South Dakota, Mt Rushmore, Bad Lands, Sturgis

The Wall at The Badlands National Park

South Dakota! The land of Big Skies, Big Heads, 75 MPH speed limits and no deposit bottles.

Honey we're home! Nothing says home to a Zonie like this kind of warning:

We made an 807 mile dash from Winkler, Manitoba to a very small, friendly RV park called Whispering Winds Cottages and Campsites, just outside of Hill City and near Mt Rushmore. We have 20 more days of travel, which to me is hard to fathom. We've been doing this long enough that getting up and going somewhere has become second nature. It's almost an itch we have to scratch. Been here 4 days, time to move on.
In Washington we'll start the process of moving into our condo. I'm not sure I'm going to blog that. From past experiences I know it won't be especially pleasant or interesting. We expect that will take the month of July, then we'll take The Suitcase down to Flagstaff, visit friends and relax at KC before loading up a U-Haul for the trip back up to WA.

This isn't a very good picture, but it's what is happening outside our "front window" as I write. A thunderstorm came in earlier than expected, right around sunset. This is as close as I can make it to representing the sky I'm looking at, and it was such a pleasant surprise. It's a moment like this that reminds of why we're traveling.

So I don't see us sitting in WA for too long before I look at Peg and say "Why don't  we go someplace."

***

We know Mt Rushmore from pictures, and seeing it for the first time I expected to be impressed. I did not expect to be humbled and awed. In itself it is a remarkable achievement, and learning the history of its carving is part of the humble and awe. But it also stands for the remarkable achievements of this country and four of its great leaders. Traveling this land has made me so proud of us, the U.S. and so amazed that against so many odds we have made it this far. While I fear for our future I must remind myself that we have come through many dark times with much more rancor and discord than we now have. So I have faith. At the lighting ceremony last night I wanted to shake the shoulders of the bored or sleepy children and say "Listen to the man, understand what he is saying. Understand what these men and women have done for you! " I would get arrested if I did that. I hope that the parents who brought them here care enough to get the message through, that this isn't just another Disneyland attraction.  At the lighting ceremony they invited military members, ex-military or their representatives down onto the stage to help with the lowering of the flag and to introduce themselves. The stage was full of them.

Armed Forces members on stage

We visited Mt. Rushmore in the early a.m. and then at 9 p.m. for the lighting. In between we drove down through Custer State Park, taking the Needles Highway and ending up at the Wind Cave National Park. It is the  8th oldest park in the country, and I'd never heard of it. Peg kept calling it The Wind Tunnel. She's not crazy on caves. The known cave is something like 142 miles long, all compressed into many levels and passages within a square mile of surface area. No one knows how much more there is to it. We only did a short upper level tour. The cave is famous for boxwork rock formations. The boxwork forms from more soluble rock being dissolved away. What is left is the box like framework formed by less soluble rock. Wind Cave has some of the most extensive boxwork know.

Boxwork in Wind Cave

 It is a dry cave, so there are no stalactites or stalagmites. It is called Wind Cave because barometric pressure differences cause a wind to be blown out of or in to the cave openings. The brothers Tom and Jesse Bingham discovered it in 1881 (it had been known to Native tribes for years). The brothers  heard a whistling sound coming from a hole in the ground.  When Tom put his head to the hole the wind blew his hat off. That hole can still be seen today.

The hole that blew his hat off

The following day, Tuesday, we rode north to the towns of Lead, Spearfish, Deadwood and Sturgis. We drove up the Spearfish Canyon road and stopped at Roughlock Falls, which was the highlight of the day.

These are small falls in a pleasantly wooded canyon, perfect for hiking or picnicking. In contrast, the towns of Spearfish, Lead and especially Sturgis were all disappointing. Peg compared them all to Springerville.

The Brick Project

 Sturgis was interesting in the complete lack of anything there to attract anyone not interested in motorcycles. In one block of downtown I counted at least 6 T-shirt/souvenir shops and as many vacant storefronts. Hardly anyone was on the main  street. One interesting thing they are doing is called The Brick Project. For a donation you get a brick in the sidewalk. The brick can say just about anything, and most of them are motorcycle related, mostly heart felt loss and remembrance, but also a fair amount of  live free and die Harley jive.  It appears that the goal is to have the whole of Main Street covered in commemorative bricks.The bricks cost $75 apiece, with larger granite bricks going for $500.

 When we got back to camp we talked with Jim, the park owner, and he explained what had happened. Except for Bike Week there is nothing much going on in Sturgis. It didn't used to be that way but Bike Week vendors discovered that it was cheaper to buy the buildings on Main Street rather than rent them. They would set up shop for the festival, then leave town, closing up their buildings and leaving a hollowed out commercial area. Sturgis is fighting this by requiring some kind of permanent residence during the year. So lawyers, accountants and other professionals are buying the buildings, putting their offices in them and vacating them during Bike Week to rent to the vendors.

Grasslands and The Badlands

South Dakota surprised us by being very pretty with green rolling hills in the Black Hills area. The Badlands reminded me of the Rez. All it needed was sheeps. The grasslands butt up against the Badlands and makes for an interesting contrast. You don't expect there to be so much green in such a stark landscape. The day we visited it was rainy and foggy, which just added to the mystery. I remember many years ago a Navajo elder telling us (through an interpreter) that the dry dusty landscape we were seeing on their land was once lush pastureland when she was a child. It must have looked something like this. We were admiring the pretty yellow flowers that grew everywhere, only to learn that they are an invasive species, planted by early settlers, and are pushing out the native grasses.

I think bison are very lazy. Most of them were like this. Don't let them fool you, they are very dangerous.

These cute little critters are a major nuisance. Their holes can break the legs of cattle and horses

Also disturbing, ecologically, are the vast tracts of dead pine in the Black Hills area. There is a species of beetle which is killing the pine trees and efforts are being made to clear all the dead wood to halt the spread of the beetle. It is a heroic task when you see how much there is to be done. As you drive around you will see piles of dead wood in areas that have been cleared.

Wall Drug Backyard, a separate building from the main one, housing even more kitsch

On leaving The Badlands we had to stop at the town of Wall and Wall Drug. Wall is called Wall because a wall of rock known as The Wall runs through the Badlands for 60 miles from the town of Scenic to the town of Kadoka. Wall Drug is famous  because back in 1927 the new drug store opened by the Husteads was failing and in an attempt to get people to stop the owner's wife decided to advertise free ice water to travelers. At the time all pharmacies offered free ice water, but no one had ever thought to advertise the fact. The Husteads put up billboards on the highway. The story goes that by the time they got back to the store it was full of customers. The rest is history. Wall Drug is an amazing conglomeration of kitsch, history and commerce. There are several fascinating walls full of photographs from the 1800s.

There is a T Rex which bellows every 12 minutes. There is a waxworks display of Wild Bill Hickok in a poker game. There is even a real pharmacy.

Wall pharmacy

The pharmacy is real, but is secondary to the displays of old pharmacy memorabilia

They still serve 5 cent coffee (17 cents if you want it to go, for the cup). And the ice water is still free.
The counter at the dining room cashier is embedded with silver dollars. I asked how many were in there. The girl at the register said she didn't remember exactly but it was either 501 or 601, and each one was worth between $50 and $100. You could lift up the plastic sheeting that covered the dollars. I got my hand slapped.

The silver dollar bar

***

Jim, the park owner, says the area we're in is called the banana belt, because while it gets cold it doesn't get nearly as much snow as the town of Deadwood, 40 miles to the north. The Hill City area, where we are, gets 20 inches of snow, while Deadwood can get 200. I could live here if it stayed like this all year. But if it did it would be called California, and I wouldn't be able to afford to live here.

Wednesday is a down day, a day of laundry and rest. The rain we got tonight was supposed to come tomorrow. Our internet is spotty here, and cell service is non-existent unless you walk up the hill and hold your phone to the sky in supplication to the cell gods. So while we're in town doing laundry we'll do all our internet/cell phone stuff.

We leave Thursday morning for a Walmart overnight in Casper, Wyoming. Then we go to someplace called Grizzly for our assault on the Grand Tetons.