles up the road we passed through the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, feeling smug about the annual parks pass we bought early on which has now almost paid for itself. The broad road climbed steadily through the trees we grumped about yesterday, but soon we were clinging to the edge of the mountain, hustling the RV through hairpin bends with steep views down to a grassy valley. Elk Creek Campground was at about eight and a half thousand feet, but soon we passed the ten thousand foot mark - and found the sign for the Continental Divide, the second time we have crossed it on this trip. Tom complained of having a stomach ache, which was almost certainly wind that had expanded with the altitude. After running around for a bit he was fine and onwards and upwards we went.

We emerged above the treeline with huge views across to rounded granite peaks still striped with snow lingering in shady clefts. There was grassy tundra all around us with little yellow flowers flickering in the sharp wind. We pulled into the Alpine Visitors Centre and walked the path to a lookout point a couple of hundred feet up. It wasn't steep but we were so high that we had to keep stopping to catch our breath. PT and I both felt very light headed but Tom soon got to grips with the thin air and was bounding around like a mountain goat. At the rocky little peak the view was magnificent; a lush green glacial valley opening up below and a huge sweep of snowy mountains all around us, crystal sharp in the bright sunshine. We posed by the "Altitude 12005 feet" sign being buffeted by the keen wind and then headed back down for a hot chocolate in the visitor's centre.

Back in the RV we wound further up Trail Ridge Road which looked like a little piece of black string curling up the round green hillside. After passing over its highest point (12,186 feet) we watched a big herd of Elk grazing further up the flank of the mountain. At another stop Philippa and I saw a couple of fat Marmots sunbathing on separate rocks, sprawled out like tourists on sunbeds.

All too soon we were freewheeling downhill, back below the treeline and eventually to Estes Park which was packed with people like us all out to enjoy Colorado. Estes Park is not a big place but every pavement was crowded and we felt quite claustrophobic after such a long time out in the wilds. We went on, winding along a river valley lined with holiday cottages from what seemed to be the fifties and sixties. There was an air of another era about them. At Fort Collins we made for the Old Town and sat in a brewpub having lunch, a big umbrella keeping the hot sunshine at bay. It seemed hard to believe that we had been on a chilly 12,000 foot peak just a couple of hours before.

Just north was our KOA, not much more than a field on the edge of some farmland and still in earshot of the freeway. But there were some trees for shade and as ever the hosts were cheerful and efficient, buzzing about in their little golf carts. We were joined in the little swimming pool by two couples each about ten or more years older than us. They hadn't met before but found they were all Harley Buffs and they talked engines and great drives for an hour or so as we eavesdropped. These "mid-life bikers" for want of a better term are a very distinct group in the States - there is no equivalent in the UK. Maybe because we don't have that same Kerouac tradition of The Road. PT wants us to get a big bike and do the same when T is in college/commune/astronaut school/FBI's Ten Most Wanted. I think she just wants the leather trousers. Night all.