Up to Mount Rushmore first thing this morning and a glimpse of American capitalism at work here. Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor responsible for the work requested that the monument be free to everyone, this is true but it's $11 to park - go figure! It's an impressive sight, no doubt, and an icon of American democracy but the area is subject to controversy as the land was seized from the Lakota Indians in 1876. We drive down to Hill City for lunch, Harley riding re...

More of the same from Cheyenne this morning, grass, grass and hmm…more grass. We cover a few hundred miles like this with not much relief from the relentless desert of rolling grassland. Finally we see the Black Hills 'Paha Sapa' in Lakota, the local Indian people. Heading into Custer and seeing directions to towns like Deadwood you know you are in Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane country! We drive through town and make our way to our home for the next few days -...

The van was cold this morning when we woke up. The temperature has dropped to low 60's since climbing up into the Rockies. Janice treated us all to cooked breakfast this morning as we have about three hundred miles to cover today so a good start to the day is in order. We drive back out of Redstone following the mountain road back to Glenwood, making our way back to the I70 heading for Denver. The road starts to climb steadily once past Vail, peaking at almost 1...

We take a short drive to Marble this morning to meet up with Smitty at Crystal River Jeep Tours for an off-road tour of the Lead King Basin and the old mining town of Crystal. Leaving Marble we climb to around 12000 feet on old mining trails that are only passable using four wheel drive, mountain bikes or on foot. We drive through alpine meadows full of Columbine and Aspen catching sight of waterfalls created by melting snowfields up at more than 14000 feet. As w...

This morning we are leaving Moab for Redstone in Colorado. We stopped at Denny's for a big Grand Slam breakfast, as we had a long drive ahead of us (226 miles). Along the way we passed the town called Cisco again, which we had seen the day before. The guide Cade told us a funny story about this town, which had a population of eight. The grocery store was run by a husband and wife, and wife shot husband dead, so then population went to seven making it statistical...