From Denver to Memphis

We left Custer State Park and headed south to Wind Cave NP, and whilst driving along the prairies we again saw Bison.

 

Wind Cave itself is reached by an elevator which takes you down to do a Tour that has to be paid for, $10 each. We did the “Garden of Eden” tour where you get to see “Boxwork” (No stalagmites or Stalactites) but there are over 100 miles on 3 different levels of tunnels!

However they think they have only found 5% of the tunnels so far!

 

From there it was down south to another new state for us, Nebraska where we visited a reminder from home. A place called “Carhenge”, it’s also a reminder for a farmer here who once visited “Stonehenge” in Wiltshire, England so he decided to build his equivalent.

Our RV decided she wanted some new brakes at this point, so we pulled into Scottsbluff and got those replaced (Bless her, I spend more on her than I do myself!) The guys there said it was the back breaks and the front ones still had at least 5000 miles in them.

However, we did spend some time on “Scotts Bluff” itself doing a lovely hike to the top.

 

We also had to get an Air bnb room for one night whilst waiting for parts and we met the hosts Colleen & Ross, who just happened to be going to the Estes park for a few days which is just outside the Rocky Mountain NP the same day as us. So we met up with them in Estes Park again for a glass of wine or two (And to get my I phone charger that I left in the room!) They were great hosts and very nice people.

They also told us about the The Stanley Hotel that had been used for the film “The Shining”

Funnily enough, only this morning on the news it was reported that a bear had entered the foyer of the hotel and had a stroll around inside the hotel!!

 

So the Rocky Mountain NP. We over-nighted in a Walmart in Lovedale (even though it said you couldn’t, the staff said we could so we did) left the RV in their car park and headed off to the Rockies.

 

The route up is through a canyon, which is awesome and makes you feel so insignificant. It is a canyon where a severe thunderstorm in the 70’s caused a huge flood and killed over 140 canyon inhabitants. However it is still very populated despite that disaster.

 

 

 

We entered the park through the Fall River visitor centre and went up a 9 mile gravel road to the main trail ridge road. From there we drove down through the Kawuneeche valley to Grand Lake and back. It is a fantastic place, and somewhere you could go to lose yourself.

 

 

And now, the point we have both been looking forward to, we are heading East back to where this trip all began, and no disrespect to any western Americans but where feel we have stronger ties to people.

On the way was the oldest Geocache in the world, so that just had to be done. Mingo

So here we were a few hundred miles further down the road approaching Dodge City…….and the front breaks on the RV start squealing like a stuck pig.

 

So off we went taking in a visit to Dodge City at the same time waiting for the front breaks to be fixed.

Dodge City was a huge disappointment and not worth any sort of detour, we expected it to be a real Western town. Alas it was not, it had one attraction to do with its past (which charged for everything and was milking its past) and a few replica buildings.

 

Another small detour was to the home of “Little House on the Prairie” writer and main character “Laura Ingalls Wilder” It was a replica reconstruction, but it was the actual location of their homestead.

One place we stopped for lunch was the birthplace of Mr Hubble,, he of the space telescope, here is a 1/4 size replica.

Next stop was onto St Louis, and its famous “Gateway Arch” I never knew you could go inside to the top!

We did and it was only $10 each (With our “America the beautiful” card) to take the ride inside to the top. You get to the top by the way of a small capsule that holds 5 people. The views from the top were awesome and I could see my favorite river to the Mississippi. This river is just amazing and awe inspiring to me.

 

The old capitol building is nest to it, and we took a tour around that too.

 

We then spent the rest of the day in Forest park, St Louis and their free Zoo.

They also had a great butterfly house, which I’m sure one of my friends will appreciate.

Now we are relaxing for three weeks in South West Tennessee, where we have again caught up with some old friends Gary and Lola who we have met each time we have come over.

That is the end of this blog, not sure what will be in the next one as we are not moving for a while now.

Happy reading and feel free to comment.

T&G