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.