Blogs from South Dakota, United States, North America - page 67

There is not much to write about 10 hour drives that start at 2:30pm except that you can make it faster with Western speed limits. The scenery at the beginning was pretty and as we were driving on Saturday both of us could drive. That being said, we arrived in Hill City SD at 11:00pm on Saturday night. When we awoke, it was to an already very hot sunny morning at the J Bar Ranch Campground. We gave ourselves a break and just hung around the campground (most of my earlier catch up blogs that didn’t happen in the Virginian laundry room happened here). Ed took the kids to the nice swimming pool and we just hung around because we all had pretty low energy levels. It seemed too warm to go to Mt Rushmore so ... read more

I wish I could convey the heat of this place. It's like opening an oven set around 325 degrees and crawling inside. It is also very reminiscent of the Painted Desert and Death Valley. A very cool drive around loop. I am on my way to Custer State Park to stay for 6 nights. I just left Mitchell, SD this morning after camping at Lake Mitchell campground. I did get to kayak on the lake this morning. That was nice. ... read more

Today is June 26, 2006. We're back at our river cabin in Rogersville,Al. We've travelled about 8,000 miles and spent a small fortune in fuel but we averaged over 12 mpg so I can't complain. After leaving Glacier Nat'l Park we went back down to Yellowstone to meet up with Becky and Gary and check out the north and east sides of the park for about a week. It's so huge you really need a month to see it all. Then we went to the Black Hills of SD for a few days and blasted back to bama. We're already thinking about the next trip but first of all we owe Joan and Bill big time for holding down the fort at work under trying circumstances and we're looking forward to Kelly having our first grandchild ... read more

The second leg of the train journey took us from Fraser-Winter Park to Salt Lake City. Starting in the Rocky Mountains the scenery was instantly stunning; the track weaved its way through canyons and between mountains throughout what has to be the most attractive State, Colorado. After hours of glorious rugged snow-capped mountains we started to descend and once again follow the path of the river. This eventually led us through to Glenwood Canyon, an amazingly beautiful canyon that soared high above us on both sides. The wonderful golden colours in the rock contrasted well against the lush green tree line beneath it. In the river were rafters, canoeists and fishermen. Glenwood Springs station, shortly after the canyon, looked idyllic and both Ben and I wished we had the time and money to explore this region. ... read more

We kissed goodbye to Minnesota with 70+ degree weather and clear blue skies. Heading due west, our destination 400 miles away. South Dakota is definitely not known for its mountains, hence I finished a 300 page book in the car while Josh sang along to his Johnny Cash CD(played over 3 or 4 times - we are TOTALLY out of music we haven't heard 10 times already). We also got over 400 miles to the tank!! Just passed the SD state line we saw our first billboard for Wall Drug (thanks Matt G. for the heads up, although not sure we would have ever missed it). This first billboard proclaimed that Wall Drug was waiting for us 356 miles ahead. Who puts billboards every mile for 350 miles?? Wall Drug!! After driving until dark we reached ... read more