South Dakota

On Thursday, we drove from Chamberlain, SD, to our new home for a week, Hart Ranch, just outside of Rapid City, SD. It was all interstate, so we made great time.

Since we had the time, we stopped in Wall to check out the “world famous” Wall Drug. That place is really something. It’s at least one square city block in size and seems to be made up of a lot of what used to be other stores. You just walk from one into the next and so on. They’ve got it all: a restaurant, 5-cent coffee, every souvenir item you could possibly want, a playground, minimal grocery items, and on and on and on. Now we can say that we’ve been to Wall Drug!

For the last 30 miles or so before getting to Wall, the interstate parallels the northeast part of the Badlands. There were areas of it that we could see from the road and we also took off on a scenic stop to check it out. I didn’t take any pictures as the distance was too great and they wouldn’t have turned out. And at that time we were still thinking of driving back to do the scenic byway through there.

It was a great moment when we came over a hill and could see mountains in the distance. It was like coming home. We both commented on it. What a beautiful sight.

Our campground is terrific. We’re in a valley south of Rapid City. There is an Equine Center bordering the campground so we get to see and hear the horses from time to time, and that’s cool.

So Friday we were off to play tourist. We drove northwest up to Spearfish, which is the northern-most point on our whole trip. From there we headed south on the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. This was a beautiful drive. It was actually a lot like being in the Colorado Rockies.

We stopped at Bridal Veil Falls.

We also stopped in Savoy, which is little more than a hotel and conference center. It was beautiful there.

We drove up the gravel road for about a mile to see another waterfall: Roughlock Falls.

Once out of the Canyon, we drove back to the northeast to Deadwood. We tried our hands in several of the casinos, but didn’t win anything to brag about. We didn’t lose it all, though.

Friday was our 30^th wedding anniversary, so we decided to find a restaurant and eat out. This is not as easy as it may seem. We didn’t want to be driving all over Rapid City, getting lost and who knows what. We went up to the office and went through their book of restaurants in the vicinity. We settled on The Gaslight in Rockerville. If you are ever up in these parts, THAT is the place to go. We had a fabulous meal.

On Saturday morning we headed south to Mt. Rushmore. I had been there nearly 40 years ago (argh!) and it has certainly changed. The Avenue of Flags has a flag and information about each of the 50 states.

And then there are the faces themselves. It was awesome.

And here’s proof that I didn’t lift these pictures off some other web site!

After getting our fill of the presidents, we headed towards Custer to see the Crazy Horse Memorial. I saw that 40 years ago, too. At that time, you could see where the arm would be, that was pretty leveled off. Now the face is complete and tons of rock have been removed as well.

I’m guessing we were at least a mile away from the monument. Here’s what the carving will look like – someday!

We learned that the four faces of Mt. Rushmore would roughly fit inside the head and hair of Crazy Horse. That gave me a new perspective of how enormous this memorial is and will be. I don’t think it will be completed in my lifetime.

We had lunch in Keystone and then headed back home.

Sunday was work-day again: cleaning, laundry, catching up on this and that. And then we had to watch the Bronco game. I think people around here are about as big of fans as people in Denver. We were thrilled to get the game on the local channel. And yet again the game came down to a field goal in the last seconds – this time it was overtime!

We returned to Deadwood on Monday. On the drive, we noticed that the trees were beginning to turn. It was a beautiful drive through Boulder Canyon. Once at the casinos, I actually had some good luck early in the day, but that passed. So we left our budgeted amount behind and will try again another day. This seems to be the story of our gambling lives.

As we were getting close to our campground, we had to slow way down to allow these guys to cross the road. We had seen wild turkeys in Kentucky but didn’t get any pictures of them. These guys hung around long enough for us to get several.

Did I mention the cold? Overnight temperatures here have been in the 40s and one night it even dipped into the 30s. Brrrr. Fortunately, the days warmed up pretty well and we had sunny skies to enjoy this beautiful part of the USA.

Our next stop will be the Denver area for about 10 days. So we’re trying to get organized and get things settled so we can be away from the coach for most of that time. It will be great to see family and dear friends while there.

Until next time: happy trails!