Ft Hays Mt Rushmore Bus Tour

As an added perk to our job, we get a VIP pass that entitles us to free or discounted entry to some of the area attractions. This week we decided to do the Ft Hays 8.5 hour Southern Black Hills Tour and Cowboy Music Show which includes entry to Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse, Breakfast and a Chuck Wagon Dinner ($74 pp) It starts at Ft. Hays where they have some of the original set of Dances with Wolves which was filmed in the area.

We start out at 8 a.m. with an all you can eat Pancake Breakfast with sausages and biscuits.

We get a little time to visit the set and demonstrations of making rope, knives and tinware.

Time to board the bus!

First stop Mt. Rushmore - for those that saw our previous post - a Drive on the Needles Highway - the Presidents faces were completely hidden by fog. Better view today!



I figured we wouldn't get much excercise today being on a bus all day - but wedid get to use the Mt. Rushmore Stair Master!

The Presidential Path offers many beautiful views of the Monument.





The Sculptor - Gutzon Borglum - had intended for the sculpture to be from the waist up - but he died before completion and there were problems with the rock. The image of Thomas Jefferson was originally intended to appear in the area at Washington's right, but after the work there was begun, the rock was found unsuitable, so his figure was moved to Washington's left.

They have expanded the sculpture to add 2 explorers:













Just checking to make sure you were paying attention!



Walking back to the bus we encounter a Mt. Goat

We follow the Iron Mountain Road.Three Tunnels were built to frame Mt. Rushmore as you drive through them - that was the easy part. Next a road had to be designed to connect the tunnels (keep in mind the road was laid out by horseback)

Corkscrew spiral bridges were devised that are known asPigtail Bridges. The road was completed in 1933 with the help of 16 men.

We stop at the State Game Lodge for an optionalLunch

Back on the Bus and off to the Needles Highway. In 1919 Peter Norbeck mapped out a scenic byway which by conventional engineering standards was impossible. 2 years and 150,000 lbs of dynamite later the Needles Highway was completed. It hasnarrow tunnels the one just before the Needle's Eye rock formation is the smallest.

The Bus is 8' wide and the Tunnel is 8'4" wide

Not alot of room to spare!

The Needle



Next it's on to Crazy Horse!

We only get an hour here and you need 2-3 hours to do it all. We plan on returning a couple more times. We hope to make it on June 6th for the Volks March where we will be able to hike out to the arm! To give you an idea of size the Mt. Rushmore sculpture would fit in the head with room to spare.

This is the model - the sculpture will be 3 dimensional

This is the Mountain in 1948

1982

and today with an outline of the final sculpture superimposed on it.

and this is what the final complex is to look like.

We hope to get to see one of the Night Blasts while we are here. They say the arm will be worked on and the hand detailed this Summer. They have to redo the design for the horses mane to better support the arm after a study of the rock was done. Stay tuned!

Back to Ft. Hays for the Chuck Wagon Dinner and show. It was a Country Western Musical Review. The girl that played fiddle was excellant.








8:30 p.m. time to go home!Till Later,

Meanwhile we keep on Trek'n

Melissa and Gary

Pecan Trees

Pecans are a major business in the Las Cruces, NM area. At this season they were turning their fall shade of yellow and the leaves were flying off. In one place it was like driving down a road under an archway of pecan tree branches. There were several other cars stopped to take photos. In the 1st photo you can see the irrigation ditch that takes water to the trees in the spring and summer. The pecan nuts had already been harvested. I couldn't find even one nut laying under the trees. The machines that pick the nuts are very efficient. There are lots of shops that sell all kinds of pecan candy, cakes, muffins and other goodies made with the nuts. I have heard that the pollen from the flowers can cause a lot of allergies for some people and that the insecticides used on the trees bother a lot of people.

On Notching, or the Joys of the Hole Saw

This might surprise some of you, and it was certainly a surprise to me, but my favourite thing about the framebuilding experience so far has been learning about all the machines in Mike Flanigan's shop. I have never been into this sort of thing before, preferring to use the simplest tools possible for DIY stuff. The "shop atmosphere," with its various lathes and saws spinning menacingly, has always confused and intimidated me. I am not sure what changed now. Maybe the part of my brain that's responsible for this kind of stuff is just now maturing, but suddenly I am like a kid in a candy store. The machines are super-useful, physically easy to operate, and are proving to be excellent teaching tools when it comes to mechanical concepts I find difficult to grasp.For example: notching!






Building a bicycle frame is mainly about joining together pieces of tubing, which involves a lot more work than merely brazing or welding the joints. For instance, before the tubes can be joined they need to fit together properly.






Think about it: When we get a tube, its edge is cut straight across. But if we want that edge to join the rounded surface of another tube, weneed to sort of scoop out the center of that opening, to scallop it. This is what's called notching - also known as mitering or coping.






And because the tubes join at an angle that is almost never 90°, the notch must be done asymmetrically, to fit the precise angle. In theory, I understood the concept, but in practice I had a hard time imagining concretely how this was to be done. How were builders able to determine the shape of the scalloped edge with such precision and draw it on the edge of the tube? Too embarrassed to ask this question, I tried to read up on it. Unfortunately, the more I read, the more confused I got.






But the mystery was cleared up in a matter of seconds once it was time to notch my own tubes. Mike has what's called a horizontal milling machine, which can be fitted with all sorts of tooling - including hole saws of various diameters.






A hole saw is literally a round saw that makes holes in things. They are available in a variety of diameters. You choose the saw that matches the diameter of the dominant tube - the one to which you will be joining the tube you want notched.






After attaching the correct saw and installing the to-be-notched tube in the clamp, you then set the angle of the joint, according to your bicycle frame's geometry.






And that's it. As you turn the crank, the hole saw makes its way through the edge of the tube and notches it. Basically the saw forces the shape of the dominant tube through at the correct angle. Watching this happening I experienced a sudden flash of understanding and it was immensely satisfying.




Of course, by far not everyone who builds bicycle frames has this type of machine handy, and the low-tech notching method involves using lugs to make guide marks, then a hacksaw to make the cut.But even if I never have access to such machines again, operating them has done me more good than I can express.






I love the clean look of a notched frame; the way everything fits together perfectly and makes total visual sense before you get it all filthy with flux and leaky brazing marks. But also, watching the tubes fit and actually getting how and why they fit is wonderful.My head is bursting with the sudden understanding of concepts I've previously struggled with, and that is an exciting feeling to have. Whether it's framebuilding or any other subject-matter, it is never too late to learn new things.

It's a School Night Matt.

The force is strong in this one.

Even before meeting him he had bugged the hell out of us all on qurank.com







"I turn my back for 5 minutes and these little Tinny (Mt. Tinbeerwah)kids are running around qurank and theCrag, posting like they're on red cordial and pixie sticks. Between posts from Sister Matt and Chester 2000, I'm finding it hard to catch some shut-eye.



We can blame JJ for encouraging them. "

Lee Cujes





It's true. I figuredthis precocioustweenager wasn't going to go away, so we had to take him in and show him the craft. Now he's my coach.











Within a few years Matt is working some of the hardest routes around. He is the onlyclimber to seriously take on the Lee Cujes test piece "Bite the Hand that Feeds" Coolum's hardest and as yet unrepeated.

























Sensational flexibility gained from previous years of gymnastics have given Matt a crazy range of moves.His years of pianoaccordian training haven't shown anyusefulness yet though. Mercifully.















Here's an example of whatputs schoolboy Matt Schimkein the top handful of Queenslands sport climbers.A wirey strength and explosive energy.

















Here's the kooky thing about Matt: He has a savant like memory for beta.He can tell you the sequence for any route that he has ever seen.Not just his beta but the exact sequence that each individual climber has used for each route.Spooky, I know.

I often say "Hey Matt how do I do this bit again?"



Thanks to Matt's Mum for all the yummy cookies.

Jefferson Ohio From My Window

Sunset at Lake Itasca

Saturday, August 13th - - Lake Itasca, Minnesota - - After two days of mostly rain, it was quite nice to see the sun again when it came out late this afternoon! It was still very cloudy though but that meant the possibility of a beautiful sunset... I wasn't disappointed... It was magnificent!



I couldn't decide which one(s) I liked best, so you're getting several views...