Keystone, South Dakota

We had a slow morning of attempting to diagnose my wagon. I cleaned up the oil spill on top of the valve cover and Evan cut a butyl shim to make a better seal with the oil cap to prevent more of the spillage. With that done, we pulled the plug wires and spark plug #3; everything was dry, which is good, except that it left us without a culprit. We also pulled off the distributor cap to clean its contacts as well as the inputs to the primary ignition coil. Checked the airbox and MAF and reseated the intake… and it’s not running any worse.

But we managed get it all put back together. Low end and idle is still rough, but it wasn’t lugging anymore. And it got a little better after it warmed up a bit on our way to Mount Rushmore.

I had mixed feelings about the monument given how spectacular the surrounding nature is. It left me feeling like the “before” photo in the gallery was underappreciated. But it is also a technical marvel for its day. And it definitely brought out every kind of tourist imaginable, our weird selves included. I think my favorite part of it might have been the Hall of Flags, with the each state and territory flag lining the wooded promenade. There is a nature walk around the grounds offering more historical placards, biographies of the predsidents featured, and views of the statue.

We puttered around, made a quick pass through the bookstore, sat on the observation deck for a bit, and then headed back into Keystone — with a quick stop at the parking area for the “Profile Viewpoint” for a wagon portrait.

Back at the house, we walked next door to the Black Hills Glass Blowing studio and watched him work for a minute. Then we went back downtown for dinner.

Tomorrow we head for Hot Springs, South Dakota, at the southern end of the Black Hills, via the Needles Highway, a pretty spectacular scenic pass. I’m hoping this day of rest and dental work will put my oxen in better health.

Misfires in the Badlands

(A word I will never not associate first with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.)

We woke up this morning in Kadoka and headed over to Badlands National Park for a couple hikes. The wildfire smoke seems to be a little worse today, really desaturating the sky, but that only added to the strange effect of the environment in the park. I’ve seen badlands formations in other parks like Petrified Forest and Death Valley, but here, those formations split mesas of grassy plains. It’s like Death Valley had a weird baby with a yard.

We stopped by the visitor center briefly, but fled when we realized two charter busses of tourists had crowded into the tiny space. Instead, we pressed on to a fossil exhibit and nature walk down the road. Because of the soft sediment at Badlands, there are more fossils discovered here than in most other parks. And, quite wholesomely, most are discovered by children — you know, people who are curious, close to the ground, and have a tendency to wander off.

On our way out of the park, we got stopped by a buffalo herd grazing along the highway.

From there, the drive to Keystone wasn’t too long. The Volvo and I both had a hard time. I developed a headache, shortness of breath, and fatigue — which prompted George to put a carbon monoxide monitor in my car, knowing that I may have an exhaust leak and I also can’t turn off my cabin air recirc. (No alarms detected! I’m inclined to blame the fire smoke, though this isn’t my first time traveling in a wildfire.)

But I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t breathe. The Volvo really struggled up the mountain to Keystone. The general lack of power isn’t unexpected — this is a geriatric wagon — but the engine also kept lugging and shaking like it had a misfire or intake problem. Flooring it in third, I should be climbing faster than cyclists…

Ultimately, we made it to our cabin for the next two nights. After dinner in town, we poked around my engine looking for obvious faults. Evan also graciously looped in his friends at a Saab/Volvo specialist shop in Tulsa. He asked a few leading questions, and we found a couple possibilities on our own.

Gabe also suggested pulling the cap off the distributor and cleaning any corrosion off the contacts in it. Tomorrow is a “beach” day after a string of heavy mileage days, so we’ll be tackling some of these things tomorrow. We’ll also try to make it over to Mount Rushmore and play some Zelda.

The 7-11 of The Oregon Trail

Happy Birthday, George! Fort Kearney, NE.

The Mountain of Kearney, Nebraska

I got up this morning and went for a run up Betty’s Trail that starts behind the hotel:

Betty’s Trail is named after Betty Connell for providing trail access through her land. This section runs from 11th Street, at the north end of Yanney Park, to the 2nd Avenue undercrossing and Talmadge Street. This flat, peaceful section runs along the tree-lined canal and finishes near the “hotel row” on south 2nd Avenue.

It also goes up this tower to an observation point with a lovely view of the city. I don’t think it’s the tallest thing in all city, but it sure looks like it. And it definitely reminded me to never run stairs. I suppose it was un-pioneer-like to exhaust myself before setting off, but it felt good to move after such a long drive day and in anticipation of another.

Fort Kearney State Historic Site

Our main stop today was Fort Kearney, the first major stop in the game — and an early resupply opportunity for pioneers.

As he’s known to do, George struck up conversation with a local in the gift shop. The fort office is holding two care packages mailed to upcoming travelers — one man biking the Pony Express route, and a woman biking the California Trail. So even now in 2023, Ft. Kearney is still a supply station.

A buddy of mine with the National Park Service, when he’s giving me a hard time, likes to tell me that Kearney is just the 7-11 of the Oregon Trail.

And that may explain how this “fort” seemed like less a military installation than a logistics hub for westward expansion. We wandered the grounds a while and packed up for our second long drive day.

The growth of overland emigration to Oregon after 1842 resulted in the establishment of posts across the West to protect travelers. The first post, Fort Kearney, was established in the spring of 1848 […]. It was first called Fort Childs , but in 1848 was renamed in honor of Stephen Watts Kearney. Despite its lack of fortifications, [the fort served as a waypoint, sentinel post, supply depot, and message center for the 49ers, Oregon and California settlers, and Pony Express riders.] One of the fort’s final duties was the protection of workers building the Union Pacific. In 1871, two years after the transcontinental railroad, the fort was discontinued as a military post.

Nebraska State Parks

One thing I did not expect to see here is a Mormon handcart, which is bigger than I thought it’d be.

Brigham Young’s vaunted empire-building ability suffered an unusual setback in 1855, when a crop failure in Utah suddenly diminished LDS contributions, reducing the church’s ability to continue importing European converts, which he knew was key to Mormon expansion in the region. Instead of telling Europeans to wait a year until sufficient funds were available, he devised a strategy of shipping them over from England and having converts continue their journey from Iowa City with inexpensive handcards that immigrants would construct themselves and then push 1,300 miles to Salt Lake. Just about everything went wrong with Young’s handcart scheme.

Rinker Bunk, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey

Among other things, green lumber led to brittle wood in construction, herds of buffalo stampeded the oxen, and two of the handcards companies left catastrophically late in the season. This led to emigrants walking through the mountains in Wyoming in winter, and many died. The LDS church quickly managed to brand this as a parable of sacrifice rather than a critique of poor planning — and excommunicated anyone who questioned this position.

To Kadoka, South Dakota

We branched off the Oregon Trail to head north for Badlands and Black Hills. It was about a five hour drive and we didn’t have much else planned to see.

Central Nebraska was full of freshly plowed fields which slowly turned into rich green prairie grassland and grazing fields. Not sure I’ve seen grass this green before. The staff at Kearney explained that we were passing through at the “right” time — grazing was plentiful in Nebraska at this point in the season. Pioneers would try to hit Independence Rock in Wyoming by early July which would be ready for grazing by then. I had thought that the schedule was mostly pinned to crossing the mountains before snowfall, but pioneers also had to leave late enough and follow the growth of grazing flora, which set their departure date and pace as well.

As we entered South Dakota (a new state for me!), the soil turned sandy and badlands formations fractured into mesas and gullies.

fire.airnow.gov by US EPA and USFS

The sky has been grey all day and the sun turned red early. It reminded me of the pacific wildfire smoke that covered Wyoming in 2020. Apparently it is smoke blowing down from pretty intense fires in Alberta.

Along the way, a few automotive antics: we definitely didn’t have a little speed test on a desolate stretch of highway. And we definitely didn’t have Evan fire up an FM transmitter so we could all listen to that playlist I made of music from the game. And Evan and I both didn’t end up having to add more oil today. Truly, all three cars ran well today!

The Volvo even smells less today. I kinda think it was begging to be driven.

George.

And once we got in, Evan let me drive the Isuzu to run a quick errand so we could cook birthday dinner for George! Even more entertaining than driving it may have been watching him sit in the left-hand passenger seat, which is a weird sensation.

The Fiero is running better, but still not perfect. George tried putting the new throttle position sensor back in the Fiero and discovered that the new sensor itself is bad, so he’ll be using the old one which appears to read correctly. Next theory is that a hunting idle could be caused by a bad coolant (engine) temperature sensor, so he may swap that out in the morning. Provided he wakes up early enough…

Shakedown to Kearney

Today started with our general flurry of trying to get out of the house on time after having stayed up too late. After the stickers, Evan and I both added a little oil, which turns out to be considered a consumable by both vehicles.

Otherwise, the plan was simple: two park stops for historical exploration and a lot of mileage crunching. However, recent untested repairs needed a road test. Evan’s new fuel pump. My adjusted accelerator. And George’s replacement throttle position sensor.

We started at the Santa Fe Park as our final stop in Independence, which marks (near-ish) the start of the Oregon and California Trails, as well as the Santa Fe Trail.

Santa Fe Park preserves approximately one-quarter mile of Oregon, California, and Santa Fe trail ruts in the heart of the city of Independence, Missouri. These ruts align with trail ruts found a half mile north on the Bingham-Waggoner estate, a 19.5 acre museum and park, that is open to the public.

National Parks Service
Santa Fe Trail, National Parks Service

I knew about the Santa Fe trail, but I didn’t realize that it, too, originates in this region of Missouri. It forks south at Olathe, where our route continued on toward Topeka. State Highway 4 and US Highway 40 together form this section of the Oregon Trail Auto Tour, and relatively closely follow the National Historic Trail.

Perhaps I’m getting old, but I will admit… as much as I am one for dramatic mountainous landscapes, spending the day rolling over prairie hills was surprisingly lovely. And after several days of rain and clouds, it was sunny and mid-70s and stunning outside.

Topeka turned into our automotive stop for the day. Evan was in luck — this was the longest continuous drive the Piazza has done so far, and it seemed to go well. The adjustment to the accelerator tension in the Volvo was surprisingly helpful. But I was unable to open my fuel filler door — it doesn’t lock, so why didn’t it open? Turns out… it does lock. The power locks for the car doors also lock and unlock the fuel filler door, except that, like the rear driver-side door, the lock is unreliable, so it was stuck. The answer turned out to be locking and unlocking all the doors again. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’ll be fine.

George’s matter turned out to be somewhat more complicated. He damn-near declared the Fiero dead. After some diagnosis at the sketchy gas station in Downtown Topeka, we discovered that there was a spark arcing between one of his spark plug wires and … something that wasn’t the spark plug.

Turns out, two of his spark plug wires were resting on the exhaust manifold, which melted one of them. Of all the show-stopper problems to have, this both supported a dramatic narrative and was easily fixed. We stopped by an O’Reilly for a new set of plug wires, let his engine cool over lunch and errands, and he swapped them out pretty quickly under the passing shade of a Best Buy sign.

Sometimes I realize how far we’ve come in this, George. Like, when we did the first trip back in 2015, did you even know any of the words you just used?

After the repair, we continued another hour or so to Alcove Springs. George reported substantial improvements in the Fiero, which was great news. I decided not to raise any concern about what felt like some fuel delivery misses or clutch slippage in the Volvo, because admitting it aloud might make it real. Instead, we pressed on for the park.

Near the Independence Crossing on the Oregon Trail, a spring-fed waterfall spitting off the “alcove” of a jutting rock formation was the last stop with shade and water before the long trail to California. A member of the Donner[-Reed Party — George McKinstry, according to the placcard] party even gave the spring its name, carving it into the top of the alcove in 1846, the very year of [their] infamous incident that occurred in the snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains. Flooding on the Blue River left the party stuck near Maryville, Kansas for five days. They explored the area, discovering the falls.

Atlas Obscura

The park also has several areas where indentations from wagon ruts are still visible and overlooks used as camping spots by the pioneers. There is also a memorial to Sarah Keyes, the first member of the Donner-Reed Party to die on the trail — at 70 years old she died of “old age and consumption,” but she was spared the starvation that followed.

The site of this park was also where pioneers (and video game players!) would have crossed the Big Blue River, a large tributary of the Kansas River. The “historic riverbed” here is now just fields and a creek as the course of it has changes over the years. Oddly, there are a couple highway bridges signed as Big Blue River crossings, too, which seem not to be over water anymore.

After exploring a while longer, we made our way up to dinner at The Wagon Wheel Restaurant in Marysville, Kansas before a long-haul into Kearney, Nebraska for the night at our Crown Plaza Waterpark. We arrived after both the water park and the historic fort closed, but I’m hoping we hit one or both tomorrow.

It’s gotten chilly. I covet my neighbor’s heated seats.

Evan

It’s actually still warm in the wagon. My heater may not work, but I can’t turn off air recirculation either. So it has stayed pretty pleasant.

Taylor

So just in there smelling your own farts?

Independence, Missouri

It was cold and rainy all day. George and I both had work, too, although today was special on my end. After a very early meeting, I spent the day doing knowledge share calls, making transition notes, and having a gaming hangout with my team. It’s my last day with Marketing Engineering. After this trip, I’ll be returning to a new department. So the tradition of at least one of us going through a job change during one of these expeditions continues — although I am excited that my next chapter will be with the same company.

I did take a break briefly to run Evan down to the only shop in town who was able to swap out the fuel pump in the Piazza. Hopefully that means he’ll be able to run longer tomorrow. Not that we’ll be doing more than a few miles at a time with the Fiero and its gas tank from Zippo.

I used the weather as an excuse to skip my afternoon run and proceed directly to the “get a beer and play with cars” part of my afternoon.

Evan helped me adjust the cable tensioner on the Volvo’s throttle so the accelerator won’t have as much slack in it. We also suspect an exhaust leak and we know the heat shield is a loose, so it makes a lot of noise. Meanwhile, George replaced his EGR valve and throttle position sensor because he has some fuel delivery weirdness at idle and light throttle.

And then we headed over to the town square for pizza and an explore. Independence has a lovely historic downtown, although like so many small town squares, there are lots of vacancies.

On the way back to the house, we saw The Harry S. Truman Home, which was built in 1867. Harry Truman and his wife Bess made this their home when they married in 1919, and it served as the “Summer White House” during his term in office.

The sky cleared up around sunset when we arrived back to our mansion and I walked around the block to see a couple things we missed last night.

The United Nations Peace Plaza in Independence, Missouri, was unveiled on October 27, 1997, formally dedicated by U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan on April 25, 2003, and is described by its creators as “the only memorial in the world to those persons serving in the Peacekeeping Forces of the United Nations”.

Wikipedia.

And the giant futuristic spire behind it is the Independence Temple of the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, often shortened as RLDS.

The temple was built by the Community of Christ in response to a revelation presented at their 1984 World Conference by church prophet-president Wallace B. Smith [great grandson of LDS founder Joseph Smith]. The revelation was the culmination of instructions shared over the course of more than 150 years by prior prophet-presidents recognized by the Community of Christ. Groundbreaking for the temple took place on April 6, 1990, and the completed structure was dedicated on April 17, 1994.

Also Wikipedia.

A recent chapter in one of my books did a deep dive on the Mormon influence — both in the development and use of parts of the original Oregon and Mormon Pioneer Trails, as well as the restoration in later years, complete with a little revisionist history for good measure.

We ended the night by watching George’s video diary of getting started with the Fiero, then nailing down a little route planning to figure out how we’ll actually get to Fort Kearney tomorrow as most of the Oregon Trail is not roads here. It’s a mileage-munching day, largely a shakedown of today’s repairs, but we do have a few places to stop along the way.