A high and dry, wild and wet, majestic history medley – RTW 2018

[JohnM]

I'm up for that, but with my new abstemious diet and drinking habits I might be a bit on the outer, munching on my green leaves and sipping lime juice . If we go down to Patagonia, we can both be on home turf - you in the nation, me amongst the fa_as of Gondwanaland.

Lets skip the bugs and weeds, though. <Runs like hell>

Is life still worth living on that diet?

 

[JohnM]

Dining options are, shall we say, limited in Dickinson, North Dakota.

After another long drive, I opted to walk (not something most Americans are familiar with) about 1.2km (as the crow flies is about 300m, but the interstate intervenes) to Sanford’s Pub & Grub. Auspicious...

It was about the only non fast-food option in range - but when it comes up as 27 of 82 on TripAdvisor, while McDonalds comes up at 16 (WTF?! - who in their right mind would review a McDonalds on TA?), what I am I in for?! TA is generally pretty rubbish IMO, but at least it maps restos nearby.

It has a certain, errr, charm. Wine choice limited to casks and served in Mason jars (clearly the new ultra cool that the rest of the world is yet to recognise.)

The menu is a giant plastic-coated book of ‘American favourites’ liberally laced with adjectives of how big and health-destroying each meal is.

I opted for the ‘Crash Dummy’ burger (no, I don’t know why either - maybe it was because it had an egg). But it had bacon, and I have to confess to liking American crispy bacon.

The stand made of pipe holding a roll of kitchen towel for serviettes (err - napkins) was a novel touch.

Anyway, it was harmless enough. Needless to say, I could not eat all of the fries.

Overall, an experience to have but not to savour or repeat often.

But the big redeeming feature was the background music - Elvis, Chuck Berry, Stones, AC/DC, Queen... etc.

 

[drron]

I believe you need a rumen to survive on rooflyer's diet.

 

[JohnM]

I believe you need a rumen to survive on rooflyer's diet.

I bypassed that evolutionary step .

 

[Welsh-Kiwi]

What a great TR so far. I’m a bit late to this, as I got stuck in customs!! Boarding pass issued now.

 

[JohnM]

OK, back at my motel, so a little rewind back into today’s activities.

First up, out to Badlands NP. Nothing much to say, so a few pics can talk.

Then onto the nearby Minuteman National Historic Site. If you grew up during the Cold War, no explanation is needed; otherwise refer to Dr Google.







Then to the Delta 9 silo that has been kept to show what it was like back in those MAD days. All the others have been decommissioned.

The large round lid in front is the entry point for the crew, the nose-cone object to the right is a special antenna, and the silo is under the glass roof that has been added to enable a peek in.

The lid is about half open. I gather that it slid open quickly on the rails under compressed air power.

Peeking straight down through the glass lid. Originally aimed - rather inaccurately, I dare say - to somewhere near Moscow, I suspect.

 

[JohnM]

All that stuff was around Badlands, about 80km E of Rapid City. Then it was back to Ellsworth Air Force Base just E of Rapid City to visit the South Dakota Air & Space Museum.

Probably its main claim is having a B1B Lancer on display. They operate (or did) out of Ellsworth.

 

[JohnM]

This afternoon was about a 400 click drive into N Dakota. Again, good dead-straight roads, little traffic, high speed limits, so easily done.

Crossing into N Dakota very quickly saw a change in land use to extensive dryland cereal cropping. Harvest of good-looking winter wheat crops is well under way.

 

[VPS]

Dining options are, shall we say, limited in Dickinson, North Dakota.

After another long drive, I opted to walk (not something most Americans are familiar with) about 1.2km (as the crow flies is about 300m, but the interstate intervenes) to Sanford’s Pub & Grub. Auspicious...

It was about the only non fast-food option in range - but when it comes up as 27 of 82 on TripAdvisor, while McDonalds comes up at 16 (WTF?! - who in their right mind would review a McDonalds on TA?), what I am I in for?! TA is generally pretty rubbish IMO, but at least it maps restos nearby.

It has a certain, errr, charm. Wine choice limited to casks and served in Mason jars (clearly the new ultra cool that the rest of the world is yet to recognise.)

The menu is a giant plastic-coated book of ‘American favourites’ liberally laced with adjectives of how big and health-destroying each meal is.

I opted for the ‘Crash Dummy’ burger (no, I don’t know why either - maybe it was because it had an egg). But it had bacon, and I have to confess to liking American crispy bacon.

The stand made of pipe holding a roll of kitchen towel for serviettes (err - napkins) was a novel touch.

Anyway, it was harmless enough. Needless to say, I could not eat all of the fries.

Overall, an experience to have but not to savour or repeat often.

But the big redeeming feature was the background music - Elvis, Chuck Berry, Stones, AC/DC, Queen... etc.

View attachment 134101 View attachment 134102 View attachment 134103

I think Donald needs to do something about the food in his country. The only place where I've had a month's holiday and lost weight because I couldn't face most of the food (and that's after 5 days in NY with great food) but once you get out into the boonies

 

[drron]

I think Donald needs to do something about the food in his country. The only place where I've had a month's holiday and lost weight because I couldn't face most of the food (and that's after 5 days in NY with great food) but once you get out into the boonies

There are some really good restaurants in the boonies but you have to look for them.for a long time one of our favourite restaurants was in Wicasset Maine-The Taste of Maine,
And in JohnMs nick of the woods for this TR Kevin Costner had a great restaurant in Deadwood,SD.Unfortunately it went belly up.

 

[JohnM]

Today’s actvities - visit Theodore Roosevelt NP in N Dakota.

The park is made of two parts: the South Unit and the North Unit, about 80km apart. It’s well worth making the drive north to the smaller N Unit.

Both parks are badland country in land formation but the really interesting thing for me was the progression from the bleak, vegetation-devoid Badland Park in S Dakota, through a more vegetated S Unit to an even more heavily vegetated and more deeply-dissected N Unit, which has a river running through it.

For me, the pick was the N Unit, which is the most isolated and smallest.

One of the features of the S Unit are prairie dog ‘towns’. They are certainly a natural plough.



I had a cracker bonus in the S Unit. The park has a herd of wild horses, but no large predators, so the horse population needs periodic culling. The rangers do this, not by expedient shooting, but by tranquilising chosen animals and removing them for adoption. Talking to the head ranger while all this was going on, he said the horses are highly regarded so adoption is easy and they follow up the people who adopt them.

A couple of rangers were down in the gully getting to within about 20 m of the horses before firing the dart. Once the horse was down, the radio signal came to bring down the sled (on the right edge if the road) towed by the ATV (on the trailer).

I couldn’t get very close so the phone pics are not so good. I have better zoomed-in camera pics. Anyway, I think you’ll get the idea.





A bison snoozing.



Some of the S Unit landscape and vegetation.

 

[JohnM]

The N Unit.

One fascinating feature here was the ‘cannonball’ concretions embedded in the sediments.

 

[Daver6]

Sure those aren't just dinosaur testicl_s?

 

[OZDUCK]

Impressive photos - I am going to guess at glacial leftovers.

 

[RooFlyer]

Ahem. Take it from a geologist.

Fossil coconuts.
.
.
.
.
.

 

[Boca68]

Ahem. Take it from a geologist.

Fossil coconuts.
.
.
.
.
.

ooh poop!! Don't ruin the dinosaur testicl_s theory . Only watched Jurassic Park 3 recently, was sooo excited...

(by the theory, not the testes..ok)

 

[JohnM]

I like the dinosaur testicl_s theory .

Only one technical problem: dinosaurs were precursors of birds, so they didn’t have external testicl_s (and to dampen other wild imaginings, they didn’t have a cough (there are a very few exceptions, like ducks)). Like birds, dinosaurs had a cloaca.

But the, unfortunately limited, explanation in the park guide is: “They were formed when sand grains from an ancient river deposit were cemented together by minerals dissolved in groundwater.”

Yes, well that sort of thing happens all the time .

The real question that they didn’t answer is, of course, why they are spherical - and so large with it. I imagine that was because nobody knows.

But @RooFlyer, can you make up something like you usually do?

 

[RooFlyer]

But @RooFlyer, can you make up something like you usually do?

Weeellll ... since you asked ....If you imagine all rocks here - barely stuck together enough to be called rock, BTW, but I'll condescend to treat them as such, and not dirt ... - anyway, if you think of them buried down a fair bit, with fluids passing through them, under pressure. The fluid will carry dissolved elements and compounds - iron, carbonate, magnesium, oxygen, calcium etc. Fluid may be neutral, oxidising or reducing.

If there is something in the rock a bit different from its surrounds - a fragment of shell, a bit of iron oxide - the stuff in the fluid might start to chemically react with it, or maybe electrically. It might dissolve it, or it might start precipitating on it, sort of like electroplating

If the stuff starts precipitating on it, and keeps going, it forms a nodule or concretion. If the fabric of the rock doesn't have any preferred direction - like bedding - then the concretion will grow evenly in 3D and form a sphere. Later they get eroded out.

Here the surrounding rock ... I think a volcanic tuff .. is very soft and porous, so the spheres are well formed.

Personally, I think my fossil coconut theory was more believable.

Of course, mineral nodules were most useful when they formed the story for the CIA's Glomar Challenger, the weird vessel built to find and retrieve a sunken Russian submarine. The cover story was that Howard Hughes was going after manganese nodules, precipitated out of ocean water on the sea floor.

 

[JohnM]

Errr, thanks very much, Prof .

Some more rock stuff coming up shortly from today’s activities .

 

[RooFlyer]

Goody. Try to clear off the bugs butterflies and weeds plants off so we can get a good look.