Blogs from South Dakota, United States, North America - page 55

South Dakota today. The prairies really are unending. Two scenic overlooks in 450 miles and the views were spectacular, one particularly awesome. Again the weather was spectacular; 77 to 80 degrees but with the windows opened and no air conditioner ruunning, we were very comfortable. The air here is really clean and, well . . . sweet. And the wind blows almost constantly. We lunched at a road side rest area comfortably in a constant light breeze. The ranches are huge and the grain silos and hay bales are everywhere. The cattle are the healthiest looking beef and dairy cattle that I can ever remember seeing. The soil is black and probably could grow concrete if there were seeds for it! At Mitchell we found the world's only Corn Palace. The building is decorated each year ... read more

Monday, June 16th: Well, the car needed an oil change and since Lewis was the first one up, he took care of it. Really, he was nearly back before Bethany and I were even out of bed. The three of us grabbed breakfast in the hotel and hit the road. The goal of today was to get on over to Custer, South Dakota, which is just spitting distance from Mount Rushmore. Really just a nice, long drive today. The coolest part of the drive was our accidental discovery of a monument to Abraham Lincoln on I-80 (formerly US-30), known as the “Lincoln Highway” as it was the first road to traverse the continent from coast to coast. It was a big bust of Lincoln atop a stone base at the highest point of the highway. Completely ... read more

Our next motel appeared in the form of a studio style with kitchen etc. for the bargain price of $41.99 our cheapest digs so far in America all with the help of a little voucher in a coupon book, our new accommodation bible! This was just on the outskirts of Denver which is the mile high city as it is officialy 1 mile above sea level (well what else did you think we meant). After settling in we headed into the city centre to see what we could do for a couple of days as our room was soooo nice and Denver has a backdrop of the snow capped rocky mountains it was surely too nice to leave too soon. We managed to park for free and headed to the tourist info along a nice pedestrianised ... read more

Last night was a first for us, it was our very first night spent at a camp ground! I think we all went into mini comas when our heads hit the pillows because the next day nobody could remember falling asleep. We've been going non-stop since we left Stockbridge and it was nice to settle in somewhere and get some good sleep. We got up bright and early and headed for the "community showers". This was a new experience for us and I wasn't sure how it would go. We get to the building and the shower stalls are not divided into male/female rooms. Everybody gets to shower in the same building and in the same stalls. Me and girls decided we didn't really like this much plus the stalls were really small and we had ... read more

We had planned to stay at Oahe Downriver State Park until June 15, 2008, but because of the mounting cost of fuel, we decided to leave early; so we departed Oahe Monday, May 19, 2008 and headed to Deadwood, South Dakota. If fuel continues to rise, as is expected, we were concerned that if we stayed at Oahe for another month before we continued traveling if was going to start to get very expensive. We have already canceled our trip to Alaska because of the high cost of fuel, which is very disappointing. The drive to Deadwood was not too long and we arrived the same day. We stayed at Fish n' Fry RV Park, a very nice, although small park. It is an older park, therefore, the sites are quite close together. We met the ... read more