...where the buffaloes roam...

Day  2 – Black Hills, SD

     Our thought going in to today was that this would probably be the most boring day of the trip.  If that holds true, we are in for a heck of a ride.  The plan for today simply called for driving from Minneapolis to the Black Hills region of South Dakota.  Included was a stop in Rapid City and then setting up camp.  We got a quick start out of the Twin Cities, leaving a little before six.  Our path cut diagonally through the state to the southwestern corner where we would catch I-90, which would take us all the way across South Dakota to our campsite (ok, 395 of the 400 miles).

     The ride through Minnesota was quite an uneventful.  We passed through towns like Mankato, St. Peters, New Prague, and Belle des Plaines.  We passed through Le Sueur, which Amy and I thought might mean “The Dream” since Sueno is Spanish and Portuguese.  “The Dream – cute name for a town, right?  Unfortunately it’s a false cognate and it actually means “Sweat” or “Cold sweat”.   We also passed through New Ulm, which got us questioning where Old Ulm was.  We found out (smartphones are incredible) that Ulm is a city in Germany and it is the birthplace of Albert Einstein.  We also got to travel for a while on Don Rickles Parkway, which became confusing when we found out that he is from the Bronx, not southwestern Minnesota.  The only other excitement came from Amy’s uncontrollable giggling as she read this week’s Onion.  Apparently there was an article about the all new Johnson & Johnson “Nothing but Tears” baby shampoo, which had the slogan “it’s never too early to grow the hell up.”

South Dakota welcome sign

     We entered South Dakota and after a bit of hilliness around Sioux Falls, things got flat fast.  On all sides was farm land as far as you could see.  Not too different from Wisconsin, just flatter and more open it seemed.  We crossed over the Missouri River in Chamberlain and after we came out the other side, the scenery began to change a little.  It was still flat and open, but instead of farm land with corn and soybeans and the like, it was now open fields.  If you’ve seen Dances With Wolves or any other movie that dealt with the Plains, it looked exactly like that.  I would not have been shocked to see a herd of Bison running across in the distance.

One of the hundreds of "Wall Drug" signs we passed. 
Offers included $0.05 coffee and free ice water.

     As we traveled down I-90 towards Rapid City, we saw tens, if not hundreds, of billboards for Wall Drug.  I have seen bumper stickers and t-shirts for Wall Drug before, but I had no idea what it was.  As we got closer to the city of Wall, the temptation proved too much and we decided to stop.  It turns out Wall Drugs is a giant outdoor mall that is a cross between the Dells and Old Town Scottsdale.  So we snapped a picture and left.  Maybe we missed something by not going in for the much advertised free ice water or $.05 coffee, but that was a risk we were willing to take.

     Right around the time we had our adventure in Wall, we crossed into Mountain Time and the scenery changed with it.  We saw the spires of Badlands off to our left (south) and the terrain became rockier and hillier.  In the distance, we caught the first glimpses of the Black Hills rising on the horizon.

     We made it to Rapid City by early afternoon and stopped for an early dinner/late lunch.  We had planned to stroll around the downtown area a little to see the statues of all the presidents (this state has a crazy fixation on statues), but what looked to be an impending rainstorm scuttled those plans.  We decided to hop back in the car and travel the last 30 miles to our campsite which is deeper into the Black Hills.

Our campsite (our tent is the one in the center) with the Black Hills behind.

     Despite being caught in a heavy downpour, we were able to maneuver through the twisty mountain roads (and yes, the Black Hills are more mountain than hill, as I learned today) and arrive at our campsite just as the rain stopped.  On the way we caught our first glimpses of Mt. Rushmore.  I had prepared myself to be disappointed, but it was actually pretty incredible.  We’ll be spending more time there tomorrow, so I will discuss it then.  We arrived at our campsite and set the tent up despite realizing the first thing we forgot – the hammer for pounding in the tent stakes.  We didn’t really forget it because we never thought about needing it.  But we were fortunate to find a nice, flat rock that I could use to go all caveman on the stakes.  That rock will now be joining us for the rest of our trip.

The yet-to-be-completed Crazy Horse Monument

A model showing what the finished monument will look
like with the actual monument in the background.

     We were pretty gross after getting everything all set up (it’s mid 90’s with high humidity here) so we decided to take a dip in one of the pools at our camp ground, shower up, and head over to the Crazy Horse Memorial for the laser light show.  We were a little disappointed to find that hiking around the Memorial was not a possibility, but learning about the history and seeing the show was pretty incredible.  Since we were able to do that tonight, we will no longer be doing that tomorrow.  Instead, we might check out Wind Cave National Park.

The Crazy Horse Monument at dusk before the light show.

     So what we thought would be a less than exciting day still managed to be a great start to our adventure.  I will never get sick of the feeling of seeing something new.   Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

 

p.s. – I can’t get over the fact that I just typed and posted this whole thing while sitting in a tent in the middle of a forest.  Crazy world.