Mount Rushmore - Sturgis

Entering the Black Hills from the east was going uphill for some 5 hours.. I reached the USDA campground in South Dakota now, near Jewel Cave in the early evening. I hung up the 20 and 40 meter antenna's and worked LY5A, UX3MZ and some 10's of US-hams ; AA6RK, NU5DE, K0XE, K0FG, N0AIE, AB7NK, VE7DQA on 20 and the streetgang on 40 meters. Conditions on 40 aren't that good to the west in the early evening so we schedule for 0300 utc on 14285 kc. The campsite was empty except for a young couple Peter and Olga. We exchanged food and sigares :-b

The next day I visited Custer and ate some cheap and good food into town. Located some tens of miles north of the city, the Crazy Horse statue is still in the process of being carved out of the mountain. The site doesn't want to receive any government money and entrance fees and souveniers are their only source of income. Many native people around and busloads of people. I only had to pay 5$ as a cyclist.

Mount Rushmore is some 20 miles more to the northeast and located relatively high into the hills. This site is constructed quite different as the Crazy Horses. More commerce and .. free entrance for bicylists ! Took some pictures, ate icecream and drunk a beer before cycling down to Rapid City, some 40 km. more to the NE.

I entered the city by sunset and didn't found shelter nor a decent place to pitch up the tent. I tried to put it up into a parc but people said me it was not legal to do so and a thunderstorm was coming over so.. looked for a cheap motel. I had a shower, watched Star Trek and slept. In the morning I saw Gilbert conquering the green jersey in the Tour the France live on the Versus channel on cable tv over here. I streamed VRT radio1 simultaneously. The place had a great airco and swimmingpool. It costed me 50$..

I headed out of the city this morning and cycled along a maintenanceroad parallel to the interstate until I reached Sturgis. This place is famous for the yearly MC-party in august where about 50.000 mc's show up. It's alike the Daytona event but this is the real deal..

Leaving this town , meant leaving the Black Hills and so the last 'real' mountainrange in the west of America. From here on it will be open plains and I'll dive under the 1000 mtr. elevation once again since the Kamloops region in Canada ! That's more than a month ago already..

I'm heading out for Faith ,Dupree, Gettysburg,Aberdeen and Fargo and so North Dakota, by next week and reach 6000 km. by then.

Halfway trough the trip already and have changed the overview-maps the eastcoast is coming in closer. The west-USA map is packed away..

If I'm able to, I'll try to be qrv on 14345 kc and 18145 kc at 2000 utc, that's around midday over here and most of the times I'm cycling by then. It should be getting better to reach ON as I keep on going to the east..

Yellowstone - Mnt. Rushmore

Cycling out of the canyons east of Yellowstone was beautifull. The stretch into Cody was nice and downhill for a while. The wind was not supposed to come from the east but it did so .. 5 miles an hour was the result..
I visited the biggest dam in the US 10 miles west of Cody and the museum next to it. There were a lot of tourists in the city of Cody. Lotts of people were there for the 4th of July weekend and the big stampede and rodeo drive in the stadium. Beautifull weather and blue skies all over the place. While eating in the McDo's I met a WOII-veteran and gave me an extra drink for on the road. After shopping for the next two days and getting the waterbottles filled up (5 liters) I cycled out of the city towards Basin.
I didn't make it over there and had to stop in the wastelands around Burlington.
I was welcomed by Jerold and Jennifer after 0930 PM when it was already dark outside. They let me crash down for the night in the livingroom and Jerold gave me a real Scotch on the rocks that - togheter with a shower - cooled me down for the night.

The next morning they waved me out after a breakfast and I cycled towards Basin where I had lunch in the airconditioned grocerystore as the roads and asphalt was melting outside. In the afternoon I met some cyclist from the university of Illinois in the only bar in Manderson. They were doing an anually cycle trip to fund the fight against cancer. All over nice and young motivated people. 
You can find more on them over on http://illini4000.org/

In the evening I made it into the town of Ten Sleep. There was a camping ground but it was fully loaded with people and RV's celebrating the 4th of July weekend, not quiete enough for me so cycle on. I found a nice quiete place behind the schoolbuilding of the town. Joe, who lived next to it allowed me to set up the tent over there. Heis girlfriend is a teatcher in the school, nice people ! Still the fireworks and music from the outside bars in town went on to 0130AM and boy it was loud ..
I filled the bottles on a tap that had natural spring water from a source under the town.
I prepared to go up to the 3 km high climbto Powder River Pass into the Bighorn Forest, lots of snow up there and still some 30 degrees  Celsius up there .. amazing ..

The descent down to Buffalo wasn't a real descent, it went up and down al the way but generally it went down but it didn't feel like that. Eventually I ended up in the town of Buffalo where I was looking for a place to crash down north of town where I saw a green area on the GPS. It brought me trough a street parallel to the main road where I saw a big colliniair 2/70 cm antenna and I stopped over there to check it out. In the backyard I saw a skyloop antenna and as I was ready to cycle on, nobody was home.. , the owner , Jim, W7TZZ and his xyl showed up in his car !
He allowed me to set the tent in the garden, charge some stuff and shower.In the morning his neighbour Bob W7BWY showed up and we all had a chat about radio's, Jim was Bob were into ARISS an races on VHF.
As it was the 4th of July I expected that every store would be closed but it wasn't. The cyclestore was open and I bought a new outer tyre for in the back, also a Schwalbe Marathon but now a plus version ! Another profile but it does the job very well. I did some cleaning on the bicycle and went on the road agein for some 5000 km more !

I stopped for the night in Kaycee public Parc just on the other side of the Chris Ledoux memorial statue, he was a famous horseback driver. Again I enjoyed a firworks for the 4th of July and a beer in the town's cafe and some HF radio. I was able to work the 7177 gang and ZL2GR on 20 meters ! great, New Zealand, togheter with some US states.

The next morning I cycled upto Wright into the crazy heat and showered next to a closed post-office in Linch. As the day progressed rain came in and BIG thunderclouds showed up in the eveningsky as I still had to cycle some 25 km into town over small hills.. I cycled my lungs out but arrived just in time into the southern stretches of the town to shelter for a BIG hailstorm nextto a golfarea. The winds shifted and the hail went almost horizontally hitting my helmet and body.. it really hurts auw !
The storm went away for a while but I saw it coming back and took my chance an rushed to the first house a saw into the dark around 2100. I knocked on the door and Roger and Janet let me sleep in their garage for the night and let me shower. They made me breakfast in the morning and showed ma the way to the grocery shop the noext morning. Nextto the shop was the High Plains Sentinel newspaper were I explained to Amy what I was doing for an articel in the next paper due in a week time. They work for the newspaper with only 2 people in a +-3000 people city. Time to say goodby to Roger and Janet and to their granddaughter that worked in the shop and son-in-law who were to get married in August.
I cycled on westly towards Newcastle close to the border with South Dakota, open coalfiels all over the place. I was helped on my way to the town some miles west of the town by a local rancher and as I looked around for a place to sleep and gave a shout on the local repeater system, Dell AD7KI and WG7Y Bob in Gillete came back and told me that Jim, KD7ZUP lived in the street next to the ATT shop on the main road where I cycled by a few minutes ago.
Very kind man and let me sleep in the garden and talked our way into the night. Jim was doing some repairs on the house and had his HF taken down for it, still he has some VHF up in the air.
I was woken up by 0830 by the heat of the sun and heard his grandchildren and his daughter arriving by 0900. She made me an omelette and coffee wiche I really enjoyed before taking of the the Black Mountains, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Custer and South Dakota !

Nice storm

In Wright, Wyoming..

Bozeman - Yellowstone

On Friday I cycled to Bozeman and arrived there in the late afternoon. The weather was great, as was the refreshing shower at Jerry's place. His XYL Kathy, was also a ham. By early evening and after getting stuff ready for the fieldday Jerry and I drove towards the fieldday QTH in Belgrade, just west of Bozeman. The W7ED fieldday-station was going to be setup in the backyard of Dale, W7NAV. Lots of place over here and big trees on the edge of the premise. Rich, KF7LVE , Don KC7EWZ , Don N7FLT and were already on the site. The caravan aka fieldday-shack was already in place and the mast for the beam had to be crancked up. There was also a second station for 20 and 40. Inverted V's and dipoles were used on the lower bands. We installed the camper and made a BBQ for the two of us that evening and sat under the shelter that Rich had already set up. Jerry made some nice breakfast the next morning before some 10 of us cranked up the tower and got the station up and running. Don, or Mr. Wilson, proposed me to do some needed repairs on my coax in his place in Bozeman. He learned me how to wrap up wires without tangling them up. I did some foxhunting on 2 mtr. and found, eventually with some help and patience, 5 foxes in the nearby woods. By the evening some 30 people showed up for the big club BBQ. Much from everything and all way too good. Ate a bit from everything and some kg's of meat and pasta brought my fatlayer back into business. During the BBQ I met many other HAM's from the club that showed up with xyl or children. One of them, and certainly not the least is Robert, W7LR, the ON-suffix UN and WW were very well known by him. You should QRZ him..

I manned the station with Don/FLT during the night until 0430. I slept some 3 hours before another one of Jerry's nice breakfasts. We ended by noon with some 800 qso's in total. I heard almost exclusively US and Canadian stations on 80, 40 and 20. By mistake I heard and LA and OM station on 17..

The weather continued to be perfect. We broke the station down and it was time to say goodbye to the bunch of HAM's of Bozeman and around. I'll always have a very nice memory on this fieldday over here.

Jerry and I drove back to his QTH were we tried to find out what had to be the best way to enter Yellowstone. It was some 120 km. until the west entrance. The best option was to take the , on Monday very busy and narrow road 91 that lead into the Parc. A bus brought me halfway and from here I cycled the remaining part of Monday to the entrance. Jerry brought me with his car very early in the morning to one of the stops just outside the city after being his guest again over at his house and heaving a pancake breakfast and a BBQ , again ;-) , on sundayevening.

The campsites on the southern loop of Yellowstone are quite bicycle friendly, 6 dollars for 1 night and free coffee in the morning made by the local rangers. The entrance for a bicycler in the Parc was 12 dollar for a 1 week period ! The roads were very narrow and again, many big RV's, cars, 4by4s, campers and noisy moto's on the road. I saw many bison, elk, deer and other wildlife. No bears dough over here, but, so goes the story, they are definitely here. I visited the tourist mekka of the Parc, Old Faithfull, and many other geisers, pottholes with mudd or steam and also the Yellowstone canyon. I took my time to visit them. Almost I got driven of the road by a rental RV that was driving stupidly.. I found out that shouting out dirty language isn't so difficult.. I met Bojan, a friendly and wise Slovenian bicyclist. I also met Paul from Australia and Jack from Holland the next night on the camping. There were almost 12 bicyclers on the bike and hike place. There is always place for bicyclers here on the camping ! Good to know.

It was interesting to find out that my gasleaks were smelling like sulfer after two days :-) .

I was radioactive every evening and morning on 40 and one time on 20. Conditions were so and so. Again, many people were qrv on 7177. I cycled out of Yellowstone on Friday and left the 2000+ mtr. high caldera behind me after doing some nice climbing to 2760 meter ASL. I slept again on a cheap campplace with self registration fee just outside the Parc.

Over here I met Bob and Sue from Salt Lake who were on a small trip. I headed out for Cody,Wyoming the next day and the kilometercounter showed 4600 km..

ps: click in the right column on June for more pics for the fieldday and Yellowstone or go to http://www.gallatinhamradio.com

Port of Piegan - Bozeman

'have a nice day', the border control officer told me after checking my visum and ID. He asked me where I was going but didn't payed real attention to it. There I was, back into the US and into nomandsland. I was still cycling very close next-to the Rocky-Mountains and the cold westernly winds were anoying.. Still it was better than the rain or headwind. Going south to Babb I learned that the going-to-the-sun-road was still blocked by heavy snow. I decided to cycle to Browning and then to Great Falls, I'll stay on this side (east) off the continental divide for this trip. Leaving Babb , like ten houses or so.., took me to a desolated campground. The grass was growing out of control and the reception area was a mess. I think they went out of bussiness last year. The campgrounds were empty except for a young Canadian/London couple that were exploring BC and the Rockies. Since there were some nice buildings like sanatary and cookingplaces that were deserted lang ago, I took the decision to sleep into the ladies restroom that looked ok to sleep on the ground. I blocked the door and slept until I heard a car stopping. The guys were about to fish in the lake the next morning. Time to go and after another 2 kilometers I had my second flat tyre. A small metal paperclip went into the middle of the tyre where the kevlar should've protected it.. Bad points for Schwalbe this year on these tyres.. After fixing it I cycled into St. Mary, the port to Glacier National Parc. I went to the grocery store and took a look to the extraordinary hotelchain into the little town. Since the pass was still blocked by some meters of snow I went southbound to Browning but ... some hills were standing in the way. A few hills - the biggest one was 2,1 km high - were conquered during the day. I fell into Browning cycling upto 65 km/u with backwind. In Browning I found a gasstation to buy some food and.. I ran away out of town rather quickly. Some of the most poorest and most drunk native Americans were literally hanging out on the streets over here. They were not aggressive but had the tendency to clamp on to you to ' get some money for a sandwich'. If you replied that you'll buy one for him, he dropped of.. strange isn't it ? Well, the local Radioshack was closed so I had to cycle two more days to Great Falls to the next store where I could buy a AT&T simcard. I pitched up the tent in the stoney prairies some fifteen miles southeast out of Browning. The owner of the land , a native American gave me permission. Later that evening I contacted the streetgang once again on 40 meters. The next day I headed for Choteau.

After a nice beafsteak and fries-meal in Dupuyer for 9$ and finding out that my portabel 70/2 antenna needs to be soldered again at some point at the coil in the middle of it, I arrived in Choteau. On qrz.com I found that there was a OM living around here. David,AD7BK had a swr-meter but no soldering-iron. A buddy of his brother had one. He was a kind of dangerous looking MC-guy and Vietnam vet. that I normally don't hang around with and since it was fathersday he celebrated it with his daughter and granddaughter. Rick lived in a house together with Joyce, they proposed me to pitch up the tent in their backyard and so I did. I bought some beers and piza for all of us and drunk our way into the night.. My nicotinelevels are filled up again .. In the morning they served some breakfast for me and I went on the road again to Great Falls this time to buy the simcard that I found over the into the late afternoon. Cycling out of the city I met Mr. Delano who was spraying his frontyard. I needed some water to fill up the bottle and asked some to him. Hey gave me a Mountain Dew pop and a little time later his kind wive served me a meal with freshly made chickensoup and sandwiches ! I met all the family of them who were over there to have campfire in the garden later that night in wich I gladly participated. We talked a lot and I met Dirk, a fireman in town who was one of the sons of Delano. They made me breakfast in the morning with everything on it and made me lunch to take along the road, great people !

Cycling to the south upto Belt, I discovered that my refill AT&T card doesn't hook up with remote 900 Mc towers. I could see them but it was a no-go for my desire. It was possible with my Mobile Vikings simcard but not with proximus.. Edge is no problem on 1800 mc towers but their coverage is smaller.

I stopped for the day north of Neihart on a Stateparc campground with ten places with no-one on it.. I Hung up dipoles for 20 and 40 and was able to work Europe again ! UA3TCJ and RW4WB/3 who gave me 5 by 5 , not bad ! I heard 9A9A, DF2PY and a pileup from EU to some DX that I couldn't hear. I worked some NA-stations on 20 and once again some guys of the streetgang on 40 meter on 7177 Mc.

After sleeping quite well I headed up into the mountains to a height of 2,25 km into the Kings Hill Pass. I tried 6 meters once again but no successs this time. 2 meters was also quite dead here, except for the local repeater for the 50 or so people living in Neihart were I visited the recommendable grocerystore with at least 5 gossipwoman al over 60 years old waiting for you :-)

Cycling into White Sulphur Springs I didn't found a place to sleep quite easily. I tried the local expensive campground who asked me 20$. I got in for 10 ! Great showers and fireplace and lots of old kind RV-people who gave me fruit, meat and bread all over. Some of them were Vietnam veterans and could talk.. After a long morning cycling into the heavy headwind and going up I reached Clyde Parc after I went trough Wilsall were I met .. Billy from the rockgroup Morphene .. while I was there sitting out in front of the local grocerystore eating a banana and drinking milk.. He asked where I came from and he replied that he knew Belgium very well and he did. He stood on stage on almost all of the concerts like TorhoutWerchter , Pinkpop, the Botanique, Rugged, Antwerp conscienceplace etc..

He toured in Europe for months with K's Choice and knew Sarah quite well. He also toured here in the US with DEUS and knew the size of Toms underwear hahi.. Incredible isn't it. This is really the outback here.. He stopped making music because one of the bandmembers died on-stage in Italy of a fatal heartstroke. Nowadays he's doing some farming over here.

I wanted to ask him more intelligent questions but since I'm not into Rock and Roll we talked about other things. I wished Tanguy or any other R&R guy was here .. Well, he had to go with a sixpack in one hand to take care for the animals and I took off also into the thunderstorms which I could avoid somehow.

I reached Clyde Park and found a place in the gardenhouse of a young guy named Grant, to sleep in. Grant went away to Bozeman for the weekend. I tried the local repeater and Garry, KD7WLX replied. He invited me by radio to come over to the ARRL fieldday of his radioclub in Bozeman for the weekend !

Whow, that will defenitly be another great experience ..

Another dream coming true so close to Yellowstone ..

So many wonderfull and great things and people all over this trip, just wááy to great !