Summer 2011 Road Trip: South Dakota

Saturday…

Well, we didn’t get far from Sioux Falls before we decided to make a random stop to see the World’s Only Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. It’s basically a tribute to American agriculture, and every year it is redecorated with tons of corn and wheat and grain bunches. Not the most exciting place, but it was advertised with interstate billboards almost as heavily as Wall Drug has been, so we at least had to stop and see what it was. Besides, we got a free popcorn ball for checking in on foursquare. (Oh yes, the Corn Palace is on foursquare!) We got some quick lunch, and now we’re back on the road.

 Front of the Corn Palace

Close-up to show all the ears of corn that are involved in the Corn Palace decoration

 Multitasking in Mitchell, SD

And now we’re in two-way interstate traffic for the next ten miles. Yay for South Dakota road construction! …

 More signs for Wall Drug

*   *   *

We made it to the Badlands! It was interesting, because they just pop out of nowhere. We’re driving along I-90W through all the prairie lands, looking at all the cows and the Wall Drug billboards, and suddenly, on the left, there are the Badlands, these rocky canyons jutting out of the green prairie. It was 75 and sunny—beautiful! We got there in mid-afternoon, so while driving through we stopped and hiked around several places. 

View from the highway of the Badlands popping up out of the prairie

 

Got some great photos of the park, including some wildlife. As we were driving we saw a deer out on the prairie on the edge of the Badlands, so we pulled off to get some photos. We walked a little ways to get closer, all the while seeing one more deer at a time join the pack, and by the time we got close enough to get a good shot, there were about eight standing there just looking at us. As soon as I got a few shots, the all walked away—like they knew the photo op was over. We also saw some bighorn sheep. I got a few photos, but I was so far away they are difficult to see (plus, I didn’t have the giant 800mm lens that the guy next to me had). On the way out of the park we also saw a ton of prairie dogs. At first I only noticed one that had popped his head up, but then when I got out to take pictures I saw them everywhere! They bark like little yippy dogs; it’s almost a chirping sound. I was able to get close enough to them for some decent photos.

 Deer watching me take their picture

The surfaces of the ground and all of the land formations are dry and cracked everywhere

 

 Prairie dogs

 The bighorn sheep are in this photo. There are two on the peak just to the right of that ridge with the crescent-shaped light, and there is another one on the next peak to the right. If you click on the photo, it should open up full size, and they might be slightly more visible. I have never wanted a huge telephoto lens as much as I did at this park.

Incidentally, our trip out of the Badlands ended… where? … Wall, SD! Finally, we got to see what I can only imagine is the sole source of economic support for the entire town of Wall. Wall Drug is gigantic. It occupies at least two entire city blocks, which is a sizable portion of the town. It was everything you can ever imagine in an old-timey tourist attraction. It was shops beyond shops of geodes, antiques, an incredible variety of personalized souvenirs, its very own T-Rex—ALL kinds of things. Plus, there were candy and fudge shops (yes, multiple), cafés (also multiple), and even a little chapel. It was like South Dakota’s own little Las Vegas—especially since it was right across the street from a whole city block of casinos. It was amazing. It had everything we’d seen advertised on the countless billboards since Iowa—homemade ice cream, pie, and doughnuts (we saw them making doughnuts!), free ice water, 5-cent coffee. 

 Wall Drug!

 The Wall Drug T-Rex

Eric hanging out by the Wall Drug Chapel

 This place was like a shopping mall

 The big cafe where they were making fresh doughnuts

Wow, it was an experience! We walked all around, ate some apple pie, and got back on the road to Mt. Rushmore.

*   *   *

Our plan for Saturday night was to camp out at a KOA campsite close to Mt. Rushmore. This was going to be our very first camping experience ever. Eric made the reservations before we left Sioux Falls that morning, and he had apparently selected the only KOA in small town South Dakota that didn’t have multiple signs advertising its location. It was also three miles off the highway in Custer, SD, which was apparently not the closest KOA to Mt. Rushmore—no, we saw signs for that one—and about five or six miles past where our GPS said it should be. We had to call for directions (when we were in a spot with cell phone service), and we finally made it to the campsite shortly after 9pm. It was already dark, and the temperature had dropped to about 48 degrees. Fortunately, KOAs are very well set-up and well run. We had a guide escort us to our spot, we parked the car and set up the tent. We heated up some leftover samosas for dinner and finally went to bed. Thought about setting alarms, but I figured the sun would probably wake us up at a decent hour.

 All set up at the KOA

Eric and I both woke up at relatively the same time, because it was so bright in our tent, and Oh. My. Gosh. it was FREEZING! I figured it was maybe 7:00… 9:00 at best… No. It was 5:50. I was half right—the sun did wake us up. But I do NOT consider 5:50am a decent hour. Then I decided to find out how cold it was: 35 degrees. It had rained all night long—it was still raining—and raindrops were frozen to the outside of our tent! Since neither of us was about to get up in the freezing cold rain, we went back to sleep for a few more hours. We finally decided to bite the bullet and pack up around 9:30, even though the weather hadn’t changed much. As we were folding up the tent I realized it was no longer just raining, it was sleeting. Fun. We threw all of the wet stuff into garbage bags and went into Custer to find a Laundromat (because everyone else who had camped was huddled in the KOA laundry room). In the hour or so that we spent drying sheets and towels, we spread out the tent over a couple of folding tables and looted the paper towel dispenser in the restroom to dry off the tent well enough to pack it back in it’s bag.

Did I mention that throughout all of this we couldn’t cook the bacon and eggs we’d bought for breakfast, because it was raining… err, sleeting? Yeah, we each had a banana while we were drying out the tent.

Finally we got all of our stuff together and got back in the car. We were able to laugh about the ridiculousness of that first camping experience and be excited about seeing the monuments today.

No again! The sudden change in the weather had brought with it a thick fog that covered everything. We drove to the Crazy Horse Memorial, and the attendant was nice enough to tell us that it was too foggy to see anything before he charged us $20 admission. So we turned around and went to Mt. Rushmore. The attendant there did not say anything about the fog to us. What she did say was that the annual national parks pass that we’d bought at the Badlands wouldn’t work here, because park admission was free, but we had to pay $11 for parking. So we parked and trudged all the way up to the observation deck (still in the freezing cold rain) to see… nothing. The fog was so thick that we couldn’t even see the outline of the mountain. We went down to the museum and looked around the exhibit, watched a video about the construction, and hoped we would be able to see something. In the hour that we were there, the fog thinned for about three seconds, and I was able to get a photo, but we still couldn’t see the whole monument.

 Best view of Mt. Rushmore the entire time we were there

By then we were cold, wet, frustrated, and hungry—because we were still looking for a place to cook our bacon and eggs, and it was already lunchtime. Finally we gave in and stopped at a restaurant in Custer for lunch. We decided to stay one more night in Custer and make another attempt at seeing the monuments tomorrow, so we’re holed up in the Dakota Cowboy Inn, crossing our fingers that the weather is nicer tomorrow. We got here at 3:30 this afternoon and haven’t left. It’s so nice to be warm and dry again.

Summer 2011 Road Trip: Western US, Week 1

*Note: I am not traveling with any editing software, so all photos are straight out of the camera, either my Nikon or Eric’s iPhone.

We are officially on the road! We left home around 1:00 on Saturday afternoon, May 21, 2011.

Our first stop was Louisville, Ky., for the wedding of two of our college friends, Dayn and Laura. Dayn is also Eric’s little brother in their fraternity, and Laura was in orchestra with me. The wedding was beautiful, and we had a great time hanging out with our friends Kyle and Meghan.

After the wedding we drove on to Owensboro, Ky., to spend a few days with Eric’s family. His parents had a wonderful graduation party for him with all of his family and some close friends. We had a great time visiting with everyone. Dinner was a fantastic spread of Indian dishes, prepared by a family friend; and we are toting a good deal of the leftovers with us, despite how much stuff we already have packed in the car!

It’s Tuesday afternoon, and we are off to Kansas City, MO, to visit Melissa, my best friend from college. Looking forward to a great few days with her!

*   *   *

On the way to Kansas City, we decided to stop in St. Louis, since I had never been and Eric hadn’t been in quite a few years. We saw the Gateway Arch, which was neat; and apparently early Tuesday afternoon is a good time to be there, because we got right on the tram and rode to the top! We had fun scrunching into the tiny little tram car. It was an interesting ride, because the track, as it was described, is a mixture of three types of systems: a railroad track (the cars are on rail guides), an elevator pulley system (the cars are pulled upward through the arch), and a Ferris wheel (passengers are always level with the ground). Every few seconds the car would have to tip back up a bit to correct itself. According to the tour guide, the guy who developed this system for the tram cars first drew it on the back of a bar napkin while he was drunk!

The view from the top was pretty awesome—as aerial views of cities are always awesome. We saw the courthouse, the Mississippi River, the StL Cardinals’ stadium, and Eric pointed out a striped awning on a building corner about 2 blocks away from the Arch that looked like a restaurant, which was convenient because we were getting pretty hungry. We rode back down and walked through the Museum of Westward Expansion, with all of it’s mildly creepy animatronic historic figures—I was just glad that the life-sized steer was not moving—then headed over to the restaurant we’d picked from 630 feet, grabbed some appetizers, and got back on the road to Kansas City.

 

Arch view of the StL Cardinals Stadium

 Shadow of the Arch on the Mississippi River

Let me tell you, the drive from St. Louis to Kansas City is LOOOOOONG! It was the most boring drive of the trip so far, and it seemed like we would never get there. We rolled into KC around 9pm, and my lovely BFF (yes, I still say “BFF”… I’m totally a ‘90s chick) took us out for dinner in the pouring rain!

Wednesday was quite an interesting day. Melissa had to work, so Eric and I decided to visit the National World War I Museum. This was about a week after the tornadoes tore through Joplin, Missouri, which is a few hours south of KC, and on that day KC was under a tornado watch and severe weather alert. It was still fairly nice when we left for the museum that morning, but it started to sprinkle about halfway there. Then, as soon as we pulled into the museum parking lot, we heard the tornado sirens go off. We ran into the museum, where the security guards urging everyone to come inside for shelter, and while walking toward the gift shop we saw Kristin, our friend from college who works at the museum. She gave us free tickets to the museum and showed us in to the exhibit through the storm entrance, because the front area was closed. We got to look around for about 15 minutes before the staff ushered everyone down into the basement, because the storms were moving in our direction. We sat in the basement for about 45 minutes, with free bottled water and potato chips, waiting for all the weather to pass and hoping our car full of stuff would still be there. Everything turned out fine in our area, but there was some damage just south of Kansas City.

 In the museum basement

We were finally allowed back up into the museum around 12:30, and we spent the next couple of hours looking around at the exhibit. It is quite an amazing museum, and we learned about WWI in terms of the various types of warfare—trench warfare, airplane dogfights, naval and submarine battles. Nine million soldiers died during the war, and the museum has a glass bridge at the entrance that crosses over a room filled with 9,000 poppies, one for every 1,000 lives lost in the war.

We also went up to the observation deck and up to the top of the tower and looked out over Kansas City. The stormy skies off in the distance were amazing.

Museum observation tower

View of KC skies from the observation deck

After the museum excitement, Eric and I grabbed some lunch at Grinder’s Pizza, a place his brother had suggested. We got a pizza and some hot wings with Grinder’s “near death” sauce—awesome.

Eric likes to claim that we had two near-death experiences that day.

Wednesday night we had dinner with Melissa and her parents, also dear friends of mine, at Jack Stack Barbecue in downtown KC. A number of cities claim that they have the best barbecue, Kansas City included, as well as Owensboro, Ky., where Eric grew up. Of course, the barbecue in KC is different from the barbecue in Owensboro—Owensboro barbecue is more vinegary, and the specialty is mutton; KC barbecue is thick and saucy. It was delicious. We had a lot of fun visiting.

Thursday we got up entirely too early, but I had to take Eric to the airport for a 6am flight to Massachusetts. He had to be there for the inspection on our house (which went very well!), and he was gone until Friday afternoon, so Melissa and I had some girl time.

We went to the Harley-Davidson Factory for a tour, where I didn’t get any photos, because cameras weren’t allowed. It was an awesome tour! We got to see the assembly lines where the Harley frames are moved along on a robot at a certain pace to give everyone on the line a few minutes to get their job done before the frames move on. No part of the motorcycle touches the ground until it is all fully assembled. The Audit Department randomly pulls finished motorcycles off the line for inspections, and any imperfections are marked with an audit sticker and the bike is placed in the factory cafeteria, so that all the workers can see where problems are occurring and can do more quality control. After a few days, the bike is taken to the “Harley Hospital” (just quoting the tour guide here), imperfections are fixed, and the bike is taken for a 30- to 40-mile road test by an auditor. So if you’re shopping for a Harley and you see one with about 30 miles on it, that’s the one you want, because you know it’s been inspected and tested by the Audit Department. Our tour guide also told us a story about a group of boys in the 1920s who consistently won motorcycle races. After their win, they would put their mascot, a live hog, on the Harley with them and take a victory lap. This is where Harleys got their nickname “hogs.”

We also checked out the house the Melissa just bought, and went out for dinner to celebrate our new houses.

Mel and I hugged goodbye on Friday afternoon. I picked up Eric from the airport, and we were on our way to Sioux Falls, SD, for the night.

*   *   *

The drive to Sioux Falls was not bad at all, despite all of the construction we went through. Eric counted at least 20 miles of two-way traffic on the interstate, not to mention all the other stretches of road where lanes were closed.

 Along the way we saw about eight or ten signs for a place called Wall Drug Store, which is close to Rapid City, on the other side of South Dakota. Eric’s cousin Drew had told us about it and about all the signs we would see for it. We are already planning to stop there, just out of curiosity.

 

We made it to Sioux Falls around 9:00 and stayed in a hotel downtown that is right next to the hospital. What they don’t tell you is that it seems to have previously been part of the hospital. I checked in, and the desk clerk handed me two keys to the room—actual metal keys. I cannot remember the last time I ever stayed at a hotel with metal room keys.

 Giant hotel keys

 Meal we cooked in the hotel-- leftover Indian food heated in the electric skillet!

As Eric and I walked to our room we mentioned that the place had a rather sterile feeling—gray walls, wooden slab doors, not much color. Then we walked into the room and noticed that the toilet and tub were in the bathroom and the sink was out in the room, and everything was handicap accessible—no doubt the building had been converted from hospital rooms into a hotel! It was not the most comfortable place, but it was cheap.

It’s Saturday morning, and we are now off to the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. We’re staying at KOA campsites for the next couple of nights. Good thing we practiced setting up our tent!