The Badlands are NOT bad!

Badlands Panorama

The Badlands of South Dakota

We stayed with the Nobles for two days, went to the House on the Rock, had dinner one night at the Grumpy Troll—very good—and played bridge. All in all a very nice visit.

From Chicago we headed to Rapid City SD via Sioux Falls SD to visit our 49^th state and to see Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands. This is a drive, drive, drive day and a half, some 900 miles, then we’ll have a day and a half to sightsee around this southwestern corner of South Dakota. But at least on a drive, drive, drive day, it’s nice to be back in the 75mph area of the country!

Some of my random thoughts while driving 900+ miles: Why, in Martin County, Minnesota, do they have signs that say, “Welcome to Martin County, Sentenced to Serve.”? There are National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests, even National Corridors and National Scenic Rivers, and as I learned, National Memorials (Mt. Rushmore), but what on earth is a National Place?

Randy at the same spot in the badlands

I’ve started using Gasbuddy.com to find good fuel prices. I was prompted to do this by the first station we stopped at in Indiana. We were trapped on a toll road and stopped at one of the fuel centers they have on the tollway: $4.29! We couldn’t believe it because in Ohio, just a few miles previous, it was $3.79. In the Chicago area it was $4.09. And here in Rapid City there is a station selling gas for $3.33. Meanwhile the oil companies are making obscene profits. Enough. The whole topic depresses me.

Wall Drug

Right on our way to Rapid City is the famous Wall drugstore—well, I thought it was famous, it has billboards and signs literally all over the country and the world, but Randy had never heard of it. So of course we stopped and had a dreadful lunch there. And wandered around the huge store for a bit.

Corn Palace---Can you get any cornier?

Close up of the Corn Palace

Our next bit of tourist schlock was the Corn Palace, in existence since something like 1898. Every year they (the townspeople and anybody else who wants to put a hand in) decorate the entire façade of the building with corn husks, corn cobs, corn tassels, and any other part of a corn plant they want to use. Every year is a different theme; this year apparently is thanking the military.

We arrived in Rapid City at lunchtime, enough time—and in the only great weather we would have—to drive the scenic route south through Custer State Park, ending up at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial for the evening “Lighting of the Presidents” ceremony at 9pm. 

Mama Buff & Baby Buff

Climber

 

We did see wildlife on the Needles Scenic Drive and the, duh, Wildlife Scenic Route. No record breakers, but we saw wild turkey, pronghorn (not, as the AAA guidebook said, “pronghorn ANTELOPE”), deer, and buffalo as well as a few baby buffs. Buffalo (bison—or buffalo—are Bison bison and there is a subspecies of Bison bison bison) are not difficult to see, they are “cultivated” and once a year they are rounded up and “culled” from 1500 to 950. There is a huge auction in the fall and guidebooks tell us that “many” go to parks. Given the number of restaurants who offer “buffalo” burgers and steaks, I doubt that many go to parks. But buffalo burgers surely do taste good.

Mt. Rushmore is an impressive sight and our first view of the presidents was framed by a tunnel we were driving through. I wish there were a term other than “tunnel” to better describe what we drove through: the road sign warned that it was 8’4” wide and 11’ high. That is one tight fit for an SUV!

The lighting of the Presidents

We arrived at Mt. Rushmore about 7pm and wandered around for a bit, took the Walk of the Presidents (which gets you pretty close to the carvings on the mountain), ate dinner, then listened and watched the Lighting of the Presidents at 9. It seemed more like listening to a sermon in church, but it was still interesting. The ranger exhorted us to drive home carefully, asked us each to turn to our neighbor and thank him for coming, and then read some completely unintelligible poems having something to do with his life having become a train wreck. Sounds more like a church than a National Park—oops, National Memorial— to me.

Aside from the magnificence of the sculptures, the entrance buildings to the Memorial are also spectacular. I never did find out when the structures were built (they are obviously new), but it is an awe-inspiring welcome to Mt. Rushmore. But I could have done without the sermon.

Our second day was not as great weather-wise, but we made the best of it. We saw the “amazing” Thunderhead Underground Waterfall. $14 (cash only, but she said she wouldn’t charge us tax) for a 600 foot walk into a cave (actually an old gold mine) at the back of which was a 30 foot waterfall. It must be nice to have an all cash business.

Moving right along we went to Lead (LEED), SD and looked into a gold mining pit that is about ½ mile wide and 1500 feet deep. The Homestake mine in Lead was worked from the late 19^th century until (conflicting information) 1998 or 2002. I think they said it was the richest find of gold ever. Hard to believe that such a rich mine would stop, what with the price of gold and their ability to extract 98% of the gold in the ore. We even watched a little video about the company—founded by George Hearst, father of William Randolph, grandfather of Patty of Symbionese Liberation Army fame. If you didn’t live in San Francisco in the 70s you probably never even heard of Patty Hearst. Of the mining companies I’ve heard of, it seems pretty benevolent. But it did tear up the landscape pretty badly and hasn’t seemed to do much about returning any of it to its natural form. However, the people of Lead seem to have a pretty good impression of Homestake Mining Company.

There are climbers on the Tower!

I told you there were climbers!

From SD we headed to Wyoming and Devil’s Tower (from Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame). The weather there was still pretty good so we took a 1.3 mile walk around the base.

What a wonderful couple of days in the Black Hills of South Dakota! I had no idea how beautiful the scenery is in this corner of South Dakota.

You all will probably think we’re nuts, but we have decided to extend our trip a bit and go visit our daughter and her husband in Roseville, CA, about 1200 miles west from Rapid City. And we’re going north first to a National Park I never even heard of, Theodore Roosevelt NP in North Dakota (our 50^th state). Then on to Billings, through Yellowstone National Park, Jackson Hole (I hope the weather cooperates!), then Reno and on to Roseville for our son-in-law’s birthday (I don’t want to ask how old he is, it would just make ME feel old!).

(Postscript a couple of days later: the weather was rainy and thunderstorm-y as we left SD, but we had no idea how bad it would get where we had just been. The news said there were tornadoes and nasty thunderstorms in the whole Midwestern area where we had just been driving—IL, MN, WI, IA, ND, SD—in the days just after we left. We sure lucked out in missing most of that!)