South Dakota (July 15 - July 19, 2021)
“Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity and how much of each to have.” - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
After visiting Devil’s Tower, Charley and I continued our tour of the Black Hills with a three-night stop in Rapid City, South Dakota. The drive from Devil’s Tower to Rapid City was refreshingly short (about an hour and a half) which gave us time to start our exploring soon after arriving in Rapid City, something we don’t normally have the time to do. After setting up camp at Rapid City RV Park (nice park but nothing to write home about) we headed toward Custer State Park. Charley had heard good things about Custer specifically that it’s on par with many National Parks in terms of beauty and wildlife so we were excited to visit. Admission to the park was $20 which is good for a week so we decided that we could and would return if we didn’t get to see and do all that we wanted to in one afternoon. We started at the visitor’s center of course and the staff there recommended that we take the 18-mile wildlife loop through the park. Perhaps our timing was way off that day because we saw very little – no bison, no bighorn sheep, no antelope, no elk. We did see a small herd of wild burros which was mildly exciting. Since we struck out on the wildlife loop, we decided to exit Custer State Park and pay a quick visit to our 15th National Park – Wind Cave. Wind Cave National Park borders Custer State Park and its entrance is about five miles away. Shortly after turning off the wildlife loop, I was so excited and surprised to see a herd of bighorn sheep grazing in a meadow! We had seen one bighorn sheep in Zion National Park but this time we saw several BIG bighorn males quite close to the road. We stopped and watched them for a bit but decided to leave when they came a little too close to our vehicle.
I feel a little guilty about actually counting Wind Cave as a “visited” National Park because the attraction at Wind Cave is actually tours through the caves. Wind Cave tours are granted on a first come first served basis and you have to get in line mighty early in the morning to get a ticket. We arrived way too late in the day to get a ticket and since neither of us had a burning desire to tour the cave (or stand in line early the next morning), we took a little while to explore the visitor’s center and museum and decided that was good enough for us.
From Wind Cave, we drove about ten miles down the road for fuel and dinner and then drove back through Custer so that we could “take the back way” to Mount Rushmore. The back way is a no-winter-maintenance, no-large-vehicles, narrow, very windy, two-lane road (sometimes one) that, if taken from Custer to Mount Rushmore, provides some incredible views of the monument – a few of them through tunnels. I’ll admit I rolled my eyes a little and wondered why we couldn’t just take the easy route but once we got to the tunnels and the payoff (those amazing views of the monument from about three miles away) I had to admit that Charley was right – it was definitely the way to go. There’s no admission fee to view Mount Rushmore but you do have to pay $10 to park. The parking voucher is good for one year which seems odd but the parking garage was nice, easy to get in and out of, and worth the expense to see the monument a little closer than we saw it through the tunnels. We didn’t stay long as it was getting dark and since we hadn’t planned to be out that late, we weren’t dressed for the falling temperatures.
On our second day in the area, we headed about an hour east to spend some time visiting our 16th National Park – the Badlands. On the way, we made two fun stops, the first being Wall Drug. Wall Drug is a bit of a tourist trap but if you’re in the area, you might as well just stop by. It started as a drug store in 1931 and has grown into a tourist destination where you can buy and do just about anything (including a visit to the chapel). In spite of the fact that we did nothing there but walk around, it was a fun little stop that we’re glad we made the time for.
After visiting Wall Drug, we made a stop at The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Visitor’s Center located just a few miles outside the entrance to The Badlands. The Minuteman Missile was the successor to the Titan Missile (we visited that museum in Arizona). Several Minuteman Missiles were placed at the ready throughout the Midwest during the Cold War. Once again, thanks to the informative video and museum displays, I learned a whole lot about American History.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve visited 16 National Parks. Even harder to believe is how unique and different they all are. Our visit to the Badlands once again left us in awe of how special each National Park is especially those that feature unique rock formations. The rock formations in the Badlands looked softer to us, like they might fall apart beneath your feet if you were to walk on them. In spite of what they look like, they’re solid and there are portions of the park where visitors are allowed to walk over and amongst rocks. It was about 95 degree on the day of our visit which seems even hotter when you’re walking on a rocky surface but we did take several minutes to explore the ridges and canyons. Beyond that, we just enjoyed a scenic drive through the park where we saw some more bighorn sheep, pronghorn, and of course, lots of prairie dogs.
Once in a while Charley and I just know we need to take a bit of a breather. Sometimes we get tired. Tired of driving, tired of figuring out where to go, tired of seeing new things (yes it’s possible). Being constantly on the go on a one or two-week vacation is a lot different than being constantly on the go for five months. Sometimes, in spite of missing out on some things, we have to take a break. We decided early on that at the end of this trip we’d have no regrets with where we went (or where we didn’t go) or what we saw (or didn’t see). We’ll never see everything. We’ll certainly never see everything that everyone else thinks we should see. It might seem crazy that we’d take a day off in an area where there are so many cool things to do but we did just that on our last day in Rapid City. We knew we needed a break so we took the day off.
After leaving Rapid City and in order to break up the drive to Nebraska, we spent one more uneventful night in South Dakota, at a KOA in Sioux Falls. It’s a good thing we took a break in South Dakota because we had tons of fun in Nebraska! More on that in the next post.
