Advertisement
Sunday, May 30, 2010: We left Cedar Bluffs, IA and drove about 9 hours from the east to the west of South Dakota through miles of open and fairly flat farmland. To tell you how rural this part of the country is, we didn't pass a McDonald's for sweet tea until after 3 in the afternoon! (Yes, Susan, we ordered up...and it was good!)
There were a few developed areas along the way including Chamberlain where I-90 crosses the Missouri River. We didn't stop, but a man named Al built an old western town on the otherwise undeveloped banks. The only other billboards along the way, and there were many, advertised the famous Wall Drug Store. Jim's parents had been asking if we were stopping in Wall; they had made the stop back in the early 1990's. We couldn't resist checking it out to see if they still offered free ice water which is apparenly how the business began to thrive during the depression years. Sure enough, Wall still offers free water since we saw it on several door signs, but we never actually saw the free water; Jim did find a 5 cent cup of coffee and Grace got some homemade ice cream. Wall's was a tourists' "must see", but we felt a little guilty about driving there, but not through the Badlands nearby. It was mid-afternoon and we were ready to make it to Custer State Park.
When we left Iowa, the skies were overcast and the temp was close to 79 degrees. As we traveled the temps dropped to the low 60's, but the skies cleared and were a beautiful open blue. At one point, there were suddenly hundreds of small, white, fluffly clounds hanging together and Isaac remarked that they looked like a herd of buffalo migrating across the skies.
We did get to see one (and only one) buffalo today. He was grazing not ten inches from the road as we entered the state park. The park is absolutely beautiful...just breath-taking! There are huge hills, some full of trees, others massive rock mountains where we expect to see mountain goats or ram at any moment. The park property has a babbling brook that wins along the roadside and ends at a picturesque lake.
We found our site in Stockade North which we'd highly recommend to other travelers. We set up camp then headed to the town of Custer to pick up firewood. While there we noticed that we were less than 10 miles from Crazy Horse and we just couldn't resist so off we went. What an amazing project! It's just incredible, this face carved in the mountainside. A dream of Indian chiefs became the life's work of an artisan sculptor and in turn it became a gift to all Americans. Though the sculptor died in 1982 before you could even recognize the face, his family has carried his work forward beyond his death. Incredibly, private donations fund all the work.
After our visit to Crazy Horse, we had a little time by the campfire, but exhaustion caught up with us and we turned in around 11 p.m.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0436s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Susan Bear
non-member comment
No McDonald's??!!
It sounds like you had a great Sunday trip to Wall and Crazy Horse! I love reading your entries. The pictures have come across beautifully! Safe travels! Susan