To the Black Hills

We made it to the Black Hills safely, the motorhome has not completely flooded yet and the scenery is lovely. Locals say it's ugly and dry because of the drought but to us it looks like a nice wet year in California. The only downside is that the bark beetle has reached this area and there are large swaths of forest land showing its adverse effects.

Flaming Gorge

After we left Dinosaur, we spent one night in Flaming Gorge and had an evening drive through the area which convinced us it might be worth going back to when we had a little more time to spend. Then it was on to Casper Wyoming. Our special RV GPS wanted to route us 200 miles out of the way to avoid US 287. We weren't sure whether it was too steep or possibly had a low bridge along the way but we couldn't find any warnings about this road on the Internet and it made a three or four hour difference in driving time so we decided to risk it and ignore the GPS. And the road was fine. Fairly flat, four lanes much of the way, no steep hills, it was a breeze and got us into Casper in the mid-afternoon. This whole area is hundreds of miles of prairie land and not much else. We had a very nice dinner at a brew pub in Casper and left the next morning. And that was about the right amount of time to spend in Casper.

 Roughlock Falls

The following day brought us to Deadwood, South Dakota, site of the 1870s gold strike and the final resting place of Wild Bill Hickok. The gold ran out about a century back and I gather the place had pretty much hit the doldrums until the state authorized limited gambling in 1989. I'm not sure exactly what the "limited" part means since every building in town seems to be stuffed full of slot machines. Anyway, part of the deal was that a certain percentage of the gambling profits had to be used for historical restoration, so the town is really spiffed up in a gambling, touristy sort of way.

We spent the next day looking at real estate. We are thinking of buying a vacation rental in this area with the money we get for our Redlands house both to provide some income and to help establish our bona fides as South Dakota residents for tax purposes. With luck, it might bring in enough income to cover the cost of our camping fees and RV insurance when we start traveling.

Spearfish, south of Deadwood

Next, we will be spending some time in Rapid City and then on to Badlands National Park and we will keep you all updated.

Dinosaur

Our first big stop on this trip was at Dinosaur National Monument. Knowing nothing of the area, we decided to stay in Dinosaur, Colorado. (Note: there are no dinosaurs in dinosaur Colorado except for big plastic ones like this example outside the town hall). The only motorhome park in town is the BlueMountain RV Park. Do not stay here. It's a couple of acres of rock and mud with a few sad looking permanent residents and some disappointed looking visitors, like us.

The south visitor's center for dinosaur national Monument is a couple of miles outside town. (Note: there are no dinosaur fossils at the south visitor center). From here a 31 mile road takes you up to the Monument south entrance. The landscape is basic high desert, mostly no more or less scenic than millions of other acres of the American West you can see from the interstate. There's a relatively small area of the national Monument that you can drive around and there are some fairly scenic areas there but there are no dinosaur fossils.

Typical western landscape

There was supposed to be a really nice area called Echo Park you can reach by driving down a rock and gully 11 mile road with about 10% down slope and a large sign at the top that said "not recommended for passenger vehicles". Some guy in a Jeep drove by and told us that it would be no problem, we should go ahead, then he drove off laughing. After a couple of hundred yards we decided maybe we should believe the sign and turned around.

The fossil wall

The next day we went to the west entrance where a road allowed you to explore another small section of the Monument. Here lies the Carnegie Quarry where, lo and behold, there actually turn out to be dinosaur fossils. Carnegie did not find any of them, he simply paid the bills. The fossil bed was discovered in 1909 and over the next several decades thousands of dinosaur bones were excavated and shipped back to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. So many in fact that the museum literally ran out of space for them. Then Carnegie died and his heirs decided with a few thousand specimens, many of which were still encased in plaster, stored away, enough was enough and they stopped funding the project.

So it was decided to chip away the rock matrix from around the remaining exposed dinosaur bones and then cover the whole rock face with a protective building and allow visitors to come and see the bones in place.

Dino ischium

Allosaurus

It is actually pretty interesting to see. Our son would have loved this when he was six or seven years old. Now, probably not so much.

Three fossils

This is really a middle of nowhere destination. There are some nice views and the Quarry is interesting and educational. The question is, is it worth driving 200 miles out of your way to go see. If you have no place else you have to be it probably is, but I can't say that this is the best use of two days I have ever come up with.

Pioneer cabin

Drippity Drip

Well, we think we have found our leak.

For the past several years we have been using bidet attachments on our home toilets which saves a ton of money on toilet paper and adds a strangely pleasant finale to every trip to the bathroom. It is particularly invigorating since I was too cheap to buy a water heater attachment for any of them. Anyway, about a year ago I had one installed in the Bounder.

Now, installing one of these things at home is a fairly straightforward, 30 min. "do-it-yourself" project, but the plumbing in a motorhome is distinctly different and none of the fittings match, so I had our favorite local RV repair place put the thing in and they did a great job, we never had a bit of trouble with it.

Cheap bidet

So when we got the new motorhome, the first thing we did was take it in and, among other things, have them install a Biffy Bidet. They somehow jury rigged the connections and got all the hoses to fit behind the toilet in a space about a half-inch wide. Well, guess where our leak was. Behind the toilet, in the space about a half-inch wide. It would probably be fairly easy to tighten it up except there is no possible way to get at it without removing the toilet, which I'm not really up for. So we're living with this leak for the next two weeks. With the pump on, it's about a drop every 3 or 4 seconds.

We've worked out a system where every time we turn the water pump on, when we are done we turn the pump off, let the pressure out of the system and then flip the bidet handle to drain all the water above the toilet so it doesn't gradually run down to the leak point. You have to cover the waterjet so it doesn't spray all over the bathroom. Vicki uses a glass over the spray. I've discovered it's easier just to sit down on the throne and run it until the soothing sensation fades away. Ahhh...

We also learned another important lesson. Don't leave your sewage drain valves open. RV waste water is divided into black water (water from the toilets and kitchen sink) and gray water (water from the bathroom sink and shower) each with its own holding tank. We have a small washing machine in the  new motorhome and it also drains into the gray tank.

At the end of our first weekend trip to Julian, we decided to try out the washing machine and I opened the gray valve so that the water could drain directly into the sewer system. After the laundry ended, I apparently unhooked the sewer line and capped the opening but forgot to close the gray water valve. This somehow allowed fumes from the black water tank to enter the gray water tank.

I guess  sewer gas is heavier than air because we didn't notice anything amiss until I started taking my first shower this trip. Then the water draining into the gray tank displaced the sewer gas and sent it rocketing up into the shower producing the smell from hell. At first I thought my shower water was being pumped directly out of the black tank, but after some reflection I decided this wasn't very likely. We went out to the dump cabinet and found the valve open. I closed the valve and removed the cap, releasing about a quart of black sludge. I have no wish to know what that was. We just hosed the cabinet out, hooked up the sewer line and drained everything. Leaving a valve open is a mistake I hopefully will not be making again anytime soon.