It's About Time

You may or may not know this, but most of my family lives in Oregon, even though we're not from there originally.  And I have been to Oregon countless times to visit.  But in all my visits to Oregon over the years, I have never been to Crater Lake.  Well, that oversight has been remedied.  And let me tell you, I can't believe it took to me so long.

I left Wolf Mountain on Tuesday morning, stopped at truck stop in La Pine to take a shower, and continued on towards Crater Lake.  The plan was to snag one of the campsites in the park and then explore the lake the following day.  But on the way, I got a message from my friend Michael from Louisville.  He wanted to know where I was.  He's on a west coast road trip with his parents, and he said they would be getting to Crater Lake in a couple of hours.  I told him that I was on my way to the lake as well.  Quelle coïncidence!

He said that he and his parents would be staying in some cheap cabins by the south entrance of the park, and he invited me to join them.  Not one to turn away a real bed (I had slept on the floor of the lookout tower the previous two nights), I said sure!

We met up at The Wilson Cottages -- a totally charming and rustic set of small cabins run by a friendly character named Adrian whose grizzled face was hidden behind a shaggy white beard.  We checked in and then headed up towards to the rim of the crater to try to catch a peek before the end of the day. 

As you take the curving road up the slopes of ancient Mt. Mazama, you're really not prepared for what you see at the top.  When you get above the tree line and finally peer over the rim of the crater, something really amazing hits you over the head.  This:

I'd seen pictures of Crater Lake before, but any picture you might see really doesn't do it justice.  First of all the lake is friggin' HUGE.  It's about five miles across.  In the standard tourist brochure photos it always looks so small.  I couldn't get the whole thing into my camera frame. 

I also couldn't believe how much snow there still was.  Here we are at the end of July, and there were still ten foot high snow drifts on the side of the road that encircles the rim.

The water was a freakish shade of blue, punctuated only by Wizard Island (see pic above), a rock outcropping called the "Phantom Ship" and two little excursion boats that zoomed around the lake, full of tourists futilely snapping photos.

The walls of the crater are so steep that there is only one place where you can actually hike down and stick your toes in the water.  The next morning, I decided to try it.  (Michael and his folks decided not to; we said our goodbyes before I went on my hike.)  It wasn't too strenuous of a hike, about a mile down and a mile back up, with lots of switchbacks.  The water at the bottom was cold, but not nearly as cold as I expected.  The park ranger standing nearby told me that since it was a sunny day, the surface temperature was probably about 50 degrees.  But, she said, go down a couple of feet, and the water temperature will drop significantly.  I opted not to test her claims.  But some young kids were out splashing about, having a blast in the chilly water.

After the short trip down to the lake surface and some exploring around the rim, I headed down the mountain, continuing west.  I had a few more places to go, some family members to visit, before our month-long adventure winds down. 



Mountain High

Following my night in Baker City's Paint Your Wagon motel, Grigsby and I hit the road, heading west on Oregon State Highway 7 up into the Blue Mountains.  I've always found driving across Oregon to be a fascinating series of repeated transitions from high deserts or green valleys into lush mountains, and back again.  On this drive, we first passed through dry grasslands with murky river waters, to greener pastures with clearer creeks and large cottonwood trees, to fast running streams and towering pines, and finally at the top to narrow plunging brooks and fir trees.  And I then reversed the process as I descended.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Passing over the first crest after Baker City, I dropped down into a mountain valley and unexpectedly came across a town with a vaguely familiar name.

It's too bad that they spelled the name incorrectly.

The town consisted of a general store, a church, and a couple of houses.  Not the hip, urban metropolis I would have anticipated for a town with such a distinguished name.

Getting back onto the road and continuing west, I climbed another mountain pass and then dropped down into a broader, more substantial valley dotted with ranches and the towns of Prairie City and John Day, slumbering in the shadow of Strawberry Mountain.  I had been warned that this was the last chance to fill up for gas for quite some time, so I topped off Grigsby and then headed southwest on U.S. 395. 

Once again we began to climb, snaking up yet another set of canyon walls, and as soon as we crossed the pass, instead of heading downhill, I turned right on an unmarked road, which I later learned was county road 63.  The road, while paved, was hardly "improved."  Thankfully, I had the road pretty much to myself.  For the next 60 miles (which took about two hours to drive), I encountered two vehicles coming the opposite direction.

The road passed through a series of rolling hills and valleys, sparsely populated with ranches, cows, and horses.  No human beings as far as I could tell. 

My Arabic speaking friends will appreciate this.

Just outside of Paulina, Oregon -- a one-horse town with little to its name but a couple of houses and a one-room elementary school, not even a general store -- I turned right and headed up into the Ochoco Mountains (pronounced OH-cho-ko).

It took about an hour to climb up several different forest service roads (Grigsby in 4WD mode) until I reached my destination:  Wolf Mountain Lookout Tower, elevation 6,480 feet.

Wolf Mountain Lookout Tower

My brother Kirk's wife, Glen, staffs the lookout during fire season, and she had invited me to come and spend a couple of days with her.  I jumped at the chance! 

The tower itself is a little over 50 years old, constructed of wood, and sways, creaks, and groans in the wind.  I'm not sure how tall it is, but in the photo above, you can see Grigsby parked at the base.  And here's a picture of Grigsby from the deck of the tower:

It's pretty darn tall.  The top of the tower is reached from the ground by a series of steps that Glen calls "stairs," but I think it's more of a series of "ladders" -- the only way I could descend was going down backwards!  And the view from the top is literally heavenly:  you feel as if you're floating in the sky, suspended in the heavens, looking down on the treetops and the world below.

Note the shadow of the tower at the bottom right.

Life above the treetops was remarkably civilized.  The room at the top of the tower was about the size of a New York City studio apartment.  There was room for a bed, a propane powered cookstove (with oven), a heatstove, a small refrigerator, two cabinets, a work table, and a workstation in the middle with a telescope, a large copper circle with numbers and notches surrounding a map (with Wolf Mountain in the center), and a sextant-looking thing mounted on the rim of the circle.  Glen explained that the sextant-looking thing was mostly for show -- when she's fire-spotting, she uses a computer program to determine the location. 

The only thing the tower lacked was running water.  And a toilet.  As a guy, that doesn't present too much of a challenge.  I could just pee downwind off of the deck when necessary.  I did, though, have to descend the umpteen flights of ladders to get to the outhouse at the bottom for my twice daily constitutionals. 
 
Most of the time, life is quiet at the top of the tower.  Glen need not keep her eyes fixed 24/7 on the horizon looking for smoke.  Indeed, she spends most of her time painting.  Glen is an exceedingly gifted artist, and working the tower gives her lots of time to put her talents to paper.  Her current focus is botanical watercolors, and Ochoco provides her with no shortage of subjects. 

Spending time with Glen is such a treat.  She's such so warmhearted, funny, and generous of spirit.  With a constant twinkle in her eye.  Not to mention the fact that she's so incredibly talented.  And she was kind enough to let me work hard while she painted:

Me keeping watch over the sextant-thingy.

Like I said, life at the top of the tower is remarkably civilized.  There's electricity (powered by solar panels and a generator), a gas stove, and Internet access courtesy of Verizon (two bars!).  A winch ferries drinking supplies up and down -- it's a six minute ride up in the basket for the gin and tonic.

And as soon as Glen goes off duty at 6:00 (or so), cocktail hour begins.

So many choices!

And as we sip our cocktails, we watch the sun set in the west.

The two days at the tower were amazing.  We eat very well -- chicken curry, burritos, cheese, cured meats, fresh berries and other fruit, homemade granola.  We drink well -- gin and tonics, French wine, Belgian beer.  We go for walks in the woods.  We read books.  We get cold at night and curl up in our sleeping bags.  And we just stand on the deck and take in the view.  A couple of days in paradise.  The only way it could have been better is if my brother Kirk could have joined us.  Alas, he had to work on short notice. 

Part of me also sort of of wanted a bit of excitement.  It would have been pretty cool to have spotted a fire, or at least a lightning strike.  There were some dark clouds in the sky the second day I was there, and I was secretly hoping for a thunderstorm.  But the storm gods were just teasing.   No such luck.  But they did treat me with yet another beautiful view of creation:

After two days at Wolf Mountain, Glen and I said our goodbyes.  I would have loved to enjoy her company and her treetop world for a few more days.  But Grigsby and I had to keep going.  Time is running out.  Four weeks have almost passed, and Grigsby's adventures are starting to draw to a close. . . . . . 

Better Late Than Never

Yes, Beth, I know.  I've been running behind on my blogging.  I could blame it on the fact that I've been spending lots of time in the wilderness, in reception-free zones.  But alas, that would be a lie.  I've just been too busy having too much fun to sit behind my laptop and crank out another entry in the day-in-the-life-of-a-vagabond journal.  :-)

Where did we last leave off?  Oh, yes.  Chico Hot Springs.  So I left Chico Hot Springs, not entirely sure of where I would go next.  Perhaps Boise?  Perhaps somewhere in between?  It really didn't matter to me, because I was just enjoying the drive.  The first stop was Bozeman, where I had a lazy lunch at the Cateye Café.  Sausage and biscuits, strong coffee, and a slice of banana-bread-French-toast.  The S&B were to die for, but the BBFT really put me over the edge.  I just wanted to curl up on my plate and take a nap afterwards.  Plus, I loved the Cateye's attitude, as encapsulated in its manifesto, "The Way of the Cateye."  If you're ever in Bozeman, check the place out.  And remember, if you have a fork, then you don't need a spoon to stir your coffee. 

After lunch,  I just drove sort of vaguely towards the west, trying to stay off the Interstate as much as possible.  It was often slow going (dodging cattle, tractors, and potholes), but I was treated to some of the most breathtaking scenery I've ever seen.  Photos really don't do it justice, but I can see why they call it "Big Sky Country."

Yup.  That sky is pretty big.

The Tragedy of the Commons

After my near perfect visit to Big Horn National Forest, I next set my sights on Yellowstone National Park.  It took a couple of hours to cross the Big Horn Basin, which was absolutely baking in the mid-90s.  While passing through, I was treated to a thunderstorm that cooled things off a bit.

By the time I got to Cody, Wyoming, the biggest town just east of the park, things had dried out and the temperatures hovered back in the 90s again.  (Up in the mountains in the Big Horn National Forest, the highs were in the 70s.)  In Cody, I did laundry, took a shower, gassed up, and refilled the cooler with food and beer.  By the time I hit the road again and headed towards Yellowstone, it was late afternoon and more storms were brewing.  As I climbed the mountains leading up to the park entrance, it turned into a full-on nasty and impressive tempest.

Right about the time I got to the park, the storm started to let up.  And at the park entrance, as if on cue, I was treated to a real life show.  A buffalo scratching his junk back and forth on a rock right by the entrance.

 

I approached the park entrance booth just a few feet from Mr. Itchy, and the 20-year-old kid working the booth was leaning his head out the window, staring wistfully at the buffalo and propping his chin on his forearm.  When I get to the window, without even taking his gaze off the buffalo, he says to me, "I have the best job in the world."

But then, bad news.  Just past the entrance, there is a sign listing all the campgrounds and their distances.  And next to every campground name is a tag saying "FULL" -- which was sort of surprising given that there are about 2,000 campsites in the park, and probably an equal number of rooms in lodges and cabins. 

Oooops.  Oh well.  What the hell, I thought to myself.  I'll just drive to some of the campgrounds and lodges and see if there are any last minute vacancies.  And if not, I can always drive back down to Cody (about an hour from the park entrance) or down south of the park to Jackson.

But then as I drove deeper into the park, it was getting dark, and I started to think, this is stupid.  I had struck out at the first couple of places, it was getting late, I was tired, and distances in the park are such that I could be driving around all night trying to find a place to stay.  Finally, around 10:00 pm, I stumble into Grant Village, and the desk person said that they had one room available.  Score!  And they even let me have it at a discount because it had a broken window.  

Next morning, I got up bright and early to start my Yellowstone adventure.  But the adventure quickly soured.  The entire 3,500 square miles of the park seemed to be taken up with buses, oversized RVs, fifteen-seater vans, cars, and people.  And lots and lots of children (who were far less interested in the park than their parents).  I clearly missed all this night before because it was so dark and so late.

Nevertheless, I sojourned on.  First stop:  Old Faithful.  Now you would think that since Mr. Faithful erupts several times a day, the crowds wouldn't be too bad; after all, a tourist could opt for any one of about eight different eruptions.  I opted for the 11:30 showing.  And, alas, the place was mobbed.  This is what I had to compete with:

I felt like I was at a U2 concert something.  I did manage, though, to get the obligatory photo of me and the geyser (conveniently cropped to make it seem as if no one else is there!\).

The annoyed face is because of the screaming children nipping at my ankles.

Next up, strolls though the various geyser basins.  Unfortunately, because of the bajillions of people who pass through every year, visitors are restricted to "boardwalks" that dictate where you can go and that are choked with tourists who waddle at an interminably slow pace, don't believe in natural fibers, and wear fanny packs.  (The Horror!)  And they all seem to have more than their allotted 2.2 children, and they don't believe in disciplining any of them.  

Still, the hot springs and geysers were cool, once I actually got up and close and blocked the other tourists out of my peripheral vision.

And I was treated to a couple of other lovely views while driving around the park.  The lower falls of the Yellowstone River were quite impressive.

Note the tiny people on the platform at the top right of the falls.

And the canyon that starts at the base of the falls was stunning as well.

There was lots of wildlife, like this elk I spotted:

And the roads had areas every quarter mile or so where you could pull over and enjoy a new spectacular view (if you could manage to get an empty parking spot).

Lake Yellowstone

While driving around the jam which is park traffic, Grigsby hit a milestone.  He crossed the continental divide for the first time.

To celebrate, I let him get his first tattoo.

But really, after one day in Yellowstone, I was done.  I couldn't handle the crowds.  While I was able to edit out most of the throngs of people from the photos above, make no mistake:  The park was absolutely teeming, maxed out with people and their machines.  May a pox strike down the person who invented RVs!  Especially the RV in front of me that kicked out a piece of gravel and chipped Grigsby's windshield!

So I escaped the park the day before yesterday after spending barely 24 hours in it.  On the advice of my friend Sylvia who grew up in these parts, I checked into the Chico Hot Springs Resort and Day Spa, about 30 miles north of the park, to let nature's Calgon take me away.

Chico is a resort that dates from around 1900, with an old-school lodge and hot springs pool behind it, plus some newer buildings that have been added over the past hundred years or so.  My room was in the main lodge.  The room was tiny, little more than a bed and a tiny dresser, with the bathroom (shared w/eight other rooms) down the hall.  (They have nicer accommodations, too, but I'm traveling on the cheap, and I don't mind a shared bathroom.)

The resort is nestled right at the base of the Absaroka Mountains in a very picturesque location.  The weather is absolutely delightful, highs around 80, lows around 60.  After I checked in, I four-wheeled over to nearby Emigrant Creek and cooked myself some dinner on my portable gas stove (brats and corn on the cob).  Because the snow melt off this year has been so intense, the creek was positively gushing.  It made for a lovely background music and scenery while dining.  Then I came back to my room and crashed.

Yesterday I didn't do much.  I hung out by the hot springs pool.  Finished a book -- The Abstinence Teacher, a great read, check it out!  Took a yoga class.  Got a massage.  Not a whole lot to do here but chill.  Which is nice.  

A couple of days at Chico was a nice break.  My only two gripes:  First, there are lots of children.  I sort of thought this would be more of an "adult" sort of getaway, but this is clearly a "family" sort of destination.  While I adore children, I can only handle two or three at a time.  There must be 40 staying here, and the place isn't that big -- the kids totally overwhelm the pool.  They should consider having "adult" time at the pool for a couple of hours every afternoon.  The kids pretty much stayed away from the big porch (too boring for kids to just porch-sit, I suppose), so that's where I spent most of my time.   

Second, both mornings they started construction work out by the pool area at 7:00 am!  Criminy.  Power tools and shop vacs at that ungodly hour?!  They clearly need to get on east coast time.

But overall, it was a nice stay.  I'm checking out this morning.  Not sure where I'll end up night.  That's half the fun, though.  Onward!

 

Leaving Big Horn

Monday night was my last night in Big Horn National Forest.  I decided to do it up right and cook myself a cowboy dinner.  But first, the sunset:

Yes, those colors exist in nature.

So preparing a hot meal whilst camping poses some challenges.  First, I had to get water, both for cooking and cleaning.  The campsite had a pump, but damn, if it wasn't a bitch to operate.

I had to put my whole weight into each stroke, and then only a bit of water came out.  And I only had gallon jugs to fill.  That meant I pumped hard with one hand, I had to hold the jug with the other right under the spigot, otherwise, I would miss the opening.   It about wore me out after two gallons.

Then I needed fire.  I bought some firewood in Sheridan, but it turned out to be quite green and was a total bitch to get to burn.  After continually inserting extra kindling that I purloined from the area around the campsite, and constantly blowing on the base of the fire to get some oxygen to it, after about an hour I finally got enough of a fire to cook on.  I cooked over flames.  If I had waited for hot coals, I would have been there all night, the wood was so green.

Then the steak and the corn on the cob came out of the cooler and onto the grill.  The cooking part was relatively easy since the campsite had fire pits with iron grates for grilling.  The end result was delicious, and definitely worth the effort:

I popped open a bottle of cheap wine to go with it.  I discovered that there is a bug that really likes wine.  Several drowned themselves in it, and the ones that didn't drown clearly got drunk and passed out on the table about the bottle.  The whole area was littered with little winged things that could hardly stand, much less fly.  They're clearly related to me.

Achieving New Heights in Blogging

Greetings from 9,500 feet.





Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I am blogging from the top of Black Mountain, Wyoming. I have reception for the first time since entering the Big Horn National Forest yesterday. And hiking at this altitude has about wore me out. So I've decided to sit and catch my breath and write for a bit before heading back down.

The hike up wasn't too difficult, technically, but the air is certainly thin up here. Plus I was already a bit light headed from being bathed constantly in DEET.

But the view from the old lookout tower up here is simply amazing.





Getting to the trail head was quite an undertaking. Grigsby and I had to ford two streams, and the road -- if it could be called that -- was itself steep rivulets punctuated by boulders. But Grigsby did great. He only stalled twice. And that was in high 4WD. If I had put him in low, I'm sure he wouldn't have stalled at all.

I'm camped down at the bottom at a campsite called Tie Flume, right on the South Tongue River. The setting reminds me of Middle Earth:



But being near the water increases the bug factor. And the animal factor. A deer came right up to my campsite last night, oblivious to me until I went "boo" and she bounded away.



And then in the middle of the night I could have sworn an animal was trying to get in my tent. Or maybe it was just the wind. They do have signs posted around the campsite warning of bears and mountain lions...... But it was a lovely chilly night, and I got to break out the sleeping bag for the first time.

OK. Going to head down the mountain soon, take a freezing cold stream bath, and then cook up a nice dinner. I've got some steak and corn on the cob in the cooler. Yum.

I'll spend one more night here, then head towards Yellowstone tomorrow.

I'll leave you with a handsome photo of Grigsby from yesterday, when we took an old logging road to get up into the mountains.





He's such a stud.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

From Corn Palace to Devil's Tower

Greetings from the base of Devil's Tower. I've entered the "Into the Wild" phase of my trip, camping outdoors instead of staying in hotels and homes with wi-fi. As a result, my laptop is pretty much useless.

But I do have (some) phone reception So I am going to attempt to blog from my iPhone. I apologize in advance for the brevity and any typos. And I can't figure out how to upload high resolution photos. So I apologize if the pics look crappy.

Anyway. I left Brandon, SD, yesterday around noon (I slept in) and headed to the Badlands. But first, I felt compelled to visit the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.


The Corn Palace, for those of you who don't know, is a paen to all things corn, constructed of corn. Some geniuses in late 19th century Mitchell concocted the idea of the palace, after a neighboring town built a "Wheat Palace" that garned a modicum of attention. The Wheat Palace, though, eventually succumbed to oblivion. The Corn Palace survives, and is redecorated anew each year.

An adorable, corn fed, high school boy gave me a tour of the Palace, explaining the history and the pride that the Palace has brought to South East South Dakota. And I got my picture taken with CORNelius, another corn fed youth in a furry corn cob suit.


After the Corn Palace, I continued west on I-90 towards the Badlands. On the way, Grigsby hit a milestone:


If you can't tell from the photo, Grigsby hit 4,000 on the odometer. He was at 700 when we left DC two weeks ago.

Next, the Badlands. Very, VERY cool. I got there late in the afternoon, and the late afternoon sun cast some amazing shadows.


I hikes around a bit, working up a sweat in the heat, and the jumped into Grigsby and snaked along the ridge road running the length of the park, trying to make it to the Sage Creek Campground before sunset.

I made it with some time to spare, courtesy of Grigsby's ability to fly down curvy dirt roads. Made it in time to get the tent set up before nightfall.


Then popped open a beer, watched the sun set and the full moon rise. Amazing.

Got up this morning to the serenading of dozens of different kinds of birds (or so it seemed) and hit the road around 10:00 heading towards Mount Rushmore. Made it there about noon and got the obligatory photo:


And while it was very impressive and very cool to see it in person, there wasn't any reason to hang around much longer than the time it took to go through the small museum on site.

Grigsby and I left Rushmore and drove out of the Black Hills into eastern Wyoming. Moorcroft to be exact. Went into the local truck stop and rented a shower for six bucks. The days have been in the mid to upper 90s and with the hiking and sweating, I was already feeling pretty ripe after just 36 hours since my last shower.

Next, the plan was to go to Big Horn National Forest for the night to camp. But it was already almost 4:00, and I knew I'd never make it in time. So instead, I decided to sort of backtrack and go to Devil's Tower for the night. It was only 35 miles away, would be a great place to wander around and spend the night, and then I could hit the road early in the morning and make it to Big Horn with time to spare. Plus, I could relive the Close Encounters fantasies I had as a child.


So Grigsby and I headed back up towards the Black Hills. The campsite in the park is right on the Belle Fourche river, in a grove of cottonwood trees that are currently producing cotton so that it seems as if it is snowing.

I took an easy hike around the base as the sun began to set.


Back at the campsite, I popped open a couple of beers, listened to a local musician play guitar and sing some slightly tawdry songs, and then listened to a Chayenne Indian tell stories about creation and the nature of things.

And getting ready to sleep under a sky filled with billions and billions of stars, as Carl would say. Life is good.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Corn and More Corn

On Wednesday, Team Grigsby left and Ann Arbor and headed for Chicago, with a quick detour to have lunch at Russell Dunes State Park on Lake Michigan:

The beach was overrun, though, with busloads of schoolchildren, so we didn't linger much after eating.  Rather, we quickly headed towards Chicago.

Chicago, as seen from Grigsby.

Well, technically we headed to one of the western suburbs, where my friends Marta and Danny live.  There, in Oak Park, I got to catch up with several my Chicago-area friends (Leah, Carrie, and Alan), who all graciously agreed to converge at a sushi restaurant not far from Danny and Marta's house.  After dinner, Jenny departed Team Grigsby, to continue her vacation with her friend Sean.  (They're flying to Vancouver.)  Grigsby's passenger seat seems so lonely now . . . .  Bye, Jenny!  Grigsby will miss you!

After some laundry the next morning and a re-loading/re-arranging of Grigsby's innards, Grigsby and I hit the road, all by ourselves.  We had a long haul ahead of us.  I had originally planned on taking I-90 up and over to South Dakota, but Danny convinced me I should take a more scenic route:  U.S. 20 through western Illinois and Iowa.  Good call, Danny.

Somewhere in Western Illinois

First stop:  Galena, home of Ulysses S. Grant (who knew?).   Galena was a very quaint, river town with lots of pretty Victorian homes with big porches.  Galena's historic Main Street was closed off because of a gathering of classic Packard owners.

Galena is very beige.

I spent some time walking around the historic district, checking out the very cool rides, which were all owned by 70-something white guys who all looked exactly alike.  Creepy.  I then grabbed some lunch at Galena's swankest restaurant (cost all of $12 including tip), and then continued west, crossing into Iowa, home of Radar O'Reilly. 

Then there was drama.  Somewhere west of Dubuque on U.S. 20, I saw an awful accident happen right in front of me.  Some guy went speeding by me in his little sedan, darting in and out of traffic.  A few hundred feet in front of me, he tried to dart in between another car and a tractor-trailor, but he lost control and crossed the median.  Before he could react, another tractor-trailer heading the opposite direction plowed into him.

Grigsby and I stopped, and I called 911.  Several other drivers stopped to help, one of whom was a doctor.  After about 5 minutes, police and EMS showed up (which seemed awfully fast, considering that we were in the middle of nowhere).  Once the place started getting overrun with rescue people, I left.  I only stuck around long enough to give a statement to a police officer.  I figured that they didn't need me lingering and getting in the way.  (I got a call later in the afternoon from a lady in the sheriff's department who had a couple more questions.  She told me that the driver was very lucky, and that it appeared that he was going to be OK.)

U.S. 20 was a lovely drive through more corn than I knew existed on the entire planet.  About halfway through the state, though, U.S. 20 just ended.  The sign only said "road closed" -- I assume it was some sort of construction.  So I turned off the highway.

If you ever look at a map of Iowa, you'll see that all the roads basically go north or south.  There aren't any diagonals.  And I was wanting to get to the upper left hand corner of the state.  So I pretty much had to zig-zag up one little country road, then over on another, then up, then over, then up, then over, etc.  Luckily, the roads are all straight, so I could drive them on a fast clip.

And passing through all the small towns was a trip.  I filled up in a little town called Fort Dodge at a gas station with an unfortunate name.

Apparently this is a chain in Iowa.

And I passed through more fields of corn, punctuated by small towns, silos, and windmills.

Finally, after about 12 hours on the road, I made it to the very northwest corner of the state, crossed over into Minnesota briefly, and then arrived in Brandon, South Dakota, late last night.  Spent the night in the local Holiday Inn Express, and now getting ready to hit the road again.

Next stop:  Badlands.  My next few nights I'm camping out, so there may be a delay in further blog postings.  Be patient . . . .