South Dakota All The Way

Today was set to be the first day of really doing anything other than driving. We were heading out from the East to West side of South Dakota, from Sioux Falls to Rapid City.

It started out to be a pretty ordinary drive, Sudaka is a big empty place. Kinda flat towards the east side but as we got going it got hillier. We really were heading out into the Wild West, Krista tells me that the population of the entire state is only about 800,000.

One of the major highlights for today was always going to be the Badlands, many folks had told me about it and it really lived up to it's reputation. What a wild landscape, it looked a lot like Mordor, I kept looking out for Orcs but didn't see any. Oh, just before the Badlands started we did get to see this.

Then into the real deal.

Amazing, it really wasn't like anything we had ever seen before, but I suppose everyone says that. Shame we had the dog, it would have been nice to take a little more of a walk through the park.

At the exit to the Badlands park is a very famous store, Wall Drug. We see bumper stickers for the store all over the place. Since it was right there we figured we'd drop in quickly. Wall is a tiny town, the main street is fashioned after an old western town, if it weren't for the cars, and the neon lights, we could have been in a cowboy movie. There is a story that goes with the Wall Drug store, I won't tell it here. Basically the store is big with all kinds of touristy ticky-tac for sale. There are a couple of eating places and some photo opportunities. Oh, and coffee if 5 cents a cup.


After Wall Drug it was about another hour or so drive to our hotel, a much nicer affair than the previous night, and much fresher smelling. We checked in, had a quick nap, checked the internet and then headed out to Mount Rushmore. I really wanted to see this, people had told me that it is cheesy, but still, it's an icon right? So we drove over, it was about 30 minutes drive. Paid to get in, saw the Mount, took some photos, had ice cream and then headed home. There are some walks around the monument but we were tired and it was getting dark. As far as I can gather this brief look around the place is pretty much most peoples experience.


And here is the accumulated mileage. Tomorrow is set to be the biggest drive so far, mapquest says we have 8 hours ahead of us, ugh.