On (to) Wisconsin

Okay everybody, you can exhale now; we (finally) made it to Wisconsin.

Our somewhat circuitous route through Denver yielded a lot of interesting sights and insights and I’ll try to share a few of those here.

First of all, the weather for this leg of our summer travels was spectacular. Other than a hard rain as we drove through southern Wyoming the skies have been generally clear and dry, the temperatures moderate.

Our first night’s stop in Canadian, Texas was a little disappointing because this oasis in the eastern panhandle has been, in my view at least, partially compromised by the oil and gas boom. One benefit of the boom was a new motel where we stayed and I snapped a photo of the sunrise.

However, what used to be views of endless prairie grasses en route to Canadian is now blemished with hundreds of those ubiquitous tan holding tanks and their accompanying pump jacks. Nonetheless Canadian remains an exceptionally pleasant and clean little town that is very different from the stark ugliness of many cities on the high plains.

For example, Lamar, Colorado; the exceedingly forgettable (and ugly) place we spent our second night.

The primary reason for staying in Lamar is its proximity to Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site and the Sand Creek Massacre NHS. The fort was not so much a protective enclosure as a trading post at the intersection of the Arkansas River and the Santa Fe Trail. As such it played a crucial role in the settlement of Colorado and the westward expansion of the country prior to the Civil War. Interestingly, the fort burned to the ground (possibly as a result of arson by one of the Bent brothers, angry about the fort being occupied by Federal troops) in the mid-19^th century and was rebuilt by the NPS in the 1970s using detailed drawings of the fort that were made by an Army officer posted there. Thus, the modern replica of the fort has now been on the site longer than the original.

The 1864 massacre of an encampment of Arapahoe and Cheyenne Indians by Colorado militiamen left 200 (mostly women and children) dead along Sand Creek northeast of Lamar. The attack was unprovoked and may have prolonged the Indian wars on the southern high plains. There is little there today but a small memorial and a few interpretive signs.

From Sand Creek we cruised into Denver and settled into a hotel that is adjacent to the Cherry Creek Hike and Bike Trail that Tex uses to commute by bicycle to his summer job. For all of us this turned out to be a very convenient and enjoyable place to be during our three-day stay.

Rockies game on Tex's 26th bithday. Does anyone else notice that Betsy seems to have gotten a lot taller?

Of course it was great to see Tex and to share in what turned out to be, essentially, the point of transition between his first and second years of law school (he received his final grades and the class schedule for next year was released while we were there).

I don’t know about him, but we had a great time in Denver where we celebrated yet another transition, his 26^th birthday.

From Denver we drove through sometimes heavy rain to arrive at the funky Devils Tower Lodge owned and operated by Frank, a former seasonal park ranger turned climbing guide turned hotelier. If you can imagine that Tommy Chong’s daughter and Charlie Manson’s son hooked up one night and had a son he might have turned out to be a lot like Frank, simultaneously intense and laid back.

As the photo shows the weather at the “Lodge” (which is basically a rambling house on acreage adjacent to the Devils Tower National Monument) was perfect and produced an interesting lighting on the tower.

The next day we drove through the Black Hills to Badlands National Park and arrived in plenty of time to drive the park’s scenic road on an absolutely perfect day. Unlike my other stops here dating back to the 1960s the landscape seemed downright lush with green grass as far as the eye could see (which was at least 30 miles with clear skies all around).

On the outside the Badlands Inn was a sketchy, cheap motel but on the inside it turned out to be, probably, the most comfortable room we had on this leg of the trip. It didn’t really matter though because in this remote area there are not many other options.

The door to the missile launch room 30 feet beneath the South Dakota prairie

The next day I arrived well before 8 a.m. at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site on I-90 just north of Badlands NP. Even at that early hour there was a line for the tickets for the tour of a missile launch site that was closed in the 1990s as a result of the SALT II treaty (there are still hundreds of missile sites still operating in other Great Plains states). We really lucked out by having as our tour guide a former USAF enlisted man who spent his 21-year career maintaining the launch apparatus for the missiles, including the one we toured.

Simply insert key, turn and start a nuclear war.

We went down an elevator into the underground vault where pairs of young Air Force officers sat 24/7/365 for three decades with two keys that could be used to launch a nuclear missile at the Soviet Union. It was a pretty cool and a pretty sobering thing to see.

It was also Betsy’s 173^rd and my 247^th National Park Service site to have visited (there are more than 400 NPS sites).

And, finally, the Minuteman Missile NHS will be remembered as the site of Betsy’s car’s first (hopefully only) accident, a very minor fender bender in the parking lot.

Minnesota clouds reflected in the camper shell window

From there we drove on across South Dakota (which is a big state) into the corner of North Dakota and across the Red River (no, not that one) and into Minnesota. After a stop at Costco the next day we made the final push and arrived in Bayfield in plenty of time to enjoy a Summit Pale Ale and some pan-fried whitefish at one of our favorite haunts.

It’s good to (finally) be here.