Omens

We are 5 for 6 now. We made our way to Wind Cave National Park. Established by Roosevelt on January 9, 1903, it is one of the earliest National Parks in the US, and is the very first National Park established to protect a cave system. Actually, it is the first cave based National Park anywhere in the world. Wind Cave is believed to be the 5^th longest cave system in the world, believed to be in that only maybe 5% of the system has been explored and mapped, and its length is estimated based on measurement of air flow in the cave.

We toured the cave. It is known for what is called boxwork – calcite worked its way into cracks in the limestone, and when the acidic water ate away the limestone, the thin, fragile filled cracks remained. The reason for the name is that folk believed it looked like the maze of post office boxes where they picked up their mail. Allegedly 95% of the boxwork discovered in caves in the entire world is here in Wind Cave.

Wind Cave is a dead cave – there is very little water seeping into the cave and creating features at this time. But the mission of continuing to explore the cave carries on. Each few months the length of mapped caves changes, adding miles each year to the known stretches. Like Jewel Cave we visited a few days ago, there are only two active entrances to Wind Cave, making the exploration of it challenging and slow.

Adjacent to Wind Cave NP is Custer State Park. We had high hopes given the claims about the abundant wildlife here. We did see one pronghorn antelope, some wild burros and many prairie dogs, the buffalo were in pens and not roaming freely, and we saw nothing that knocked our socks off. It still was a nice drive and worth the effort.

Our favorite was the Pinnacles Highway. We drove in and amongst the rock formations, with 10 MPH curves, white knuckle overhangs, and views galore. It was spectacular! At an average speed of 25 MPH, it took us a bit to wind our way through, but it was well worth the time and the tension.

So, we have been accused of being the jinxes that are causing all the wild fires in the West. We visited Glacier NP, and now it’s burning and they are evacuating folk. The same Is true of many of the places we have visited, but none before this is as eerie. We left Wind Cave NP around 1ish – at 2 PM the same day, they had a lightning strike that set off what is now a 300-acre wild fire, and is still not under any level of control. Maybe it is us!

Other omens – we found gnaw marks in the pooches’ food and other containe

rs. We set mouse traps and left them in various spots around the coach. The Woman didn’t hear the SNAP in the middle of the night, but I did. Hopefully, the other 5 traps I set out will yield no bounty.

Today’s road was not kind – when we drove to Alaska they warned us about porpoising on the ice heaves – in the Lakota land on the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) highways, it was worse than Alaska. We made it in one piece – so we thought. When we opened up our slides, we heard CRACK CRUNCH and lost a closet door, as well as a smashed CD drive for our laptop. I guess it could have been worse.

Talk to you soon!