July 10, 2006

July 10, 2006

Our bed is over the cab of the RV. The bed support has a strip of Velcro running along it for a privacy curtain when we are camped. I was getting something out of the cab area yesterday and banged my forehead hard on the bed support. I now have a dime-sized battle scar on my forehead in a perfectly checkered likeness of Velcro. The RV has tight accommodations so Aimee and I both have bruises on toes, shins and elbows.

In the late morning we head into the town of Hot Springs and the Mammoth Site. This is an excavation in process and not to be missed. This small site was the location of a steep sided watering hole some 25,000 years ago during the last ice age when mammoths ruled the planet. Over time, some mammoths were not be able to get out and their bones were eventually buried in the mud. This site probably has some 70 feet of mammoths buried in it and they have only dug down 30 or 40 feet. You can see a large number of tusks, teeth, and other mammoth bones partially exposed. Removing all the fossils is a painstaking process so they expect to be working here for another 20-30 years. The site was discovered by a developer trying to build a few homes on a grassy hill on the edge of Hot Springs. He sold the property to a preservation society who built a building around it so they could excavate year round. The building also has an interesting museum displaying what they uncovered and lots of information about the mammoths. The mammoths died out for unknown causes at the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago. There is usually 8-12,000 years between ice ages so one should be imminent again. Might global warming be a good thing? Afterwards Aimee made us lunch and we ate it on one of several picnic tables outside the building. Having your house in the trunk of the car is convenient at times.

After lunch, we head north into Wind Cave National Park. We don’t have any interest seeing the caves but we enjoy the prairie dog towns along the road as we pass thru. We continue north into Custer State Park. I have heard nothing but good reports about it. Shortly into the park we turn east onto the Wildlife loop road. The roads in this park are very windy and hilly and not easy to drive in an RV. There is even a 360 degree turn. Along the way we see handfuls of small pronghorn antelope grazing along the road. Halfway thru we run into a gigantic herd of buffalo. Traffic for the next several miles comes to a crawl so everybody can take pictures and let the herd cross the road one by one.

Tonight we camp at the Grace Coolidge site within the park. It is a pretty ponderosa pine forested site along side some sheer granite cliffs. The state parks so far have been the most scenic but they are more rustic, with none of the water, electricity, and internet hookups we are getting used to at the private campgrounds. Thank goodness we can be self-contained for a while.