Blogs from South Dakota, United States, North America - page 49

Badlands Our revised plan gave us a relaxing early morning before heading out to the Badlands. We had a challenge to face as the ladies in North Dakota a few weeks back had said they believed the North Dakota Badlands were better than the South Dakota ones. Obviously, they were somewhat biased but still, it gave us pause to see what we'd think since we had already seen at least some of the North Dakota Badlands and thought they were excellent. The roads leveled out pretty quickly after leaving Rapid City. Did you hear the whining? Jerry was like - what exactly is supposed to be out here? Finally, in the distance, one could see something, though I have to admit it wasn't very obvious. Rita tried to explain that unlike the mountains you could see ... read more

JOHNNY’S JOURNEYS : SOUTH DAKOTA 1977 December 09, 1977 (Friday) I have been anticipating this trip for quite a while now. This is my first trip out west. Final exams are over and I am **ready** for Christmas vacation. Of course, any plane flight out of Montgomery, AL routes you to Atlanta, Georgia. Not much of a layover. Then our Delta flight takes us over the Midwest to the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. I have four hours in Denver, Colorado and sure won’t stay at the airport. I quickly catch a bus to downtown Denver. The area is a sea of orange. The Denver Broncos NFL football team is having a wonderful season, and there is speculation of a trip to the Super Bowl. Downtown Denver, the mile high city. First stop is ... read more

Hi - Sorry have not 'blogged' in a while, finding Internet access is a pain in north US plus we have been hectic driving from state to state and even a small detour into Canada (wasn't planned!!) Anyway - arrived in New York on time after a 12 hr flight and did a bit of shopping, visit to Broadway to see Wicked and a few drinks in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Marriott. (Dave remembered it was quite cool from your wedding Cheryl). After that we picked up our 'compact car' which is as big as a UK family car!! We then set off up to Niagara and got extremely wet, both by the falls and the non stop rain!!! From there we took a four hr detour into Canada (best way according ... read more

Wall, South Dakota: gateway to the Badlands. More importantly, home of Wall Drug. To steal a saying from the 1000 Places to See book, "Like ZsaZsa Gabour, Wall Drug is famous for being famous." It all started way back in the Great Depression, when this small town drug store was struggling along with the rest of the country. In order to bring in more people, the owners got the bright idea to advertise along the nearby interstate that they had free ice water. Soon customers were flocking in, more than they could handle. So they expanded. They soon decided that more signs would bring in more customers. American GIs in Europe took signs with them, advertising the distance from wherever they were to Wall Drug. The tradition has continued to grow, leading them to give signs ... read more

So we headed out of Cody around noon on Friday, September 5. The original plan was to hit Devil's Tower along the way. Unfortunately, we forgot to take into account the time change in which we lost an hour. In addition to being after Labor Day, and National Parks closing at earlier times, we arrived at Devil's Tower after it closed. We did see it from the highway, though. Cody got into a verbal altercation with a nasty female road construction worker, who was not doing her job in Gillette, WY, when he drove slowly past where she was standing with her back turned to us, twiddling her little flag. Apparently she didn't like this, and yelled at our rear bumper "Hey, hey, you can't drive past me!" As we had clearly already passed her, we ... read more