July 5, 2021
Vanlog, Riverside Campground, Scottsbluff, NE
You know how I said in yesterday's blog that I was living my best life? I had the dream free campsite at Nomad View with the view below. My sunrise view is at right. I had an absolutely amazing day yesterday from a beautiful sunrise to the prairie dogs, the bighorn sheep posing for me, the splendor of the Badlands, a solid hike etc. Well, not every day of vanlife can be that wonderful. I guess I was due for a little bit of balance.
I started out early again, leaving my beautiful spot around 5:30 AM. I had a 1.5-hr drive to Custer State Park and I wanted to get there early so I could see the wildlife on the wildlife loop road. I had heard that there were herds of bison in the park so I was expecting somewhat of a Yellowstone experience. But in the 1.5 hrs I was on the wildlife loop drive, all I saw was a pronghorn antelope. Then I headed to the Needles Highway portion of the park. Now I knew that I wasn't going to fit through the one tunnel by the Needle's Eye, but I still wanted to see the geological feature and the cars going through the narrow tunnel, so I drove up to it and then had to maneuver my way into a U-turn in a narrow road to get back out. It was also a long detour out of my way, but one worth seeing. Nearby was the Sylvan Lake campground, which had this beautiful small lake surrounded one one side by the Black Hill mountains. However, even though it wasn't hot or anything, my BP was out of whack and I felt really, really, really dizzy like I was going to pass out and couldn't breathe. I checked my O2 levels and they were fine. BP was 125/70, so not bad. I have felt this way several times on the trip and I don't know why, which is a bit concerning.
After Custer State Park, I drove all the way around the park (and through another narrow tunnel that was 8'9" wide and 9'(" tall and I am 8'0" wide and 9'3" tall) to Mt Rushmore NM. I arrived around noon and it was packed (Fourth of July weekend) and hot! I checked out the visitor's center for the first time (this is my third trip to Mt Rushmore) and walked the Presidential Trail.
After Mt Rushmore, I typed into my Google Maps the final destination of Agate Fossil Beds NM in Harrison, NE and I made the mistake of trusting it. I didn't have a paper map of Nebraska with me, so I guess I had it coming. Google Maps took me on 40-50 miles of dirt roads through a thunderstorm and with spotty cell service. It was a bit of a nightmare! I finally arrived at the Agate Fossil Beds at 3:57 PM and I thought they closed at 4:00 PM. Luckily, they were open until 5:00 PM. I watched the introductory film, stamped my brochure, looked at the museum, and then did a mile-long walk to see some fossils on the nearby fossil mounds. This park is known for its collection of early mammal fossils (many are featured in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh that I visited last year). The area was once a plains area like the Serengeti in Africa. Occasionally, it would flood the area and create water holes. All the mammals would come to the water hole to drink. Then they would eat all the plant life in the vicinity until they could no longer find food in the area near the water hole. Then they would lay down in the mud and die and become fossilized. These animals lived around 19-20 million years ago and were largely just larger versions of mammals that exist today. There are rhinoceros like footprints in the area and these very unusual spiral fossils that are called daemonelix and they look like spirally tree roots. It is now believed, however, that these fossils are the burrows of a large gopher or prairie dog type mammal called Paleocastor. They formed large underground colonies in the area.
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