Driving northeast from Cheyenne we were glad to be going back to South Dakota. We were originally going to be in the Black Hills prior to going to Colorado. Due to poor planning on our part and not realizing that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was going to be going on the exact same time that we were going to be there we had decided to bypass it for 2 weeks before going back. Now though we were on the road to Mount Rushmore. The drive to the Black Hills from Cheyenne isn’t exactly mind blowing. You pass small towns and field after field of brown grass with cows grazing. The only really interesting feature was that it was almost solar eclipse time so almost every field that we passed and small 3 building town that we drove through had signs advertising people to camp on their land. They were all trying to cash in. In the small towns this was especially evident. In the little parking areas where I’m sure there has never been a parking meter there were signs saying $20-$30 parking on eclipse day. It was pretty nuts.
After a few hours we crossed into South Dakota and little by little the hills started to appear. They start slowly at first and are not nearly as big as mountains but compared to the relative flatness around them it’s easy to see an elevation change. They are called the Black Hills due to the ponderosa pine trees that dominate the region. They have a very dark reddish/black bark that at dusk and into the night make the trees look black. We arrived a little early to check in to our campsite so we stopped at the town of Custer on the southern edge of the hills. The town really tries to play up the old west theme and it sure got us. We stopped into a saloon that said that it was the oldest in the area and had a beer before walking around the rest of the town. It was pretty neat walking around and looking at the hills around us filled with trees after being in Cheyenne, which had none. Being from the east coast where trees are taken for granted, coming out west is a different story. Not every place has them so when we are in an area with them we’re pretty happy.
After a few hours we drove further into the Black Hills to Hill City, which was our home base for the next 5 days. We checked into our KOA Campground (which is huge) and made dinner. While checking in we were told that on the grounds there is a rodeo and tonight just happened to be one of the monthly rodeos that guests could attend for free. We didn’t think much of it and continued to our site making dinner. A few hours later we could hear a loudspeaker go off constantly…the rodeo was on. We walked over to the rodeo area (it was in a very western sounding part of the grounds called Palmer Gulch) and watched. The rodeo had everything from bull riding to horse barrel racing and more. They even had kids doing it. Some were pretty good at maneuvering their horse while some….well it was their first time so they got an A+ for trying. It turned out to be a really good time and we were glad that we walked over to see what the big fuss was all about.
The next day we woke up excited for the day. We were actually going to leave the Black Hills for the day and go east to Badlands National Park with a stop in Wall, SD first. While Wall might be just a speck on the map if you have ever driven on I-90 coming east or west through South Dakota then you know of Wall Drug Store. For literally hundreds of miles in either direction there are signs for Wall Drug. These signs promote everything from free ice water and 5 cent coffee to its food, shopping and even dinosaurs. This place literally has everything. We had seen a few of the signs weeks early when we were in central South Dakota and even the day before hours away in Wyoming but now going east toward the small town there was one or more every single mile. Julie was sitting in the passenger seat loving it, trying to take a picture of every single sign. She must have taken at least 100 pictures of signs in the hour or so it took to get there. Finally though we arrived. Wall Drug store takes up almost half of this little town and there were a lot of people so we found a bigger parking lot to park in. To our surprise we found an RV that looked exactly like our Bubbles. It was the same model, same color, same everything. The only difference was that it had California plates on it. We parked next to it hoping that we would meet the owners. From there we walked into Wall Drug. You can get almost everything in this store. From cowboy boots, shirts, hats to even your actual prescription drugs it has everything. It even has an old west town where you can pan for gold. We walked around for a long while picking out a few things before making our purchase and getting back to Bubbles. Bubbles twin was gone so we knew that they had seen ours. That made us pretty happy.
Next up for the day was Badlands National Park. Badlands was only about 20 minutes south of Wall so it didn’t take too much time to get there. The neat thing about this park is that there are just ranches and grasslands around it so it’s pretty amazing when you first see it. The park got the name “Badlands” from native people as well as French Fur Trappers who said that the land was bad to travel through. Today the paved loop takes you 23 miles on top of and through the park. The park showcases soft rock that over millions of years have eroded due to wind & water. What is left is amazing mountains and valleys of red, white, brown and grey rock in different shades and forms. It really looks like a portion of the planet mars was set down in western South Dakota. We slowly meandered though the park stopping at overlooks and taking short hikes. We even saw a few buffalo in the distance chewing on some of the grass. It was really neat. As we were nearing the end of the park we stopped at one of the bigger overlooks and to our surprise we saw Bubbles twin from earlier at Wall Drug. We parked next to it and the owners had just finished looking at the sights and were on their way back to their van. We spoke for a bit and found that they were from Northern California and were returning back west from a trip to the Canadian side of Lake Erie spending time with family. We complimented each other’s sense of style with vehicles before continuing on to the visitor’s center then leaving the park. From a suggestion by one of the employees at Wall Drug we took a back way back towards Rapid City and the Black Hills. This was a 2-lane road that took us through the South Dakota countryside completely different than the Wall Drug lined I-90. We drove past cow pastures and tiny towns before reaching the comparative metropolis of Rapid City. We stopped for some coffee before heading back to the KOA in Hill City for the night. It was an awesome day.
Next up….. Part 2 of the Black Hills. The eclipse, monuments and an old train.
