it stands stoic in the field politely (in the way all southern chimneys are raised) requesting a match, the heat of a flame to crackle the kindling it still cradles. only smoke chugging into the sky will return the stories told, the meals cooked over it, the hands scuffed together to help the thaw along. it doesn’t know the structure is gone, its owners long buried on the hill above. it needs only a bit of heat to recall its venerable but singular purpose. i want to give it life, but i only take its picture. its face is a gift to me. i take without giving.

Alone In West Virginia

For me, since there’s no travel more rewarding, relaxing, or stimulating (the last two are not mutually exclusive) as road trips, the following travel tips are worthy of this abbreviated list, as hackneyed as they may be.

And really, I hold little close to the vest, so don’t read these and think “these aren’t secrets, she’s told us all this before.”  Well obviously you can think it, just don’t say it aloud. Unless you want to leave a comment, and then of course you can say just about anything you want because comments make bloggers giddy.

Like this? This was located with a GPS, wasn’t even close to an Interstate, and was within my county of residence (at one time).

Jen Laceda of Folie a`Deux tagged me to share three travel secrets and in turn tap five other travel related bloggers and request they do the same on their blogs. “My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets,” organized by Katie of Tripbase.com states “the aim of this game is to unite travel bloggers in a joint endeavor to create an amazing list of top travel recommendations across the globe to share with the entire travel community.”

I believe this list was initially conceived to reveal favorite destinations, but like the secret whispered in the ear of a friend who passes it on to another friend, who passes it on to another friend, it’s evolved into pretty much whatever the tagged blogger wants to discuss.

• SRT travel not-so-secret secret #1: Spend the money for a GPS or any device that will allow you to leave a breadcrumb trail (so you can confidently return to where you began). For one day of your trip, take your wallet/purse, the GPS and a camera, leave your maps and guidebooks in the hotel room, and hit the streets.  For an even more intense rush, leave your camera behind as well. Leaving the camera behind takes the most guts. No guts, no travel glories.

• SRT travel not-so-secret secret #2: Speaking of guts, exit the Interstate if you’re interested in seeing anything other than the sterile, stamped out cities they connect.

• SRT travel not-so-secret secret #3: Take a weekend road trip and stay within your county of residence.

Five travel bloggers that must now make a post regarding their 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets or more of the American highway system will implode:

Notes From the Road

John Batdorff Photograhy Blog

Travel Dreams & Moonbeams

One.Year.Trip

Postcards & Coasters

Join the Road Trip Revolution at the Solo Road Trip Facebook Fan Page, here.

Just after exiting Highway 385 towards Deadwood, South Dakota on my meandering ten day SRT, a sign “Chocolates & Ice Cream” grabs my attention. An old gas-station-turned-grocery-store-turned-whatever over the years, there’s a large, whimsical statue of a Chipmunk guarding the screen-doored entrance.

Hungry, I pull over, get out, and walk to the door to see a scrawled note “closed Monday for nut gathering.” Intensely disappointed, my plan was to quickly tour Deadwood and head North towards Cody, Wyoming as it was only 3:00 in the afternoon.

Like any addict, the chocolate shop took up residence in my thoughts and my brain began to pander and plot as I caught a glimpse of Deadwood around the corner. Firmly believing I chose to stay the night in Deadwood for Deadwood, every time I see a box of those chocolates, my commitment to that belief wavers. Deadwood was a memorable town, regardless of my feckless attempt to justify spending more time there than I’d planned.

Here’s the story of my actual encounter with The Chubby Chipmunk. The establishment is incendiary, the story idyllic, like my memories. And it was work to get this to read for you in a way that will convey my experience accurately. No ordinary words would do. I hope you enjoy it!

****************************

Driving there I’m overcome with a sense of portentousness. I arrive fixated, obsessed really with only one thing – to dulcify my addiction. Well before I get the screen door open my nostrils widen, intent on the pursuit of a chocolate high. Sensing the anodyne for my road dog weariness within, with a hand on the handle and a twist of the wrist, I’m inside.

The shop is redolent with the lustiness of ingredients reserved for royalty in days past – chocolate, sugar, butter, nuts, all of the finest quality. With a cozy sitting area on the left to encourage the instant enjoyment of their salubrious ware, the counter on the right is laden with tall, dark, exquisite, yes, scintillating truffles. Taking it all in, instantly I know I’m in for a sybaritic experience.

It took on a fantastical, dreamy quality. Time stopped. I had no thoughts of writing about this discovery later; no idea of the convoluted word freefall I’d later work so hard to produce because my memories of it would make me maudlin (and there’s only one thing to do when maudlin – write).

Nothing went through my mind other than the in-the-moment, fully engaged, sensory overload I was smack in the middle of. I was Alice in Wonderland, or the child who opened their eyes to find they were standing in the middle of FAO Schwartz at Christmas.

The front of the shop is lit from only the light of the front door and a few well placed, ambiance inducing lamps. But the shop’s counter of chocolates is backlit by a window in the kitchen, directly to the back left of the counter. The rays of the morning sun spread like gossamer over the display counter and its contents, over the cookie sheets cradling naked, dark, hand formed ganache centers, over the lady’s face who appears from the kitchen to help me. She’s beautiful. The truffles are gorgeous. Some appear to have a nacreous glow which later, in my recovered state I saw was an actual coating, not attributed solely to my nimbus covered eyeballs. I digress. Back to gorgeous. The truffles are gorgeous. Like all gorgeous objects, you want to touch them. Well I can’t touch them yet, but I can take pleasure in watching her touch them. And so I begin ordering, watching her carefully pluck each one as she adds them to one box after another. She appears to enjoy the haptic experience more than she should.

At three five boxes, I stop. Pay. Congratulate myself with the sagacity of my decision to spend the night in Deadwood, and gingerly carry my treasure to the truck. Then with deliberation incompatible with my impassioned state, I indulge my tactile desires by removing two of the truffles from the box and lovingly and appreciatively inspect them. Eating one is beyond my capacity at this moment. My addiction sated, I store them away for the forthcoming ride into Cody, crawl back through the rabbit hole, and drive.

****************************

Glossary
Incendiary: provocative, stirring, likely to catch fire
Feckless: weak, ineffective
Portentousness: momentous, prodigious
Dulcify: to make agreeable, soothe, to sweeten
Anodyne: something that soothes, calms, comforts; a drug that allays pain
Redolent: exuding fragrance, aromatic, evocative
Salubrious: favorable to or promoting health or well being
Scintillating: stimulating; to emit sparks
Sybaritic: self indulgently sensuous, given to or devoted to pleasure
Maudlin: tearfully emotional, foolishly & effusively sentimental
Gossamer: light, delicate, (the gossamer of youth’s dreams)
Ganache: a sweet, creamy, dark chocolate mixture
Nacreous: mother-of-pearl sheen
Nimbus: a cloud or atmosphere (as of romance) about a person or thing
Haptic: relating to or based on the sense of touch
Sagacious: keen in sense perception, of sound and farsighted judgment – noun: sagacity

Chip Tautkus, owner/chocolatier of the shop and I are pictured above.

Road Trip Locator:

The Chubby Chipmunk:
420 Cliff Street
Deadwood, SD 57732
USA
Phone Numbers:
Phone: 605-722-2447
E-mail Address: [email protected]

If you don’t want to drive there, check out their website: www.chubbychipmunk.net.

Deadwood is in the Southwest corner of South Dakota. There’s a lot to see here. 

Other SRT posts about the area:

Of Rattlesnakes & The Geographic Center of the U.S.

The Black Hills: 25 Memorable Sights 

Aces & Eights

“It charmed me, intrigued me, seduced me so completely and in such a way that memories of it result in the kind of longing normally reserved for the best fruit pie of your life.”  This journal entry was made after my first encounter with Yellowstone in 2003. The best fruit pie of your life is a powerful memory; one that will be difficult to surpass. Or forget. If your visions of sugarplums are instead bodacious double crust fruit pies, you’ll understand. If not, pity.

Just in case the first paragraph gravely misdirected you, this post is about Yellowstone,  and sadly, not fruit pies.

I’m not the only one infatuated with Yellowstone and the surrounding area. Some famous people whose opinions really count, feel the same. President Theodore Roosevelt called the stretch of highway between Cody, Wyoming and the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park “the fifty most beautiful miles in America”.

Named the Scenic Byway of Highway 20, aka the Wapiti Valley, the road is wedged into a valley shaped by the flow of the Shoshone River. The swath of wildness is charged with history and scenery. The Buffalo Bill Dam/Reservoir and Buffalo Bill State Park were worth the drive alone.

Buffalo Bill Reservoir

Nothing mechanical could capture what I saw with my own eyes. I didn’t try to create art from art, but rather to simply document I’d actually been there. Sometimes point and shoot is all you need do.  Things like this burn into your memory and you may forget when it happened but you never forget that it did.

The East entrance‘s ranger station was built in 1934 but visitors staying in Cody, Wyoming had been entering the Park for years prior (Yellowstone was designated a National Park in 1872).

Cody was established in 1896 by wild west showman, William F. Cody, “Buffalo Bill” along with a group of investors from Buffalo, New York and Sheridan, Wyoming. They realized the potential for tourism since Yellowstone was only 50 miles west. Burlington Northern Railroad reinforced (and rewarded) the tourism dream when they completed a line into Cody in 1901.

Instead of the railroad, I drove. The round trip of 100 miles to Yellowstone from Cody and back took 7 hours. That should tell you that either I drive really, really slow, or there was a lot to see. Given that I’ve had a speeding ticket in almost every state I’ve driven, the latter is the best guess.

These guys did their part to make sure no one was in a hurry.

American Bison

For more information on Yellowstone, check out these links:

Yellowstone’s Original Entrance

Official Yellowstone National Park Site

Lodges of East Yellowstone

Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway

** The East entrance closes from early November to sometime in April because of snow. Be sure to do your homework before heading there in the winter.

Join the Road Trip Revolution at the Solo Road Trip Facebook Fan Page, here.

Moorcroft, Wyoming emerged out of the black just as my desperate quest to find a place to sleep birthed the recollection of Peter Fonda’s movie Race With The Devil.  My adamancy to never own an RV is derived solely from the impact this movie made on my pre-teen brain.

I’m still searching for a place to safely catch some ZZZ’s because according to the map, Devils Tower is “nearby”. If you should decide to see Devils Tower, take a peek at the map of Wyoming, realize there’s only 400,000 people in the entirety of the square vastness and don’t make the same assumption about lodging I did. And don’t worry about the movie and the whole Devils Tower thing; it was filmed in South Texas.

Beautiful until you think about those poor schmucks in the RV.

The Cozy Motel’s sign was half lit but the gravel parking area was packed with good ole boy pickup trucks – a sight that put me at ease. At least if some creepy-motel-located-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-Jason-scene occurred, my screams would be heard.

I walked into the “office”, rang the bell and an older lady and a boy about 5 came out of a back room (they’ve recently become fodder in my novel plotting mind). “Looks like you’re busy tonight, do you have a room?” “Got one left,,,,,,, railroaders”. To which I didn’t bother replying as I didn’t feel any reply required. But the humorous thought, “railroad convention?” ran through my mind. “We only take cash. The room is $40”. Not a problem. My husband had threatened my future solo road trip privileges if I went below $200 cash at any point of the trip. I had been compliant and pulled out the cash. “You’re in number 11 on the end. We only got 11 rooms. The railroaders don’t like number 11.”

The boy’s face had been marble the whole while but I was certain some reaction to the woman’s statement had caused something to twitch. Did his upper lip move or was it some shift in those shifty little eyes? I checked up just as I opened my mouth to ask why. Too late. Again my imagination was off like horses out the gate of the Kentucky Derby.

The Cozy Motel at sunrise the next day. See the “No” vacancy? I had indeed taken the last room the night before.

I pulled the truck over to number 11 and began unloading. I’d just walked through the door and dropped the first of my loads of crap that I faithfully hauled out of the truck every night, when a train went by. Thunder, whistle, thunder, whistle, shhchhshhchh on the tracks. I laughed out loud and ran back outside to see it swishing by on the track parallel to the motel, close enough to touch. Okay, well, not close enough to touch, but close enough. I hadn’t crossed the track since it ran parallel – stay with me here, and since it was pitch black, I hadn’t seen it. The resting railroaders didn’t like ole number 11 because it was the closest room to the track!

By the time the 3rd train came by the unloading was complete. I called my husband howling laughter at the 4th train passing, holding the phone up so he could hear the whistle. He predicted a total of 6 trains for the evening and I went to shower. I counted 2 while in the shower and over the course of the rest of the restless night, 10 of them jingled my weird and wacky dreams. I was up and out of there just before sunrise and had a fantastic day despite the lingering lack-of-sleep dreams. Devils Tower was stunning in the morning light.

Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming.

Before you read on, I must add the Cozy Motel is one of the reasons I love seeing what lies in-between the sterile and stamped out larger cities and towns on the American map. Motels are still worthy considerations for lodging if you want an experience. Then again, I have nothing against the knowns the chains offer. I stay at both.

Post Script from Journal: “Other than the trains, the room has been my favorite; the extremely low cost of course being a factor along with the story worthiness of my experience here. In addition to that the room was large as there was only one bed and the tiny bathroom was all white and brand new, and the carpet was clean. The railroaders were a quiet bunch; most of them were gone when I walked out to the truck at sunrise. The heat didn’t work well but after a sprint to the truck in the middle of the night for my emergency quilt, that problem was solved. It was 14 degrees this morning.  Ahhhh…. WYOMING.”

Road Trip Locator: Devils Tower is in Northeastern Wyoming between Gillette and Sundance, approximately 35 miles North of Interstate 90 (from Moorcroft which is where you’ll exit and turn North of I-90).