(10-29-2026 12:44 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(10-29-2026 11:49 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(10-29-2026 08:43 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(10-29-2026 08:21 AM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  I sincerely hope you don't break down as often as this message board breaks down.

If anyone wonders about outside interference you can wonder no more. The bot attacks flood this site just prior to the election process every time we have one. And they just get worse. Last night they overwhelmed the server twice. The first time was the most obvious since it hit during a time of low actual traffic around most people's dinner time in the East and Central regions. It's hard to know if they are just trying to get the pulse of the political discussion or trying to disrupt it. I think both are happening. I participate in two sports sites including this one which is where I spend the most time. The other had no disruptions whatsoever which tells me they are here because of this forum. If they judge American politics by the discourse they are observing, then they believe us to be fools on the verge of civil war and our threads will only embolden their attacks. Maybe prior to the next election we can talk about drone strikes upon the sources of cyber threats so we can see if they abate. GTS actually got the site back up within an hour of the second one, but it occurred around bedtime in the East and Central zones.

I experience a attack last night on a AD I have running on another site. Went from 985 clicks over 3 days and at 6:30pm to 2185 by 10pm

Bunch of stuff going around on facebook about preparing for a cyberattack. DOD announced they are prepping bases for 90 day disruptions, which I interpreted as just doing something they should have been doing all along, contingency planning. But now people are thinking they need to stock up on food.

it's a shame analog went digital...

'they know not what they do to themselves' or the literal, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” comes to mind...

"Bunch of stuff going around on facebook about preparing for a cyberattack. DOD announced they are prepping bases for 90 day disruptions, which I interpreted as just doing something they should have been doing all along, contingency planning. But now people are thinking they need to stock up on food." Bullet

Yeah, I've been seeing it a lot. Probably a few bots and some really gullible people getting all worked up for nothing. If it comes, it comes, all you'll have to do is live like the settlers did when they didn't have all these confounded contraptions. We have McDonalds, they'll never close. LOL

Okay, before this thread turns into just another political dogfight, let's get back to the original subject.

For those of you keeping score, last I talked about my travels, I was in the Black Hills of western South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, amazing wildlife wandering around free, etc.

To recap my impressions. My first stop of any interest was at Wall Drug in Wall SD. Very cool. Essentially a small drug store started by a couple in the early 1900s in the middle of NFW, and now a giant shopping complex of about 74,000 SF, and all of it looking like something out of the late 1800s.

I can't figure out how to post my personal photos on here, so I'm going to grab some generic shots online to give you a better sense of what I have been seeing and doing on my sojourn.

This is a "jackalope" at Wall Drug, a mythical creature of great proportions. I actually climbed up on that thing (steps are on the other side) and had someone take a pic for me. I'm a pretty big dude, but that thing made me look small. And funny.

For perspective on the size of that thing, look at the lady sitting in the background and compare sizes.



And here is what the inside of Wall Drug looks like.



Across the street (an 8 mile drive), sits Badlands National Park. For those unfamiliar, here's what it looks like:



Crazy place. Covers almost 380 square miles, and most of it looks like that. Sitting out in the middle of nowhere, in what otherwise is hundreds of miles of mostly flat prairie grasslands. It took me several hours to drive through, stop at all the overlooks, and stop in the Visitor Center to watch a movie about the whole thing. Frankly, it got a bit boring after a few hours, but I'm glad I got to see it.

To me, the best tourist attraction I've seen so far is Mount Rushmore. First time I drove around a curve in the Black Hills and saw it in the distance, I teared up. Weird. I certainly never expected that. Turned out to be very impressive up close. And I'm traveling at a time of year when not many people are doing the same, so I have these places almost to myself (well, as much as they will ever be unless you went in the dead of winter, lol.)

To be continued below...

Mount Rushmore...should be familiar to all...



I was a little surprised how it affected me. I thought it would be boring. Nope. And it probably helped my impression that I was able to drive right up to the front entrance, park and just walk a few steps into the park.

But I would never ever want to be there in the summer with the crowds. I would have liked to see the program they put on at night, but that stopped for the season not long before I got there.

On to the next thing. You might have noticed above that I called Mount Rushmore a "tourist attraction," which of course it is.

What I saw next surely is not, and blows away anything else I have seen so far, although I have a long way to go. There is a place called Custer State Park in the Black Hills. Its claim to fame is an 18-mile paved road called the Wildlife Loop, which is frequented daily by hundreds of bison (NOT buffalo, lol), as well as tons of other wildlife, plus a surprise I will mention in a minute.

Most of the wildlife there go up into the hills at night to sleep, then return the next day to the valley to graze. Right where they decided to build the road, lol.

The freaking bison are everywhere, and it's obvious they are used to contact with humans. Essentially, they ignore us. And wander around all over the road, often blocking traffic.

I got some cool shots, too bad I'm too dumb to know how to post them here. But here are some stock photos, to give you an idea.



Pronghorn. I saw a lot of them.



Prairie dogs. They are everywhere, not just on the Wildlife Loop. I actually walked up to one, within maybe 10 feet, and he just sat there, chewing on some peanuts another tourist had thrown to him.



Coyotes. Those things are everywhere, too.



To be continued...

(10-30-2026 09:46 AM)TripleA Wrote:  Mount Rushmore...should be familiar to all...



I was a little surprised how it affected me. I thought it would be boring. Nope. And it probably helped my impression that I was able to drive right up to the front entrance, park and just walk a few steps into the park.

But I would never ever want to be there in the summer with the crowds. I would have liked to see the program they put on at night, but that stopped for the season not long before I got there.

On to the next thing. You might have noticed above that I called Mount Rushmore a "tourist attraction," which of course it is.

What I saw next surely is not, and blows away anything else I have seen so far, although I have a long way to go. There is a place called Custer State Park in the Black Hills. Its claim to fame is an 18-mile paved road called the Wildlife Loop, which is frequented daily by hundreds of bison (NOT buffalo, lol), as well as tons of other wildlife, plus a surprise I will mention in a minute.

Most of the wildlife there goes up into the hills at night to sleep, then returns the next day to the valley to graze. Right where they decided to build the road, lol.

The freaking bison are everywhere, and it's obvious they are used to contact with humans. Essentially, they ignore us. And wander around all over the road, often blocking traffic.

I got some cool shots, too bad I'm too dumb to know how to post them here. But here are some stock photos, to give you an idea.



Pronghorn. I saw a lot of them.





And there is

To be continued...

+3 for the pictures,

Okay, now here is what blew me away, and I doubt very few people anywhere have been able to experience this.

As I was making a turn into Custer State Park to begin the Wildlife Loop, I had slowed down practically to a stop, when the most amazing thing happened.

A WOLF ran across the road right in front of me, not 2 feet from my front bumper. NOT a coyote, lol.

I was so shocked I just sat there staring, and never saw where he went after that, so I don't have any photos or video of it, which is a shame. Moments like those are when I wish I had a travel partner who could have taken the pic (or quick video as the wolf ran away) while I was driving.

Anyway, for you yahoos who don't know much about wolves, I can tell you that in person, they sure look a helluva lot larger than you would expect.

That dude was tracking at a decent trot, but certainly not running, so I got a good look. His head was already past the right side of my F-150 (not a small vehicle), and his tail had yet to clear the left side.

For those unfamiliar with wolves up close, here's a pic to hopefully show the size of those things. I wish I could find one with other objects in the shot, so you could get a better idea, but trust me, the one I saw was huge. Like the dude in the left front below.

One more thing on the Wildlife Loop. Just before I exited the park, I came to an intersection with a bunch of cars stopped and parked. You know that means there is something fun or cool to see.

Yep. A herd of wild burros. I mean, like 50 or more of them. And believe me, they are not the least bit afraid of humans, In fact these particular ones make a partial living from humans. How, you say?

Well, they are not called the "Begging Burros" for nothing. Peeps get out of their cars to see them up close, and the burros aren't the least bit fazed by that. You can walk right up to them. In fact they will approach you, and stick their faces right in your hand, looking for something to eat. Their favorite food turns out to be carrots.

My question is, how do burros develop a taste for carrots in the wild, lol? Because tourists feed them, that's how. And if you don't have anything to feed them when they approach you, they will snort in your hand and walk away, seeking a better-prepared tourist with food, lol.

I found a blurb explaining how the burros got to Custer in the first place. I guess I was lucky that day. A lot of people return several times and never see them. Here is the blurb:

The famous "begging burros" of Custer State Park roam freely along the 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road in South Dakota.

Key Details About the Herd

• Origin: Descendants of working pack donkeys released or left behind in the 1920s.
• Behavior: They walk right up to car windows and look for snacks from visitors.
• Favorite Foods: They happily accept carrots and apples, though they are known to reject rutabagas.
• Where to Find Them: Most commonly spotted right on or near the Wildlife Loop Road.

On to more adventures. Last thing I saw before leaving Custer SD was the Crazy Horse Memorial. I was less interested in this than I was Rushmore, which I thought would be boring. Well, I was wrong again.

Crazy Horse just blew me away. Why, you ask? Because of the sheer size of it. The Rushmore heads are 60 feet tall each.

Crazy Horse, when completed, will be 642' long and 563' tall. In fact, you could fit all of Mount Rushmore inside Crazy Horse's head.



Below is what the final image is planned to be. The original sculptor's family still runs the show, and the Memorial is owned by a non-profit foundation. This carving was started in the late 1940s, with agreement from the then-head of the Lakota tribe. They have been going at a pace much faster than Rushmore, which took 14 years to complete.

Crazy Horse is almost 80 years in, and they estimate it will take about 400 more years to finish, lol. THAT is what blew me away. That thing will be over 50 stories tall.



Here is a short video that does it more justice than stock photos.

You have to scroll a short bit to find the video. It is right above "Carving Update."

https://crazyhorsememorial.org/

Okay, that's everything I saw in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Well, all the major things, anyway. That place is absolutely amazing. I spent about 10 days there, and I could have spent another week or so.

(10-26-2026 05:13 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(10-26-2026 09:23 AM)TripleA Wrote:  

(10-26-2026 09:11 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(10-25-2026 10:54 AM)TripleA Wrote:  Btw, I was planning to drop down to Hatch for some green chiles, then up through Tucson and Phoenix, and back to my route at Sedona. But I'm too late for Hatch, so I'm just east of Albuquerque now, headed to the Petrified Forest National Park and back to my planned tour schedule. Then Sedona, Grand Canyon South, Page AZ for slot canyons and Horseshoe Bend, then into Utah for the Mighty 5. Then to the Texas Hill Country on the way home. Back to Memphis by Nov. 24 at the latest.

What's wrong with the Rockies?

Is it just being near them with a 6400 lb trailer that is bad?

The Rockies are fine. They are beautiful and breathtaking. But I just finished driving down the front range from South Dakota to New Mexico, and the wind was up almost every day, in fact, so bad 2 different days, I just had to sit still.

Pulling a trailer in or near the Rockies is NOT fun. That's all I meant.

P.S. You quoted the wrong post, lol. I complained about the Rockies in a more recent post, actually in a different thread.

Yes, but it would have been off topic to ask the question in that thread. I thought it was probably just the wind with the trailer that was the issue.

Yep. The wind. Rain will also be an issue eventually, because it causes slick roads, and I have to travel a lot of 2-lane highways with little or no shoulders, and the threat of it in my path has me stopped again. I'm now in Holbrook AZ, just west of The Petrified Forest, which I saw yesterday, along with the Painted Desert. Surprisingly, I have had little rain since I started this trek in late August. Cost me a couple of days in Tucumcari, but that's it. The wind has been a MUCH bigger issue.

Of course, driving north to south down the front face of the easternmost Rockies didn't help any. Wind coming over the last of the Rockies, and me right up against them, was a biatch.

Here is my current problem. I am sitting between Flagstaff AZ and Gallup NM, in Holbrook, AZ. Heavy thunderstorms are expected today through Sunday afternoon. I was planning to drive to the Grand Canyon today, through Flagstaff and Williams AZ, then north to the Grand Canyon, but it's not worth starting out, then getting caught in the middle of it, when I can sit here safely at an RV park in Holbrook, and wait until it passes. My plan now is to sit here in Holbrook until Monday morning, since the storm is forecast to pass Sunday afternoon.

Here is a photo of the current problem for me, lol. Even if it somehow missed me in Holbrook, it is smacking the Grand Canyon. I am less than a day's drive away right now.

Back to the fun stuff. I literally have nothing critical to do today. Or tomorrow. Or Sunday. So I might as well catch up on my trip reporting, lol.

After an absolutely brutal drive from South Dakota to Arizona, taking the long way around the Rockies to avoid potential bad weather, I am happy to sit still for a while.

But yesterday, for the first time since South Dakota, I finally got to see some more tourist stuff, which is my main goal on this months-long trip.

I saw both the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. I had heard of both since I was a young lad, and had always wanted to come here. Don't ask me why I focused on those two. That was 70+ years ago, lol. Anyway, I made it yesterday, lol.

To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with either one. They were cool, and I'm glad I got to do it, but they certainly aren't something that I would drive hundreds of miles to see as a stand-alone attraction. But they were right off I-40 on my way here, so no problem.

I think I liked the petrified wood better than the landscape of the Painted Desert, b/c I saw some of that already at the Badlands. And the petrified wood would have been more exciting if they had allowed you to touch it, but I certainly understand why not.

Below are some shots of each. I'm sure you can figure out which is which.

P.S. I actually did touch some petrified wood in a gift shop in the park. Feels just like glass.

Quote:The Painted Desert Inn, historically known as the Stone Treehouse, is a Pueblo Revival–style landmark in Petrified Forest National Park.

The Stone Treehouse (1924–1936)

• Creation: Entrepreneur Herbert David Lore built the original structure around 1924 using local petrified wood and clay perched on a mesa overlooking the Painted Desert.
• Foundation Issues: Built on unstable bentonite clay, the building suffered from shifting ground, severe cracks, and structural damage.
• Acquisition: The National Park Service purchased the property in 1936 for $59,400 to integrate it into the national monument.

Civilian Conservation Corps Reconstruction (1937–1940)

• New Deal Architecture: Using designs by National Park Service architect Lyle E. Bennett (and landscape architect Thomas C. Vint), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) took the building apart and reconstructed it.
• Pueblo Revival Style: The redesign transformed it into a masterpiece of Southwest Rustic and Pueblo Revival architecture, featuring flat roofs, protruding vigas, hand-painted skylights, and custom furnishings.
• Reopening: The inn reopened in 1940 as a roadside oasis for travelers along early alignments of Route 66.

Fred Harvey Era and Mary Colter Redesign (1947–1948)

• Fred Harvey Management: The famed Fred Harvey Company, which managed hospitality along the Santa Fe Railroad, took over operations of the inn.
• Colter's Touch: In 1947, legendary architect and interior designer Mary Jane Colter led a major interior remodel. She added large plate-glass windows to capture the badland views and designed a new color palette.
• Hopi Murals: Colter commissioned celebrated Hopi artist Fred Kabotie to paint vibrant murals on the dining room and lunchroom walls depicting traditional Hopi daily life and culture. Overnight lodging ceased around 1947.

Decline, Demolition Threat, and Preservation (1963–Present)

• Closure: Persistent movement in the bentonite clay foundation forced the inn to close to the public in 1963.
• Saved from Demolition: By the mid-1970s, the Park Service scheduled the building for demolition, but public advocacy and the discovery of Fred Kabotie's historic murals saved it.
• Landmark Status: It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and designated a National Historic Landmark on May 28, 1987.
• Modern Use: Following an extensive restoration completed in the 2000s, the inn now operates as a museum featuring preserved historical rooms, Hopi murals, and a seasonal ice cream parlor.

Front Side, as seen from the road and entrance:



Back side:

Nizhoni Point



Don't know the name, but I parked right by those two below for photos.



No idea on the name of this one.

Andy, please don’t pet the wolves

Also keep in mind

(10-30-2026 07:04 PM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  Also keep in mind

You'll be thrilled to know I haven't seen a single freaking bear yet.

(10-30-2026 08:37 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(10-30-2026 07:04 PM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  Also keep in mind

You'll be thrilled to know I haven't seen a single freaking bear yet.

Ah yes! But it's the bears you don't see that.... Well, that's a lousy way to find out if they crap in the woods.

My young butt was saved as a buddy and I ran wild on a radar base about 100 miles south of James Bay. It was the paw of a Second Lt. that saw us run behind the BOQ that grabbed me and the other kid by the shirt collar and yanked us backwards. Black bears were eating the mess hall garbage out back. Maybe they wouldn't have been interested in us, but I was maybe 4ft away from one when the Lt. snatched me backwards, scooped us both up and sprinted back to the front.

Later in our time there my little sister was baptized while we were on that post and a Bear walked down the first 3 or 4 pews in the center aisle while she was being sprinkled. We told her when she was about to go to college that God sent a bad omen to her baptism warning her against playing the stock market. She's done alright, but no stocks!

Now you guys have me worried. Not about the bears. About you guys.