Travel Log 2021: Hills, Plains, and Deserts
Last month, I took an epic road trip across the US, the inaugural trip of our new travel trailer.
Norfolk, MA > Lake Erie, NY > Indiana Dunes, IN > Rochester, MN > Badlands, SD > Black Hills, SD > Devil's Tower, WY > Casper, WY > Vernal, UT > Grand Junction, CO > Mesa Verde, CO > Gunnison, CO > Denver, CO > Omaha, NE > Indiana Dunes, IN > Niagara Falls, NY > Norfolk, MA
Once everything was packed, we set out for a pretty grueling few days of travel. We wanted to make good time getting to South Dakota, so we cruised along the highway, stopping briefly to snack, walk the dog, get gas, and use the restroom. Each night we'd set up the trailer - a process we got faster and more comfortable with as the trip went on - and make dinner. We'd often go for a walk in the evening, exploring the campground and surrounding area.
Parked at the campsite, our truck and the trailer underneath a colorful sunset
We drove past the canals of upstate New York, listening to 1491 on audiobook (specifically, a chapter discussing how a confederation of the Seneca, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, and Onondoga tribes established a progressive governing body where women held positions of power, the author suggesting it had influenced European political philosophy and ideas of liberty.) We spent a night in a campground on the bank of Lake Erie.
The next stop was a highlight of our preliminary long haul: Indiana Dunes, a state park and national lakeshore on the coast of Lake Michigan. When I first visited Lake Michigan years ago, I was mesmerized by the sensation of being on a vast and beautiful beach in the middle of the country, far away from either coast. Our visit to Indiana Dunes was no different. We hiked through a lush forest, no hint at what was to come aside from the sandy soil beneath our feet. We approached a dune and, unable to see over its peak, hiked exhaustedly through the soft sand, muscles burning. We emerged at the top of the dune to behold the shining lake at the bottom of a beachy hill, the city of Chicago peaking through the haze as the sun set a deep ember red on the horizon. The view was balm for the road weary soul, soft cool sand sliding beneath our bare feet.
From the top of a dune, the view of the beach at sunset
After a harrowing drive around the Chicago city limits, many hours of audiobooks, barn quilt sightings, and lots of signs advertising cheese curds, we made it to our next campground in southern Minnesota. I didn't expect to fall in love with the often bare bones, sometimes kitschy, and almost always friendly RV campsites peppered across the country. We chatted with out campsite neighbors, also on their way to South Dakota (we ran into them again multiple times on our trip!)
Two barn quits spotted in the midwest
The next day we crossed the state line into South Dakota. As we cruised along the relatively straight and plain landscape, countless billboards advertised the many tourist wonderlands to come: 1880's town, the story of Mount Rushmore, Reptile Gardens, and of course the famous tourist trap, Wall Drug.
Several roadside attraction billboards: A sculpture park featuring the world's largest bull head, Alligators at Reptile Gardens, and the treats you can find at Wall Drug, including fresh donuts which were some of the best cake donuts I've ever had.
Finally, after four long days of driving, we reached our first official destination: Badlands National Park. An unusual and magnificent landscape of buttes, spires, and other prehistoric rock formations, it really is a sight to behold. This first stop planted the seed for a deep appreciation of geological formations that only grew with each subsequent stop. While the colors of these formations are impressive, I think their elegance of form is particularly evident in black and white.
The park is located on the ancestral land of many native tribes (you can see a list of the associated tribes here). I made it a goal on this journey to learn about the tribes who, in the past and presently, call these places home. Many parks exist on reservations or land trusts and work with local tribes, and the National Parks Service is tasked with protecting the land for all, but the relationship is surely complicated. I'll be curious to learn more about this going forward. One facet of this conversation was seeing how different sites incorporated associated tribes in their projects and interpretation (more on that later in this log).
A family of bighorn sheep sit on a rock overlooking the Badlands.
Of course, aside from cool rocks, there were all sorts of excellent animals to encounter in the landscape. We spotted several families of bighorn sheep relaxing on a rock overlooking a great canyon. This picture is cropped to highlight these cuties, but zooming out would reveal a sweeping landscape of rock formations and a dozen more sheep enjoying their cliffside view, the warm sun, and a cool breeze rustling the grass.
Some excellent rock formations in the Black Hills
Next we travelled to the Black Hills, on the eastern edge of South Dakota. The highlight of this part of the trip was surely hiking to the top of Black Elk Peak (also known as Hiŋháŋ Káǧa - 'owl-maker' in Lakota). The hike was long and challenging and unbelievably beautiful. The trails glittered in the sun due to shards and dust of mica. Giant lichen flecked rocks burst forth from the mountainside in huddled clusters, in sharp contrast against the bright blue sky. An occasional breeze helped to offset the hot summer sun. The Black Hills has a long history of land and resources battles between the government and native tribes, especially during the gold rush. The issue of land ownership is still unresolved, after a century of broken treaties and resource exploitation. You can learn more about it here.
The view from the top of Black Elk Peak, the highest place I've ever traveled to with my own two feet
You may be familiar with the Black Hills as the site of Mount Rushmore. It will surprise almost nobody that the massive sculpture of four old (slave owning) white dudes does not inspire patriotism within me. After spending time in these glorious mountains, I felt even more appalled that somebody would carve faces into them (especially faces with no cultural or spiritual relationship to the place).
We did visit Mount Rushmore, and its similarly controversial 'rival' project, the Crazy Horse Monument. Mount Rushmore was, as expectedly, a sea of smiling families dressed in red, white, and blue and a few folks sporting Qanon t-shirts. There were a few sanctioned 'Free Speech' areas for folks to protest, but this visit the only person occupying this space was a man selling transcendental meditation books.
Now, this is where I get a bit philosophical, so bear with me. In the exhibition hall, I was struck by a video of the dedication of the monument by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, specifically his speculation on this future role of the monument:
“[The sculptor] Mr. Borglum has well said that this can be a monument and an inspiration for the continuance of the democratic-republican form of government, not only in our own beloved country, but, we hope, throughout the world.
...When we get through, there will be something for the American people that will last through not just generations but for thousands and thousands of years, and I think that we can perhaps...meditate and wonder what our descendants, and I think they will still be here, will think about us. Let us hope that at least they will give us the benefit of the doubt – that they will believe we have honestly striven every day and generation to preserve for our descendants a decent land to live in and a decent form of government to operate under.”
Those words helped me extract a small bundle of meaning from the weird monument I was standing below. At this moment in time, many of us have indeed become critical of the structures and systems that formed the basis of our democracy and the flawed figures who shaped the early parts of our nations history. Did FDR suspect that future viewers of the monument would view it with a critical eye, judging the choices made by our predecessors? Is true patriotism to recognize our past errors (especially those emblazoned on mountainsides) in an attempt to grow as a nation? Something to think about...
A broken down ‘prehistoric’ train in the abandoned Flintstones amusement park
A little more history, but this time something silly: behind the RV park we stayed at in the Black Hills, we discovered an abandoned Flintstones themed amusement park. There were giant wood and concrete dinosaurs, overgrown train tracks, fiberglass palm trees, and other odd relics of the prehistoric playground. Though the park was completely abandoned, the grass on the playground was expertly manicured. Was a former Flintstones enthusiast keeping the area neat and tidy out of allegiance to the former fun park? We may never know.
A view from the base of Devils Tower/Bear Lodge. The rock was formed through some sort of prehistoric lava situation that I still don’t understand but seems pretty cool.
Our next stop was Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge), an astounding rock formation in Northeastern Wyoming. Aside from being a spectacular geological formation, the site also holds spiritual significance to native tribes and is cemented in pop culture history as the iconic monolith in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was the first National Monument, established in 1906. It really is a site to behold, and both the spiritual and celestial importance is warranted. There's a buzz in the air surrounding this unusual rock formation. Hundreds of colorful prayer bundles hang from trees surrounding it. People call to each other from the boulders at the base of the tower, their voices echoing across igneous rock and open sky.
Red, red earth in the hills of Wyoming, matching the weathered picnic tables at our campsite.
After Devils Tower/Bear Lodge and a quick stop in Casper, WY, we pushed on to Utah. On the way, we stopped at Independence Rock. If you are an American history buff, or grew up in the 90’s playing the namesake videogame, you’ll recognize this landmark as one of the stops along the Oregon Trail. It is, indeed, a giant rock in the middle of a prairie. You can’t quite appreciate its magnitude until you reach it. Climbing to the top makes one feel a bit of kinship with the poor pioneers who attempted to make their way to Oregon. In fact, evidence of these intrepid folks is right beneath your feet. All over the side of this rock are carvings of travelers names, many dating back to the 1800’s.
A view from Independence Rock, including the carved signature of J.L.Holland, 1862
Eventually we landed in Vernal Utah, also known as ‘Dinosaur Land’. Our main destination was Dinosaur National Monument. Not knowing what to expect, I was mesmerized to find a massive fossil bed filled with a vast array of dinosaur bones. This particular site was subject to quite a bit of excitement and press when first encountered in the early 20th century and I can see why. Such a large deposit of dinosaur bones, some with large portions of whole skeletons in tact, must have been a paleontologist’s dream. It certainly captured the imagination of the public, with people traveling to see the discoveries.
A view of the bone wall at Dinosaur National Monument. What spectacular vertabrae!
In addition to dino bones, we also laid eyes on some impressive petroglyphs and pictograms created by the Fremont people between 200 and 1300 CE (ancestors of modern day Ute tribes). I’m always intrigued by the art of ancient civilizations. Even living at a time where food and shelter were top concerns, people found ways to express themselves and make a mark. There’s maybe more to this philosophically, but I’ve burnt out my philosophical bulb on this blog post ruminating on FDR’s words about Rushmore, so we’ll save that for another time.
A collection of Fremont pictographs and petroglyphs, including people, animals, and symbols
After a few days in Vernal, we continued on to Colorado with a short stop in Grand Junction on our way to Mesa Verde. The campsite at Mesa Verde was by far the most beautiful. Nestled in a lower tier of the mesa, our campsite looked out over the hillside and was filled with beautiful plants and wildlife. Mesa Verde (and nearby Hovenweep, as well as many other locations in the four corners are) was home to descendants of modern day Pueblo tribes. These ancestral Puebloans built numerous villages and structures throughout the mesa, starting with mesa top pit houses and eventually engineering elaborate cliffside dwellings. Their level of infrastructure was impressive. They created massive reservoirs to store water, granaries to house their produce and the specialty goods that traded with Mexico for (shells, feathers, and other luxuries). Eventually, due to a number of speculated factors including overpopulation, resource depletion, and drought, the inhabitants moved on to new settlements, leaving behind a vast array of evidence of their prolific lives on the mesa.
A cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde
The last time I visited Mesa Verde was in 7th grade on a class trip. At the time, I was entirely concerned with navigating cliques and social cues as a bit of a weirdo misfit, eager (for some reason?) to fit in with my peers. However, I think it’s a testament to the magnitude of Mesa Verde that I remember the cliff dwellings rather than feelings of inadequacy or embarrassment as an awkward teenager.
Tower ruins at Hovenweep
The relationship between national parks and the native tribes who’s ancestral land the park is on is probably fraught at best. Fortunately the National Parks Service does take their role as stewards of the land seriously, though the handling of sites and information can and has been flawed. One positive change I noticed between my seventh grade trip and now, over 20 years later, is that there has been a major effort to include current native perspectives and voices in the park’s site interpretation. For example, the people that inhabited this area used to be referred to as Anasazi. This was actually a negative term for the ancestral Puebloans used by their enemies. There are many signs, booklets, and exhibitions that feature commentary and insight from modern Puebloans as well. I’m sure there is still room to grow, but this shift in method of historical interpretation was really exciting to see and I hope more national parks and historical sites follow suit. If you’d like to learn more about Mesa Verde, the park produced a podcast called Mesa Verde Voices.
A view from the entrance of the Museum of the Mountain West
Our next leg of the journey would see us pass through Gunnison and Denver CO, then wind our way back through the Midwest home. We started this part of the journey with a drive along the Million Dollar Highway, a gorgeous and somewhat terrifying stretch of the rocky mountains, home to old mining industry and boasting several rather charming Victorian era mining towns including Silverton and Ouray. We stopped for lunch in Silverton and wandered a bit along the dirt side streets, still inhabited by many late 1800’s buildings (though mostly functioning as modern souvenir shops). Driving past one of the old mines, I was particularly curious about a small grouping of white houses with blue windowsills. The homes had been extracted from a nearby town of Eureka and transported (by what means along this treacherous road in the 1940s, I shudder to think) to serve as employee housing at the Idarodo mine.
On our way to Gunnison, we encountered an unexpectedly wonderful stop. A few hours ahead of schedule, we took a chance on a roadside attraction boasting many old buildings with an old west flavor. Expecting a hokey tourist trap (we passed numerous attractions boasting ‘props and sets from the movie Dances with Wolves’ in South Dakota) we were delighted to discover a comprehensive and carefully constructed old west museum, with multiple buildings completely stocked with period accurate antiques and accessories. There was a general store, pharmacist, several scary looking doctor/dentist offices, a post office, a haberdashery, and old schoolhouse, a jail, and more. There was no detail overlooked at the Museum of the Mountain West.
Inside the general store, not an item out of place: canned goods and apothecary bottles line the shelves, the desk boasts an antique adding machine, cash register, and scale. In the desk, windows showing various bulk grains and beans for sale.
Even more impressively, the museum is the private collection of one person. Founded in 1997 by historical archeologist and lifelong collector Richard Fike, you can tell the museum is a serious labor of love. As a history nerd, I thoroughly appreciated the attention to detail. The volunteer working regaled us with a story of the post office vignette. When old post office was being renovated, Fike enquired about the fate of the original post office boxes. After being told they had been thrown in the river, he promptly fished them out and cleaned them up to add to his collection.
A few more days of travel and we returned home, road weary but full to the brim with inspiration, admiration, and constructive criticism for the American landscape. I’m not sure how this inspiration will manifest itself in my creations, but I’m excited to find out.