Grizzly enclosure

The last time we visited Bear Country, we had the good fortune of going during feeding time, which occurs daily at 9:00am. Sitting in the safety of our van, we watched Tim, a veteran employee of Bear Country, sling frozen hunks of meat over a 20 foot fence into the mountain lion enclosure. The back of his pickup was full of this meat, a fact well known by the black bears and timber wolves that were creeping up behind him. After a few steaks, Tim grabbed a six foot pole from the bed of the pickup, stepped aggressively towards the wolves and bears, and swung it widely. The predators leaped back, and he returned to the steaks, tossing a few more to the lions before flinging one to the nearest bear and jumping back into the cab of his pickup. With Tim gone, the animals stopped playing nice, and the steak’s recipient ended up losing his prize to a relative when he chased off the wolves. Satisfied, we drove on, thrilled that the spectacle had occurred only 20 feet from our van.

Such is the thrill of Bear Country, and while not every trip through the drive-through park is as exciting as ours, it’s always a thrill to have your way blocked by a black bear and to see an arctic wolf in person.

The quick look:

Where it is: On Hwy 16 about 12 minutes outside Rapid City, on the way to Mt. Rushmore. See the map for more.

How much time: Most people take around 2 hours to soak in the park and enjoy it thoroughly. If you are one for loitering in gift shops, add plenty more. A café is on the premises if you run into lunch.

Cost: $15 adults, $8 for kids, $12 for seniors, with a max. of $55 per vehicle (2008 price). See their website for the most current prices.

Best time to go: Mornings, when the animals are more active and the traffic in the park is lighter

Bear hiding in the grass

Works well when coupled with: It’s on the way to Mt. Rushmore, so it can go well with the big attraction. The Smart Alec takes you to Mt. Rushmore and if you’re in for a long day of driving, you could tackle the Needles and Iron Mountain Road. We’d recommend going slower, however, which is why some folks like to pair Bear Country with Reptile Gardens. Even then, though, if you like these places, it might be better to save the second round of animal watching for another day.

Highlights:

• 

  Babyland Bears climb tree

  Babyland: The walk-through area where you can watch the bear cubs up close, as well as otters, a grizzly bear, and more.

• Feeding time: if you can get there when we did, by 9:00, you could be in for a show, and even if you miss the actual feeding, the animals are still quite active around that time.
• Smart Alec: We’ve crafted a full audio tour through the park, detailing animals and explaining the history of the attraction. It’s like riding with the owner in your vehicle.

Good to know:

• Leave your road-rage tendencies at the gate, traffic can be slow in the park.
• No matter how badly you want to open them, windows need to stay closed.
• Admission to the park can add up, though the max is $55 a vehicle. We would advise looking into discount opportunities (like a discount card, which pays off if you’re planning on hitting a lot of attractions) and leaving plenty of time to soak in your money’s worth.

Posted under Attractions

Stratowbowl Rim

Last year I discovered or re-discovered the Stratobowl via the Stratobowl rim trail. I had forgot how big of a deal this place was back in its day. I followed Hwy 16w South of Rapid City and while listening to my SmartAlec, I stopped at the suggested trailhead just past the gas station on the right.  It’s about 2 miles past Bear Country USA.  I got out and walked the gravel trail or fire access road for an easy rolling 1 mile to the lookout over the giant sinkhole. I forgot how huge it was and how far down it goes. The amazing story of how stratosphere history was made here is told in giant concrete tablets (8 ft.) that stick out of the ground near the lookout. It was easy to picture giant helium filled balloons launching into the sky…14 miles to set the record back in the 1930’s and 50’s. I spent probably about 45 minutes just looking around and then I took a different route as I returned to the highway.

Charles, my dog

I walked the rim and took in many, many more different lookouts along the way. It was great because I brought along Charles, my dog, and he couldn’t get enough of exploring the wild and wooly forest. I take all my friends there now and it’s become a favorite local spot for me and my growing circle of adventurers. Follow this link to check out the SmartAlec map and use it to get an idea of it’s location and even get directions. Have fun!

Posted under Off the Beaten Path, Tips and Tidbits

lose something?

I don’t know how long the gentleman doing the snake and alligator shows at Reptile Gardens (located at the Rapid City edge of South Dakota’s Black Hills) has been doing what he does, but if he tires of it, a visitor would never know. So good is he, that when my family shared our Reptile highlights at dinner, I had to admit that he was mine. And why not? The poor guy stuck his hand into an alligator’s mouth for my entertainment . . . three times! And then to interest us more fully, he taught us about crocodiles while standing in the their pit, vulnerable to the bugger who sneaked up behind him and nipped at his sneaker. That would have been enough to drive me into retirement, but he was planning on doing it again a couple hours later.

The rest of the family’s favorites shows the range of fun at Reptile Gardens. My daughters’ favorite part was playing in the giant sandbox - no snakes hidden inside - and my wife’s was this turtle that kept trucking around the perimeter of his little enclosure, never stopping, so that our daughter could run ahead of him, peek through the fence (which was only a foot or so high) and yell, “Here he comes!”

On our SmartAlec tour we tell the story of Earl Brockelsby and the founding of Reptile Gardens, which illustrates how these folks are not rookies in this tourism business, but they deserve a ton of credit for doing what they do so well. From the gardens (which alone are worth the price of admission), to the 120 year old giant turtle, Methuselah, to the 15 1/2 foot long alligator, Maniac, to tropical birds resting before guests in the Sky Dome, this attraction truly captures everyone’s attention.

Look ma

The Quick Look

Where it is: On Hwy 16, about 12 minutes outside Rapid City on the way to Mount Rushmore. It is at the beginning of the Smart Alec Blue Route. See the map for more on where it is.

How much time: It will take almost two hours if you aim to see all three shows, but it is easy to spend three or four hours before remembering to check your watch.

Works well when paired with: Something the grown ups want to do, like Mount Rushmore. The fun should resound long enough to last the kids until evening. Many people pair it with Bear Country, but that tends to make too long a day of animal watching for most folks.

Best time to go: Mornings, before the sun gets too hot and the crowds get their thickest. If you run into lunch, there are multiple places to eat.

Cost: Adults $13.50; Seniors $12; Children $8.50; Four & under: Free (2008 season). If you’re pinching pennies, beware of the gift-shop - it’s items range from classy to ridiculous, and if you’re human, you’ll find something you’ll want to buy . . .

Pet my snake

Highlights:

• The flowers - not only outside, but inside the dome there is an impressive tropical flower display.
• The shows - there’s one for snakes, one for alligators, and one for birds of prey, and they occur at regularly scheduled times.
• Admission is good for a week for visitors and for the year for locals, which means if the family doesn’t have the time or patience to sit through all the shows or displays, you can come again later at no extra charge.

Keep in Mind:

• Most of the facility is outdoors, and while there is plenty of shade under which to hide, you’ll need sunscreen to play it safe, and a hot day will feel hot.
• The shows can be long for some young children, but so entertaining for adults that they’re hard to leave. My wife was willing to miss half the alligator show to play in the sandbox.

Posted under Attractions

These guys rule, and by guys I mean owners, Bridgette and John!  Although in the beginning I may have pushed SmartAlec GPS Tours onto them they have grown to be great cohorts in downtown Rapid City.  They have fantastic travel gear including maps of the world, hammocks, headlamps, suitcases and kid carriers.  I’m looking forward to getting a kid carrier myself.

This store is truly local and has a personal touch that is hard to beat.  They will be our host location for check-in during the Christmas Tour of Lights event that we put on in December.  We’ll be ransacking the place with our crazy christmas spirit and maybe even a few twinkly lights.

They are located easily downtown Rapid City, right next to the Firehouse Brewing Co.  Visit there website for details, www.roamnaround.com.

Have fun out there!

Posted under Places

I just can’t get enough of the fall colors this year.  Maybe the summer went to fast but they are just fascinating to me.  One of the secret outdoor local favorites, yet still visited very little in comparison to Spearfish Canyon, is Rochford Road.

Rochford Rd. is about 30 minutes outside of Rapid City on Hwy 385, just past Trout Haven.  Trout Haven claims to have fished over 1 million fish from its pond, now THAT’s some serious spawning.  Anyways, just past there, traveling north towards Deadwood, you find Rochford, Rd.  Starting as paved asphalt but turning to gravel within 1/2 mile, it’s a fantastic spin into the intimate nature of the central Black Hills.  The road meanders easily over hills and around the bends highlighting great access points for the 4 wheeler fans (pick me!), hikers and bikers.

Waterfall near Rochford, SD

The reason I ventured onto Rochford Road was to show my family a sweet surprise I had accidentally discovered while 4 wheeling last summer.  While zipping on and off roads, my brothers and I were of course looking for a few splashes and BAM, opportunity knocked near Rapid Creek, just off Rochford Rd. near the Mickelson trail.  We gunned it and 2 out of 3 of us made it through.  My brother Danny stalled his 4 wheeler mid flow so we figured out how to pull him out and push him into the flat creek side nearby.  “It’s  about time for a break anyway” we said in consolation.  As we rested we heard a pretty strong gush of water coming from behind the trees so we gathered our lunch and walked up the creek towards the big pine tree.  WOW!  There was a 3 tier waterfall right there!  You can’t even see it from the road, and just barely from the Mickelson Trail.  It was a cool, inviting sight for that June afternoon celebrating our (I’m a twin) 33rd birthday.

So this fall I had to show my wife this awesome discovery.  You should check it out too!  Bring a picnic and maybe even a gold pan to play in the creek with.  There isn’t a bridge so bring some sandals to wade in the water.  You should be able to find a shallow crossing point.   If you really want to make a day of it, bring your bikes and travel from Rochford down the Mickelson Trail to this waterfall, it’s absolutely breathtaking in the fall of the year. Try late September or early October, around the Custer State Park Buffalo Round-up dates.

Have some fun and remember… never miss an opportunity to glance around the corner, you never know.

Photo Credit:  Ken Jones

Posted under Off the Beaten Path, Outdoors

Time: 5:00 pm

Location:  Lovers Leap Trail Head behind the School House west of the Game Lodge in Custer State Park

Length: 3 Miles

Recently I spent a day seeing some of the best fall colors the Black Hills has had in a few years. I spent the day with the best adventurer I know, my brother.  We took mountain bikes! I rented mine in Rapid City from Two Wheeler Dealer, a great locally owned bike shop that rents bikes for about $29 for 24 hours.

My brother had a friend that said, Lover’s Leap isn’t too difficult and it’s a ‘loop’ trail so we wouldn’t have to back-track. Sounds good to us!  We didn’t read the trail head sign for difficulty because, of course, we had a ‘friend’.

Turns out said ‘friend’ has never attempted the first 1000 feet of the trail or any part of the trail for that matter.  The beginning was all up hill, not just a little incline but a stutter step incline with rocks.  We just pushed our bikes up.  I admit I was internally slandering said ‘friend’ because this was not the easy ride I’d hoped for.  After we arrived at the to top of the ridge about 25 minutes later, we handled the ride from there on.  It’s not for complete newbies mind you, but definitely a challenging trail for the adventurous type.  Another 20 minutes up the trail we arrived to the spectacular view!  Lover’s Leap is awesome!  See the video here after we arrived. Legend has it that two Native American forbidden lovers jumped to their death from here.

After we spent some time taking pictures and watching the sun start to set we realized we had better get down the hill before its dark.  We had made the mistake before of watching the sun set from Harney Peak and we hiked down in the dark, NOT recommended.  FYI- Bushes and boulders look like buffalo in the dark!

The ride down was absolutely fantastic.  It’s VERY steep at first but the last mile or two is sweet!  The trail pretty much follows a babbling brook, part of the Galena Creek drainage, and winds through the beautiful deciduous forest.  We loved it even though you have to cross the creek a few times but lucky for us the little rock bridges were still there.  If the sun would’ve stayed around we surely would have parked the bikes and just soaked in the babbling brook and quaking aspen!

The biggest challenge for us on the way up was the beginning ascent to the ridge.  The biggest challenge going down was avoiding fresh buffalo chips on the trail.  I admit that we were hollering most the way down “Hellooooo Buffaloooo” to insure that any waiting bulls around the next blind dark corner new we were coming. Fortunately, there were no bulls on the way down.  We didn’t stumble across a lone bull until we free wheeled up to our car to surprise a lone bull waiting for us…about 20 feet away….in the dark, NOT A BUSH!

Discover Lover’s Leap it’s an awsome trip, especially with a guy like my brother..thanks Danny!

Rock

Links: Mountain Bikers learn more here

Posted under Off the Beaten Path

43rd Custer State Park Buffalo Round Up:  September 29th, 2008

There’s just something exciting about the idea of venturing out into the open plains of South Dakota and experiencing for a few hours what it was like to see the horizon fill hundreds of stampeding buffalo.  I’ve been to the annual Custer State Park Buffalo Round-Up and I must admit that it’s a thrill every time.  The event itself can be a bit boring in the beginning as you’re packed into a make-shift prairie parking lot along with thousands of others. But when you see the flutter of dust race from your foot as you walk through the dirt you can’t help but say to yourself, today I’m a tough guy!  I mean, who doesn’t feel a bit of the western Clint Eastwood coming to the surface?  Here I am buffalo, you don’t unnerve me, ‘Make My Day”.

The adrenaline runs just a little when you walk towards the southern edge of the southern parking lot and realize ‘there ain’t no fence’ protecting you from the stampede.  Of course there is a fence that runs north and south along the pasture but ‘what if’ they don’t go that way.  Buffalo are known for their unpredictability.  Watch out, they turn on a dime and can out run a quarter horse.  If you don’t believe it, come to the ‘Round-up’ you’ll more than likely get a chance to see for yourself!  Check Youtube or Flickr for some great stuff!

If you want a great view, stay on your feet and be a little mobile.  I always start at the Southern Parking lot, watch the cowboys do their best, with horses, whips, trucks, and guns, to guide the 1,000 strong herd towards the corrals.  As they come into the valley near the Southern viewing area, the herd can break apart and you see the stubborn ones that won’t listen.  They become the crowd favorites!  You can hear… RUN!…”don’t let’m tell ya what to do’!!  Some folks even start there own personal voice-over monologue for the ‘maverick’.  “Listen, I’ve been running for half an hour and I’m tired of seeing every one’s rear end!” or ” Look Mr. I know you got a whip but I got horns and I’m the boss” or even “I forgot my horn polish.. I gotta go back!”

No matter what anyone thinks, seeing the Custer State Park Buffalo Round-up is a once in a lifetime experience that won’t soon be forgotten.  You will come away with your own favorite moment.  For me, I’m always looking for that last renegade bull that won’t go into the corral and forces about 5 cowboys on horses to go speeding down the ridge line to turn it back… Go maverick GO GO GO!

See ya there!

Photo couresy of SD Dept of Tourism

Posted under Events

Wow, I look around my desk and I see hard drives, usb drives, 5 flash drives, disk readers, recorders and all the cables that connect them to my computer.  What is all this stuff for you might ask?  Well, I’m a creative junky that likes to make stuff and save stuff…maybe I’m part digital pack-rat too.

If you are like me in the slightest, you have a little addiction to staying ahead of the curve and staying informed, then you should take advantage of a few major tools on the web.  I admit that I am about as new to using most of them as a freshman just coming into college but I actually think they can be extremely useful for business and personal interest.

iGoogle

If you want to stay informed and organized you should consider getting a ‘igoogle’ account.  If you don’t already know it, Google is the largest search engine in the world, DUH! They specialize in keeping tabs on the web and they want to share everything with us.  An igoogle account is such a great tool for me for watching trends and staying informed on someone or something in any part of the world.  One of my favorite uses of ‘igoogle’ is the home page.  You can create your own style and only use the ‘gadgets’(widgets or little tools that do things like tell you the weather or show you the top stories on MSNBC) that you prefer.  There’s tons of them.  I personally watch for the weather, news, quotes, calendar,

Another favorite of mine is “Alerts”.  This google product allows you to be alerted anytime Google finds what you are looking for on a website.  This can include a mention of your website, blog or maybe a key subject matter.  I use it to keep updated when hotlinks are made to my website, but more importantly I use it to be made aware when hotlinks are made to my business competition’s website. (example:  link:www.smartalecgpstours.com) It helps me stay ahead of the curve and be alerted when the ‘word of mouth’ buzz is building for me or against me.  How awesome is that!  Read up on Alerts…they are well worth it.

Finally.. of course is using the ‘RSS Reader’.  It was only a short time ago that the idea of an RSS feed was a little scary but I’ve discovered the advantage.  It’s another type of an ‘alerts’ that make you aware of new stuff added to a specific web page or blog.  If you want to understand RSS feeds more, check out this great blog of a friend of mine.  He’s a teacher and it will help you understand.  Use the RSS feed on the upper right hand side of this blog to get updates from this blog sent to your e-mail or maybe your brand spankin new ‘igoogle’ account.  I’m sure I’ll shoot to the top of your favorite blog list soon!

Get connected to the web and use tools like iGoogle.  It’s a huge resource and can be a great way to stay informed without all the extra junk that comes with CNN’s home page.  Get connected to the world…but only what you want, when you want it.

Nothing Adventured, Nothing Gained

Posted under Tips and Tidbits, Web Tricks

Well, this has been a long time coming, ever since I planned my very own personal website, http://www.acrossroads.com.  I’ve always loved the concept of journals or personal perspective writing and at last I’ve become 1 of the millions of bloggers.  It’s really too bad that I wasn’t doing this back when I kept a journal and life was much more exciting on a day to day basis.  Don’t get me wrong, life is very exciting now.  Nothing is more exciting than hearing your baby girl giggle really, really hard or suprising your wife with something she loves.  It’s just back in the day when I was working in entertainment I was rubbing shoulders with celebrities like Garth Brooks and Willie Nelson and I guess it was just more interesting for everyone else to read.

Now though is another chapter.  It’s a chapter of growing, creating, sacrificing, and building for the future.  I hope that as the posts grow in this blog I will be able to share lots of fun insight like the little tidbit singer “Tony Orlando” told me one day, “you can play just about anything if you know 3 chords”.  I’m sure it’ll be more fun to share the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur in South Dakota and the joys of having a few dreams to shoot for.  There’s a lot to share and I’m excited to be a part of this time in the world when, at the punch of a button, I can share a story with the globe that could very well make a difference.  If that doesn’t prove the existence of a Creator, I don’t know what does.

thanks for reading.

Posted under Whacky Stories & Thoughts