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Bev's Journal We Proceeded On... Part II: The Journey West |
| 12 September 2002 Cook Lake Campground Black Hills National Forest Near Aladdin WY We visited the Aladdin General Store (est. 1890) yesterday – Aladdin (pop. 15) is about 15 miles from where we’re camped, and the nearest source of water, food and other amenities. It’s also quite charming, and has been continuously operated since its start as a company store for miners. There are rich deposits of coal near here, which are still being mined today. The store has all the old wood and glass display cases we’ve come to expect, and the upstairs floors creak suitably. The upstairs antique store has a distinctly western flavor, with Indian artifacts, a row of boots, and western clothing for sale. We filled our 5-gallon water jugs there for $1 per bottle, and proceeded to Belle Fourche SD, about 18 miles to the east. This is ranching country, bigtime, and about all you see are ranches, ranches and more ranches. It’s lonely country, and while beautiful in its own way, I find it rather bleak. We had a lot of errands to do in Belle Fourche, and since we hadn’t seen it while we were in SD, we thought we might have been missing something. (Ha!) Well, it IS the geographical of the U.S. – I guess that’s its claim to fame. All in all, we were glad to be in Nowhere, Wyoming most of this national day of mourning. I’m glad there were remembrances in New York and other places where people feel the need of them, but for myself, I would rather not be reminded of the tragedy. Watching those towers fall once was horror enough for me. |
| 11 September 2002 Cook Lake Campground Black Hills National Forest Near Aladdin WY Now is the time that all cheap Rvers await – after Labor Day, the national forests turn off the water, and free out-of-season camping begins. We arrived here last night after rejecting the campground at Devils Tower National Monument – the campground hosts were less than welcoming; in fact, they were downright surly. I think they had been there too long, or they just didn’t give a damn, but it was enough to make me look for another campground. So we remembered having seen a sign for this campground off the main road, and backtracked about 10 miles. The sign said that the BHNF was 11 miles. It was a nicely graded gravel road, so we proceeded to take the road past mostly ranches with free-ranging longhorn cattle (!). At the end of 11 miles, the next sign said that the campground was another 13 miles! We had come this far, so we decided to go on. The road was not nearly as well maintained, and the wildlife (mostly whitetail deer) not nearly as used to traffic as those in Custer State Park, so progress was slow. The site is pretty, but not as scenic as Bismarck Lake. On the other hand, it’s a lot more remote—25 miles on gravel road one way and 10 miles on a gravel road the other way. |
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| Rush hour at the Aladdin General Store |