Coop's Corner: West To The River

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

West To The River

Sunday morning in Wessington Springs, I was in no real hurry to get packed up and willing to let some of my things dry out. That didn't really happen though. Many of the guys were downtown at the gas station having coffee and doughnuts before starting out and I decided to be packed and join them before we all went our own directions.

I got back on Hwy 34 and wanted to go as far as Ft. Thompson to get my first look at the Missouri River. The last time I rode through SD, I had the Ducati and had been out to the Bighorns with Chris, Steve and Scott. We mostly used Hwy 44 to go west and I used Hwy 34 after leaving the Black Hills to get back to MN.

When I got to Ft. Thompson, there were big electronic signs on the Hwy, in fact on every approach to town announcing that COVID was present and that NO TOURISTS DO NOT STOP. I didn't need gas and was glad that I didn't.

Ft. Thompson at the Big Bend Dam, last of the dams built on the Missouri River

More Lewis and Clark Trail info....

Coming from the north in to Chamberlain...

My old friend, Dignity at the Chamberlain Rest Stop

This was the bridge that was being constructed in 2007 when we wanted to cross it west to the Badlands and had to detour. I backtracked a bit to the Snake Creek Recreation Area to see it. There were a lot of recreators using the lake, boats aplenty!

Crossing into Nebraska at Niobrara, the wide river valley and the bridge that spans it.

From Niobrara State Park in Nebraska, looking downriver, the bridge I'd just crossed in the distance. The park is a beautiful, magical place....a State Park like none I've seen before. The hills along the Missouri Valley are incredible....the photos not doing them justice.

Thanks Jason for mentioning this place, I had never heard of it before but have been interested in the general terrain along the south side of the river. Nebraska Hwy 12 east to the Yankton river crossing was about the most picturesque piece of road on the entire trip and most other places as well.

One way road through the park...

Campsite #1....

Had to smile at the Watkins products in my shower at the Yankton motel....

Monday morning from my motel in Yankton and the basis for my decision to wait until 10am to depart.

Home Monday afternoon, not exactly the hoped for path. I never did touch Iowa...too much weather directly to the east from where I was so I bit a bullet and traveled up I-29 to I-90 in Sioux Falls and then east as far as Worthington where I caught Hwy 60. North on I-29 with the side winds was brutal; my neck was stiff for a couple days.

A very stormy night in Wessington Springs and some rain Monday morning in Yankton that I watched from my motel room window. Other than that, really only sprinkles and wind. I'm still amazed at how green the entire region is. I've traveled across the plains a lot in July and August and just don't expect to see May/June green everywhere. Corn all of the way to the Missouri River....simply amazing and it wasn't the scrubby stuff. No irrigation, it seemed to be thriving.

I very much enjoyed the trip...the company of the guys on their Wessington camp run, the solo time chasing along parts of the Lewis and Clark Trail and in general, riding through land where the horizon is just about the only thing seen. I've got my fill of the prairie, nice to be back in the familiar hills.

2 comments:

JasonAugust 21, 2020 at 8:49 AM
You did it! Man that's awesome. :) I'm glad to see you weren't at campsite #1 for storm #2, those were some nasty storms. Sounds like everybody made it out okay.

I've been eyeing up that spot for a while, it's so cool to see it through your camera lens. I get excited just thinking about it.

Keep the fire burning,

Jason
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)