Today, Patty the National Park Service (NPS) Ranger, posted at the entrance to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, takes her job seriously scrutinizing Glenda’s park pass and ID.  Seeing a Jersey driver’s license she revealed that she too had been a Jersey Girl.  She was posted at Jockey Hollow in Morristown and lived in Livingston for a couple of years.  NPS Rangers in Jersey??  What???

We also met a newlywed couple from Michigan at a scenic overlook.  The bride was adorable, gushing and keen to show us her i-phone wedding pics.  The groom didn’t speak.  Sound familiar anyone?  Their neighbors from NJ are watching their house.  See?  Jersey people can be helpful and responsible too!!!

Sand

• Back on I-90 to South Dakota.  We learned that South Dakota all along I-90 is the ticky tacky kitschy capital of America.  Yay!!  We found a giant cow statue at the Land O Lakes building.

• On to Mitchell (shout out thanks to Kathy B for this recommendation) to view the Corn Palace.  Spectacular!!  It is an arena with its outside walls all decorated using corn husks, cobs and other plant and grain material.  Doris Gerlach, our hostess, told us they get 600 visitors a day in the off season…and buses from Australia!!!

• Happily, in Mitchell and further along I-90 we also found a corn cob, a big steer, and a junk art sculpture park on the highway to photograph.

• Continuing on toward the Badlands–scenic landscapes and signs galore.  Stopped to pick up groceries in Murdo.

• Finally…exit 131 off I-90 toward the Badlands National Park.  Before we arrive at the beautiful park we get to see the giant prairie dog statue.  Phew!!!  We have not, however, seen a live one yet.

• Badlands National Park: crazy beautiful landscape.  Our cabin is unexpectedly new, charming, made of cedar wood with western decor.

Jersey Junction

No Jersey stories today.  We think that is because the entire day was just, as noted above, a big ball of confusion.  Jersey girls pumping gas and cleaning the windshields?  It was all just wrong.  We did meet a woman in Mitchell from Massachusetts and a man from Connecticut took our picture at the cabin.  Close but no cigar.  We’ll look forward to getting back on track with Jersey tomorrow.

 

Theme of the Day:  Ball of confusion

Next up: Another day at the Badlands.

 

Crazy Horse Mountain Carving

• Towns are few and far between in this big ol’ Wyoming. Once you get to one, it might be a dot. Like Emblem, WY, population 10 (so says the sign). We stopped in Cody, WY, population 10,000 – megametropolis – founded by Buffalo Bill Cody as the gateway to Yellowstone and a whole wild west vibe. His hotel, Irma, (named for his daughter) is still here and still open for biz. We lunched here and strolled the main street.

• Back on the road to Yellowstone, which purported to be 68 miles, but it turns out that was just to the east entrance to the Park and we are heading to the southwest entrance. Another 70 winding miles. Again, fantastic scenery, crazy weather patterns and animal sightings. Just when we were giving up hope on seeing animals, we struck gold with a major elk sighting! Here’s what we learned:

1. Elk are in mating season now.
2. The male (bull) makes a bugling horn call to impress the babes (cows). A good bull will have a harem of babes, possibly up to 20.

• So, lucky us, we witnessed a bull (10 point rack) and 8 cows hanging out. The bull bugled 3 times, at least, and the cows responded with their own call. It seemed to us that the sistahs were more or less doing their own thing, calling to each other, and were generally unimpressed with Mr. Bull.
• We met a Google-Earth photographer scoping out the park for a future Google project who filled us in on elk behavior. So we think the bull was about 8 years old – in his prime! One sistah hung with him but the others totally wandered off. We did like his bugling, however. Later we saw a young bull, only a 4 point rack, who had his paltry harem of 2. Go young bull!!

• Our accommodations here in Yellowstone are in cabins. However, a little less appealing than our Badlands cabins. Well… quite a bit less. Bordering on skeevy.

Jersey Junction

Lame today. We saw 5 cars from Jersey on the road, in Cody and in Yellowstone but no encounter. Our Google photographer was singularly uninterested in discussing Jersey except to note that it is at sea level while were were at 8,000 feet. That’s it!

Theme of the Day: The Elk’s Club

Up Next: Stay in Yellowstone

 

• Worked our way out of Yellowstone toward Jackson, Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park (yes..wait for it….another STAMP!!).  Glenda mentioned that the translation of the Grand Tetons is Big Tits so we will, of course, refer to it from now on as the B.T.  Before exiting Yellowstone we had time for one more loop around the geysers and other hydro thermal features and one last facial at Thumb Geyser Basin.

• We hit the B.T. only 5 miles or so south of Yellowstone yet the landscape already looked different.  More fall foliage, dramatic mountains (B.T.’s) springing up from the lake.

• Hit Jackson proper (population about 1800) and looked for a hotel.  Found this leather chair, buffalo, manly-cigar-type of fancy hotel that had a room with 2 giant king beds.  So here we are.  Headed back out in search of moose.  Sorry to say, no moose yet but more incredible bison herd sightings.  Beautiful dusk lighting too!

Jersey Junction

It seemed like again there would be no Jersey connection but we finally met a fellow restaurant patron dining at the bar next to us.  Terry lives in Vermont, has lived on Montana and other places.  Terry worked hard to come up with his Jersey experience bypassing, thankfully, his several times on I-95 in refinery world, and landing on a bike race he competed in through Harriman State Park and the Palisades.  He mentioned a beautiful view of NY and the Hudson and had a pleasant memory of it all.  Yes, a pleasant Jersey experience!  We rest our case.

Theme of the Day:  Gorgeous scenery

Up next: Jackson again and the search for a moose sighting!!

• Arrived in Eureka, crossed to the Pacific time zone here and crossed into another world as well.  Pretty sure this is the most remote place we will stay in.  We are in the Best Western here and our fellow travelers and fellow diners at the one local eatery are quite the sight.  Here is who we saw: mine-working, dusty, steel toe boot clad, giant mountain men; a pair of older toupee-wearing gay motorcycle men; a gray-haired local couple holding holding hands and saying grace before dinner; a table of Mexican workers; a possible Euro tourist with fancy shoes; a hipster with a cap, weird rubber shoes and a most unusual pair of pants that we swear would fit in at Williamsburg, Brooklyn now; a pair of men who seemed to be on some sort of business trip…what business there might be for them around here we haven’t a clue;  a couple of local men wearing both belts and suspenders.  All in all, a whole new world here.

 

Jersey Junction

We have driven some 4,000 miles away from Jersey only to find ourselves in the Newark Valley.  Somewhere in between Ely, NV and Eureka, NV lies, yes, Newark.  Here’s a picture.  Does anything look familiar?  Can you see the Rock in the distance?

 

Theme of the Day: Empty spaces

Up next: Tahoe, perhaps.

 

p.s. We forgot to mention when we were in Wyoming that Wyoming is the largest producer of bentonite in the world.  Bentonite is the major ingredient in cat litter.  We left the cat litter capital of the world behind.  Just sayin’.

p.p.s. Glenda had Tater Tots for dinner 🙂

 

• We stayed on route 50 and headed to Austin, NV pop. 300.  We stopped at the Austin post office for stamps and were treated to quite a long conversation with a local.  He started the conversation by asking us about the postal rates–perhaps we looked like USPS employees?  And as the primarily one way conversation rambled we learned he is not an original local.  He called himself a” prune picker” aka a Californian.  But he has been in Austin since he graduated high school and he has definitely had many years on him since then.  He did recommend an alternate route off of Highway 50 that turned out to be a good recommendation.  We stopped for lunch at one of the two restaurants in town, looked in a rustic gallery/jewelry shop and drove off past our new friend and a woman sitting in front of a store on the main drag.  He gave us a big wave on our way.

** Here’s where he really endeared himself to me–discussing how his wife finally kicked him out after he told her one too many times that her hair was too short and her ass too fat.  He said this while comparing her hair to mine but tried to smooth it over by indicating that my ass wasn’t that fat.  He also mentioned that he had been hit on the head 3 times at his work which may have contributed to his unchecked outbursts.  Maybe.

• We continued on our way through Fallon, home of the US Navy “top gun” Air Station.  We saw a plane flying around there too.  We also passed by Sand Mountain, a giant sand dune sprouting in the desert not far from the Navy Air field.  We are always crunched for time and I’m sorry to say we missed both the Red Light Prostitution Museum and the Bra Chandelier in Virginia City, NV.

• Made it to Reno and checked into one of these casino hotels with bargain rates.  Still a lot of casinos here are abandoned–we are looking at an abandoned high rise hotel from our window.  Similar to the towns along route 50, it’s a boom and bust situation–silver, gold, lead, gems mined created booms in the 1800’s and early 1900’s but it was over in a flash.  Looks like Reno may have experienced some of the same.

Jersey Junction

Back to our talkative “prune picker” who also taught us another term: “rubber tramp” for one who sleeps in his car, meaning what he did after the wife threw him out.  He mentioned that one of the 300 souls who live  in Austin is originally from Jersey.  Amanda is Portuguese and may be from Newark (he didn’t recognize the town name but we figure it’s a good guess).  But how she ended up here in Austin NV?  Who knows?  We didn’t get to meet Amanda but she’s out there!!

Theme of the Day: Boom and Bust

Up next: Lake Tahoe

p.s. Shout out to Nevada bureau of tourism…the lady at the welcome center gave us a CD to listen to with info about Nevada.  It was really good and informative about these little towns along the old Pony Express route.  Best thing we got from any of the states so far!!