AGATE FOSSIL BEDS N.M.﹠CHIMNEY ROCK (NE)

TUESDAY - We've got a long 224-mile route to travel today. To break up the long day we have scheduled a stop at the 150-mile mark to check out a National Monument and eat lunch.

We were barely outside of the campground when the wildlife came out of hiding to wish us "safe travels" today.

This young buck was the only one of six deer who paused in the middle of the road for a photo.

Then just a few more blocks up the road, right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, we spotted this quartet of wild turkeys picking bugs out of the grass and only one took the time away from their meal to "gobble-gobble" us a goodbye.

I must admit that today's route could have been slightly shorter if we had taken the direct route, but we're adding a few miles by crossing back over into Wyoming and then heading south to cross into Nebraska from Wyoming.

We are still in South Dakota heading west into Wyoming. Not much to see!

We are now in Wyoming heading south and at least there are a few interesting hills to see.

OK, we are now obviously crossing into Nebraska from Wyoming here.
That's right! We've now collected our 102nd Border Crossing and only have 5 more to go.

In Nebraska there are definitely some plateaus and valleys to keep us interested.

I can't remember where was the last time I saw a tree today. Oh look! There's "one" now.

Just 34-miles after crossing into Nebraska we found ourselves turning off the highway to visit the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

AGATE FOSSIL BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

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Inside the Visitor Center there were all kinds of plaster skeletons like the ones found outside.
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This is the beginning of the 1-mile Daemonelix Trail at the park entrance.
It's the only place open to the public where you can still see fossils in their original place.
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This is what a 22-million year old fossilized dune looks like today.
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It looks like we have more visitors in the parking lot. I wonder if they're going to hike?
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Sure looks like it! At least we won't be alone out here.
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This is affectionately referred to as "The Phone Booth".
It protects a fossilized spiral burrow of an ancient Paleocastor.
Think of a Paleocastor as an ancient beaver-like animal.
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I'm glad I turned around before I got to this section of the hike.
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At least it looks like it's all downhill from here.
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That building down there houses something very special.
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It's completely surrounded by glass to protect it from erosion and vandalism.
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It's a little hard to make out, but this spiral burrow goes off in two directions
when it gets to a certain point. A unique find here in the park.
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That doesn't look very stable from this vantage point.

Now that our visit to the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is complete it's time to get back on the road. We are still over 75-miles from our destination.

I hope the entire 75-miles isn't like this. At least there's no traffic or stop lights.

We passed by this huge processing plant and I thought about going inside to see if I was in any way related to the owners and possibly be entitiled to a few profit sharing checks.

Afterall, my dad was born in Nebraska about 360-miles east of here back in 1919.

Yeah, no such luck!

We are headed to the town of Bayard which has a small FREE RV campground next to their city park. There are only 3 FCFS campsites at the city park with water and electric hookups. I'd like to get there early enough to get one. Our batteries sure could use a rest and get a full overnight charge too.

On the way to the campground we passed right by our next sightseeing destination. Here's a quick peek at what it is!

We arrived at the city park and found two of the three sites were already occupied. So we secured the last one, unhooked and locked up THE POD before we "took off" to go see Chimney Rock, they close at 4:00PM and it's already 2:30PM.

CHIMNEY ROCK

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Here is the Visitor Center with Chimney Rock in the background.
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Here it is without the Visitor Center in the way, much better.
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They have placed a couple of props to make your photos look more authentic to the 1850s.
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We drove over to the hiking trailhead to get a closer look.
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A storyboard explained that since 1850 more than 80' has eroded from the top of Chimney Rock.
Don't panic, there's still another 120' before it's gone.
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To get any closer than this you'll need to put your hiking boots on!

We got a big suprise when we got back to the campground. Instead of three RVs here there were now five. The one of each end don't get the water and electric hookups, but they do get a FREE and safe overnight parking spot.

There is even a nice shade pavillion for us to use.

Count 'em! Five RVs, but only 3 electric connections.

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COLD BROOK LAKE (SD)

SUNDAY - I'm happy to announce we don't have any boring road photos to share from today's drive.

There's two reasons for that, first is we didn't see one single bison on our way out of the park today and secondly, we only traveled 15-miles down the road to an Army Corps of Engineers park outside of Hot Springs, SD.

Check out time at the National Park camground was NOON, so we stayed put on the site until about 11:30AM. With only a 15-mile travel day we arrived at the Army Corps of Engineers campground right at NOON. Unfortunaltely their check-out and check-in times are both 4:00PM and on our first pass through the campground our site was still occupied with no one around.

We left the campground and had some time to kill, so we went into town and ate lunch in the grocery store parking lot. We then went around the corner to the municipal dump station, emptied our waste tanks and filled with fresh water. We were going to save this chore for after our 2-day visit here, but while we had the time we went ahead and got it done.

Then we drove up the street to the cheapest gas station in town, a Sinclair Station with $2.89 gasoline. By the time we got back to the campground it was nearing 2:00PM.

This time when we got back to the Recreation Area sign there were a half dozen wild turkeys wandering around. Don't they know that Thanksgiving is right around the corner?

Just after we were stopped taking the photos of the turkeys a truck and trailer came driving towards us from the direction of the campground. I flagged him down as he drove by to ask if they were just leaving Campsite #6, the one we have reserved for two nights.

He said they were and asked if we were the ones who reserved it for tonight. I said we were and he mentioned he saw us drive through at NOON and apologized for leaving late. I explained he actually had the campsite until 4:00PM and he seemed surprised, so I jokingly told him not to turn around and reoccupy the site. We both got a chuckle out of that!

We had just got set up in our nice and quiet campsite when the campers one campsite to our right fired up their generator. It's not one of the "quiet" types either, it sounds like a large commercial lawn mower and officially "quiet time" isn't until 10:00PM.

As I write this it's 4:30PM - 5:30PM - 9:00 and the generator is still running!

Campsite #6 is not quite deep enough for us to park parallel in front of THE POD.

You can see the cable connecting ROVER's solar panels to THE POD.
We need every watt we can get to charge our batteries up from being at 30%.

Someone was kind enough to leave us a little firewood.

Behind THE POD is a short footpath down the the shoreline of a cold brook.

Up river from our campsite appears to be a crystal clear fresh water springhead.

While down river appears to be clogged with debris of some sort.

As you can see it's not very far from the shoreline to THE POD's rear bumper.

MONDAY - Tricia was up bright and early this morning to take her usual morning walk.

We are camped here near the 36-acre Cold Brook Lake. You can't walk completely around the lake without doing some rock climbing, but there is a nice walkway around three-quarters of it, which is what Tricia did this morning.

MORNING OVER COLD BROOK LAKE

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A 5:45AM view of Cold Brook Lake from the middle of the dam.
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10-minutes later you could see the sun ready to peek over the trees.
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With the air temps in the mid-40°Fs and the water temps in the mid-70°Fs
it created the perfect scenerio for "steam fog" to be created over the lake.
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This small sandy beach is the perfect spot to enter the water.
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It's only 6:10AM and there's already a kayaker out on the water.
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The Cold Brook Dam helps corral the water and keep it in the Cold Brook Lake.
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These Common Sunflowers could be found all around the shoreline of the lake.
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This odd looking flower is the Western White Clematis, also very prevelant around the lake.
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There are just two campsites on the shore of the lake (#12﹠#13), but neither has water access.
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There is a separate picnic area on the campground side of the lake with a view.
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Imagine the force it took to bend that rock into that shape.
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The camground entrance road offers a view from high above the lake.
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With a final look over her shoulder at 6:35AM Tricia got a surprise sighting,
two hot air balloons were starting off on their early morning flight.

Today it will become clear why we only moved 15-miles down to the town of Hot Springs, and I'll bet it's not what you think it is.

The town of Hot Springs is famous for two things, No. 1 being the numerous natural hot springs all around town and No. 2 being the site of Columbian Mammoth bones. Since we already got our hot spring desires satisfied in Thermopolis, WY last month, we must be here for the Columbian Mammoth bones.

THE MAMMOTH SITE

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Our museum visit started with a 20-minute film that went more in depth about the site.
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Once you enter the room that houses the excavation site there are mammoth bones everywhere.
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These are the two mammoth teeth that are used to chew and grind their food.
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The large tusks were the easiest to spot thanks to their uniform shape.
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I believe this was described as a large femur bone.
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They estimate 60 Columbian and 3 Wooly Mammoths are located here.
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Tomorrow we're heading south into Nebraska to check out a pair of National Monuments and a National Historic Site. The first National Monument we will visit en route to our 1-night overnight stop in Nebraska.

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