Ch.33 (cont.)
We had decided to spend the day catching up
on our sleep and the next morning set out for Mt. Rushmore national park. This
was part of our effort to get Lee’s leg to heal. There was a lot of walking to
do after we reached the memorial. The size of the sculptures of the presidents
made it hard for me as a sculptor myself to comprehend how you would go about a
carving of that size in a material that fractures so easily. My understanding
is that most of the excess rock is drilled and blasted down to the last three
to four inches and then they honeycomb the face with many more holes to a
precise depth and these holes are jack hammered off leaving a rough outline and
this they finish fine by hand. All of this work is done hanging over the edge
in wire cages where the workers would be hanging in midair at times with their equipment.
Their pay for this work was eight dollars a day at that time during the
depression.
Another disappointment was that the film North
by North west was never actually filmed on the face of Mount Rushmore but
instead done in a movie studio. Also the house where part of the movie was
filmed was not on the back side of the monuments but instead exists somewhere
else. Never found out where but would have liked to. It looked to have been
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright but I was never sure of that. It was a gorgeous
house though. Apparently the park service wasn't too fond of the idea of
someone dying on the face of the monument so they nixed that idea but they did
film part of the movie as they could in that area under the monument and in the
visitors center.
We would walk for a while and sit for a
while as Lee struggled to keep up. His leg was healing fine on the outside,
inside he had torn a ligament in the wreck and this is what was causing him the
most pain. By the time we made it back to the car he was all in. We returned to
the RV park where we had the Road warrior and called it a day after that trip. We
had planned to see Custer’s Memorial due to the fact he was from my original
area of Ohio near Scio, Ohio. I had seen the memorial there and they respected him
as a hero and were proud of him and his service to the army during the Indian strife’s.
Lee’s leg was better the next morning and
we made haste for Custer’s Memorial; and the battlefield , visited the town of Custer,
South Dakota , and ended up spending a week in this area visiting Yellowstone National
park as we stayed the nights in Glendo RV park at Glendo Lake. Each day Lee’s
leg would improve as he grew stronger. We spent little time on the internet,
just turning the satellite on long enough to do some research daily on our next
area we wanted to see as we went along. We would eat out in local touristy
restaurants enjoying the wide range of foods they offered. We thoroughly
enjoyed this region but soon it was time to move on.
We spent days exploring around the Rocky Mountains
using the Escape as we would visit one RV park after another as we headed to
the west coast along the northern edge of the United States . So much beautiful
country and so many things to see and it makes me wonder why anyone would want
to fly when there are so many things to see. Even Ann an advocate of flying
most everywhere was having a good time seeing all there was to see from the
ground as we went along on the trips to here and there and was soon leading us
to places she wanted to see.
Ann had withdrawn about two thousand in
cash and we took to paying in cash as often as possible to avoid a paper trail,
or in our days an electronic trail of purchases , preventing anyone from being
able to follow the so called money trail left behind from debit cards or credit
cards. I just let Ann pick up the tab on everything as fighting with her was useless.
We had mail delivered overnight to the RV park we were staying at through UPS
or whoever serviced that area. We soon had all our credit and debit cards
replaced . Ann said there had been no activity on any accounts she had or for
that matter on any accounts we had also. It looked as if we appeared to be left
alone. Till we returned to the Road Warrior again one night to find that same
door pried open in the exact same way and again we were robbed in the exact
same fashion as before.
This time though we had installed a video
camera and we were able to watch the robber as he entered the Road Warrior
walked to the security system disable the security settings and set about with
his crime spree of stealing everything he could get his hands on quick. We reviewed
the video and didn’t recognize the face of the person stealing our stuff. We
had also installed a magnetic lockbox on the underside of a storage shelf that
contained all of the personal things we really didn’t want anyone to have, it was
still there This worked as the robber
ended up grabbing a bunch of decoy items thinking they were the same thing.
Also we had talked to Ann’s detective and the new laptop she had bought at Wal-Mart
had a feature that emailed Ann when anyone besides her would attempt to use it
sending the coordinates and location of the laptop to her at her email address,
so if they hooked the laptop up and tried to use it they wouldn't realize it
was a homing beacon for authorities to track the robber. That worked well on a limited
basis.
Even with the surveillance video and the
coordinates of where the computer was last used on the internet we still had no
idea who was doing all this. The local authorities there could give us no leads
either. When the computer was logged on to the internet It was found to be held
by a woman who found it in the trash at her apartments in a trash bin.she
hooked it up to see if it would work . as soon as the ip address came on
authorities rushed to the address and confiscated the laptop . It could have come from anywhere and this
woman had no ties to anyone we knew of, and as well she was in the process of
trying to sell it at a flea market for a fraction of its cost. Her story seemed
legit. She regularly bought and sold electronic equipment. This was the only
thing electronic we had lost or was stolen as we had our phones and our cameras
with us when we were robbed. Again we had to use the bungee and again we had to
call Dealing Dan who then sent us to another RV repair place he had ties with
to fix the door.
This was getting to be too routine for our
blood to be constantly plagued by someone wanting to rip us off, that I
insisted Lee and Ann go on their own and I would stay and watch our things. One
day while travelling through the RV park I noticed a set of Ohio plates on an RV
parked somewhat close to us. I am sure that it may be possible for other Ohioans
to be visiting the same areas as us but we were baffled by the constant pilfering’s
of our belongings. We knew it wasn't Tom, Ann’s ex as he wasn't the person in
the video but he may have an accomplice. We didn't really know anything but
being robbed twice on one trip seemed a bit out of ordinary to us and the police.
So suspecting Ohio plates this far away made me wonder so I write down the
license plate number just in case.
We were determined all three of us to find
out who was doing this and for what reason. When Ann and Lee would leave for
some destination I would also leave the Road Warrior and head for a part of the
RV Park and wait for someone to come snooping around. Hoping to catch someone
in the act, that for over a week I stayed with the Road Warrior babysitting until
finally we reached the Oregon coast and then I relented to going with Ann and Lee
and seeing the coast as much as we could. I loved seeing the massive forests and
noticed Lee’s leg was getting better daily and Ann and Lee were talking of finding
an instructor for tree climbing again to refresh what they knew and to
experience the tall trees along the Oregon coast.
We
had also stopped and visited my carving friend in Idaho as went through there
and spent some time carving with him and left him a couple of pieces of artwork
both Lee and I created while there and in turn he sent us home a piece he
cherished as well .Though I was looking forward to getting to Oregon and
finding me a large piece of wood to carve on. I just thought it would be nice if
someone would happen by it someday and
find it enjoyable as we would have no way to take it home with me. I could find
large pieces of wood in Ohio but I just wanted one from that area to carve on
just for the fun of it. Whether we did this or not depended on if we could find
a hunk of good pine. I was planning on visiting sawmills and the like and
figured they may have a hunk of wood they would sell me and a place to carve
it. This was all I needed. Lee and I were planning on tag teaming the log when
we found it; making it a culmination of both of our efforts and this would be a
memento for us to leave to commemorate our trip. Now that we were in Oregon, I needed to find
that log and do my carving I wanted to do.
We tried to not let the worry of who was
after us bother us t much , instead we went full steam ahead with our plans to
visit Sequoia National Park and the home of the giant trees. I couldn't wait.
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