Mount Rushmore & The Badlands

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South Dakota – home of the Sioux Indians. This state was important for me to visit as the Sioux was the first tribe of Indians my Dad was interested in. While he was in USA, he and his friend Chris Hall had a truck to deliver to the West coast. On the way they picked up a couple of Sioux hitchhiking, and Dad spent a few days in the back talking, listening and learning their way of life. I remember him, as a kid talking about Wankan Tanka (The Great Spirit) and the Rainbow Prophesy’s.

Before we visited the Indian Reservation we had two stops on the way; the first being the infamous Mt Rushmore. The drive up was pretty stunning and at the first sight of the sculpture it looked much smaller than we imagined, however once we parked up and walked a bit closer you were able to see it better. The detail was amazing and although Mary and I were bickering (hence the happy photos!), it was really good to see this iconic work of art.

Next we headed to the Badlands National Park. This was like an inverted Grand Canyon, a really weird landscape that holds some of the only remaining prairie long grass in North America and a large free roaming Buffalo herd. The first night at the campsite, a HUGE storm brewed. We quickly cooked tea and waited in the car until it had passed. It was pretty amazing and lasted for about an hour and probably the largest storm we have both seen. During the night it started up again and lasted all night (on and off)…it was mental. While laid in the tent, it was like looking at a light show outside as the lighting was constantly flashing from all directions. The rain was pouring in and our covers we soaked but all the same, when we look back it was a bit of fun!!

After a rough nights sleep we packed the wet tent up and made our way across the park to the other campground. The drive was quite eerie given the location but by the time we had got to the other side, the sun was shining so we dried out the tent and had some chill time and a small walk where we saw a rattle snake! Luckily no more storms invaded us.
The next day we packed up and went a short 4 mile walk on the Medicine Root trail; and it was HOT, HOT, HOT, but again more great scenery.

Then it was time to head for the Sioux Reservation called Pine Ridge.

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Photos

Borglum...
the sculptur

WOW Mt Rushmore
Real iconic views

Happy days..
Can you tell we had just had an argument!!

Badlands National Park
Mary was finally home

storm a brewing
The tent was surrounded by sky's like this.

Moose Drool..
Joe and Julie will appreciate this pic; good beer.

Mary has balooned..
too many hamburgers!

Rattle Snake Jake
you can see the rattle if you look closely.

Medicine Root trail
this was a 4 mile walk we did in scorching temperatures.

Comments

[julie Waters-Barcomb]

moose drool
wow! Glad you got some :)