Our Trip to South Dakota

...began early on a Saturday morning in August.  Our first ever road trip across the country, well part of it at least.  After much deliberation, we had decided to visit South Dakota and see all the interesting things there are to see there!  We hopped in our new Mazda 3: "Tracey" (tres=Spanish for 3, get it?). Our goal was to make it to LaCross, WI by brunch time. We stopped at Nutbusch City Limits for brunch and had the cheapest and BEST brunch we think we've ever had! Stuffed Hashbrowns - delicious! Then it was time to hit the road to make it to Falls Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where we stopped to stretch our legs. Multiple detours and closed rest stops along the way did not slow this trio down! One of our fun road-trip games was Mad Libs...which taught us that "To be as hot as Devin, you need to rub a tractor soaked in a spittoon of gasoline on your elbow" Random! - as Devin would say...

Here are some fun pics from beautiful Falls Park:

And a little silliness before we hit the road again

Driving on a pink highway through fields of hundreds and hundreds of windmills, we reached our night time destination in Mitchell, South Dakota. Before dinner at The Depot Pub & Grill, we took some time to visit the Corn Palace but were disappointed to find that it was undergoing a major renovation. We did get a photo op with Corn Cob though.

GREAT JOB TRAVELERS! WE’RE OVER HALFWAY THERE!!!

After resting overnight, we were on the road once more. Traveling on US 90, Exit 131 took us right to the beginning of the Badlands Loop Road where we stopped to hike the Notch Trail.

D on a hill

D on a bigger hill

Going up!!!

Our little troglodyte - awww…

A view from the top

STOP!!!

What goes up, must come down…

Mom thought it was a good idea to take the side path after the really steep part down. 

D did it the smart way

After our hike we hopped back in the car and took in the rest of the scenery along the Badlands Loop Road. Conveniently, Loop Road ended right near Wall, home of the infamous Wall Drug! Yes, we did buy some 5c coffee, ate lunch at the Cafe, shopped a little and had some really yummy homemade ice cream. Then it was on the road again to Hill City, SD where we had a little cabin waiting for us at Trailside Park Resort. What a nice place - clean, well-equipped, and smelled like the cedar and pine it was built from. We even had our own deck and grill. What more could we ask for? A+++!!

As if we hadn’t done enough traveling for one day, we dropped our stuff, had dinner on the patio, then headed to Mount Rushmore - which was only about 15 minutes away anyway. They put on a really nice evening lighting ceremony, with a short movie explaining the background of each of the four presidents and what each of them did for our country, and a story behind the Star Spangled Banner, including a reading of the whole poem by Francis Scott Key.

All past and present military service men and women were asked to come forward to be recognized and help lower the flag.

The next day saw us up early and ready to get in the car once more, but this time we were driving to hike to Harney Peak & Little Devil’s tower. We took the long way by going through Custer State Park’s Wildlife Loop where we met some pretty cool creatures.

First bison spotting

I think the antelope were already starting to hide and get ready for a hot sunny day.

We didn’t see many of them

We met some silly burros that were busy licking cars

And were stuck in a long “Buffalo Jam”

Mama & Baby

The BIG daddy “Sir Snorts A Lot”

Traveling down Needles Highway, we spotted Cathedral Spires and stopped at Needle’s Eye. Devin & Greg, sharing in their love of rock-scrambling had to freak Mom out by going up and up and up to get a photo.

After lunch we were ready for our hike to Harney Peak, with a spur trail to Little Devil’s Tower, a 7 mile hike in all.  Probably the saddest part of the trip was how much the landscape had changed from six years ago when I was last there [R]. The Mountain Pine Beetle has caused widespread devastation to the pines. The forest service is heli-logging to keep the ground under the fallen forests clearer to lessen the danger of forest fires.

Up to Little Devil’s Tower we go!

More rock scrambling for D and G! Come back alive you two!

That was AWESOME!!!

Now, we hike THERE! See that little dark brown area at the top of the mountain in the clearing? That is Harney Peak, the tallest point in South Dakota, once used as a fire lookout tower. Let’s go hike!

Tired hikers. For his first hike Devin certainly did AWESOME! Not a blister on those tender little feet ;-) We decided to stop at Sylvan Lake for a dip and to soak our hot sweaty sore feet in the frigid waters, then it was back to Cabin Home for bed because we had another early day planned the next morning. We were going to explore Jewel Cave! We got to the cave early, having been forewarned about road construction in the are and busy times of the day. The cave tour starts at ground level, but we donned our sweatshirts and took an elevator way down into the 49 degree depths of the earth where we saw some really cool stuff: nailhead spar, dogtooth spar, boxwork, cave popcorn, flowstone, stalactites, stalagmites, draperies, a soda straw formation, and even a long ribbon drapery called cave bacon. Sure you’ll be able to tell which one that is! We spent an hour and a half going up and down, up and down, over, around and through. Super fun and beautiful!

After Jewel Cave, we had some lunch in Custer at Mac’s Grub, and had a barrel of fun with an old-time photo shoot.

Then it was time to head out on the Iron Mountain Road to Keystone, where we finally saw

some Big Horn Sheep!!!!

… a B1 Bomber flying

… and multiple views of Mt Rushmore along the way

...to pan for some gold with Rattlesnake Randy! Eureka!!!

After another full day, we had to drag Devin to do a bit of beer and wine tasting at Miner Brewing Company and Prairie Berry Winery. The next morning it was time to hit the road home.  We wanted to stop to explore around the Badlands again...and met a rattlesnake. Fortunately it was rattling from the grass and didn’t try anything funny… But that was one animal we never really expected to meet on our trip!

As a thank you to our awesome, really hot driver - who was at the wheel the entire time, despite offers of relief - Hwy 90 displayed the perfect sign for this guy!

Good good trip!

It’s a good thing we did not meet this band of hooligans while we were there!

THE END!! BAM!!!