I went back to Mt. Rushmore this morning and rented an audio tape tour. It was just $5.00 cheap and lasted for almost an hour and a half. The tape told all about the political process to get the project approved, why these particular presidents were selected, and how the huge project of carving the heads into granite at the top of a mountain was accomplished. All quite interesting.
One of the controversies about Mt. Rushmore was that the mountain had also been a sacred place for the Lakota Indians, and now one more land was being taken away from them. I have been reading a lot about our treatment of American Indians, and it is a tragic story. In the gift shop they had a shirt for sale with a picture of the four presidents in the background, but in the foreground it had pictures of four famous Indian chiefs and under their names was written, "The original founding fathers." I'm pretty good at not buying souvenirs, and I certainly don't need any more T-shirts, but this was one I couldn't resist.
After stopping in the nearby town of Keystone to do my laundry and have a huge salad at Peggy's Restaurant, I was on the road again., headed for Yellowstone.
Again, lots of very small towns along the way with unusual names. One of the towns I passed was Tipperary, like in the song:
It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go
It's a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know
And of course the joke that comes with it.:
A very tired and bedraggled looking man goes up to a rary and gives it a good push, tipping it over on its side.
A second man is watching him and says,"You really look tired. Where did you come from?"
The first man says, "I walked all the way across Africa to tip this rary.
"Wow," says the second man. "That's a Long Way to Tip a Rary." (end of joke - just in case you were hoping for something more.)
At about 5:00, I still hadn't seen any signs for campgrounds. I decided to stop at a rest area and take a little break. I was the only one there, but just as I was about to throw out my AAA books for the Northcentral States, now that I had moved west into Wyoming, two women drove up. I offered them the books, which they accepted. I then asked them if they knew of any campground in the area, and sure enough they directed me to a state park on a back country road next to a big reservoir that I would never have found on my own. It pays to ask! The campground was just outside the little town of Pine Haven, population 222. What surprised me, however, was that Pine Haven not only had a very modern and fairly large grocery store but even a Supper Club! Even Mt. Airy doesn't have a supper club - at least none that I know about. What is a supper club anyhow? I asked the lady at the cash register at the grocery store where all the customers come from, and she explained that there were a lot of summer people who came up from Minneapolis and also ranchers who lived in the area.
I found the campground at the end of a long dirt road , signed myself in and eventually found a campsite with a fair amount of privacy and a nice view of the reservoir with a perfectly wonderful sunset into the hills behind the reservoir.
I think I mentioned in a previous blog how different this camping experience was from my previous experience where it was always necessary to go ask some other campers to turn down their radio or TV. Well, tonight my luck ran out. A family a fair distance away apparently felt they couldn't have their picnic dinner without the car radio on. It wasn't real loud, but it was loud enough to be irritating. Finally, I just went over and asked them in my most courteous manner ( even tho I wasn't feeling very courteous) to please turn down the radio. The guy who seemed to be the head of the family just gave me a nod, and I didn't think he was really going to do anything, but in fact he did turn down the radio. I could still just barely hear it, but it was a lot better. I suppose we may live in a better world (in some ways at least), but it ain't perfect yet!
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