Blogs from South Dakota, United States, North America

Today's journey was all about one place - Badlands National Park. Although Chuck and Lucie had visited more recently, I had not been here since one of our childhood cross-continental camping trips. The park was established as a national monument in 1929, the re-designated as a national park in 1978. It consists of two units connected by a very narrow strip of land. The south unit, also known as the Stronghold Unit, is entirely on the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation, and is administered by the National Park Service under an agreement with the tribe. A separate and much smaller area, also completely on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is called the Palmer Creek Unit. Both of the south unit areas are devoid of hiking trails and paved roads, and completely undeveloped. There are talks and even nascent ... read more

All packed and waiting to go to the airport in a couple of hours. This has been such an awesome trip. Rain and cold was in the forecast for the entire time, and except for a couple of tiny showers during drive time, the weather was perfect. To top it all off, last night when we returned to the hotel after an amazing dinner (more on that later), we were treated to a magnificent thunderstorm, with rolling thunder bouncing off the granite hills and lightening fireworks filling the sky. Some of them were so bright you could see George Washington’s sculpture during flashes. Rained for a long time and this morning I woke to a brilliant, warmer weather. Makes me want to stay longer. I spent this week with a fun couple from the San Fran ... read more

South Dakota has been overall an amazing experience. The National Parks offered sights I have never imagined to be possible. To conclude my days in this state, I visited The Corn Palace in Mitchel, SD. This building has been around for long over 100 years. Every so often they change the design of the building using corn, corn husks, silk and stalks of all varieties for color variances. The building is free to enter, has much history and interesting facts. It was an enjoyable stop, in a very cute city. While banking in Mitchel, the teller told me I should check out St. Peter's Rock Grotto in Farmers, SD and De Smet, SD for top notch Laura Ingalls Wilder experience. I quickly added them to my route. Closest is Farmers and only 4 miles off the ... read more

After all that hiking at Badlands National Park, I drove into Rapid City for lunch and a walk. I chose The Firehouse Brewery because I love fire stations (and I had a 1/2 off coupon from the visitors centers). A 12z stout and loaded nachos just about put me to sleep right at the table. I was up at 3:30 a.m. to catch the sunrise and did many hikes in the sun today. The décor is top notch, the beer is great but a small selection and the food is HUGE. Before I actually do sleep on the table, I took off for a hike to see the presidential bronze statues in the downtown area and art valley where graffiti is a form of art and encouraged. Rapid City was kinda bigger than I thought, it ... read more

Today we enjoyed breakfast outside on the patio at our Holiday Inn Express in Chadron, Nebraska. I had fun showing Ed the pancake machine. It’s one that you just push a button and it makes your pancake and shoots them out on your plate! It doesn’t take much to entertain me!! I am starting to get my taste back but just certain things. Today I ate a piece of bacon that tasted like bacon. I still can’t taste coffee or many, many other foods! AND I still can’t smell!! Our goal today was South Dakota. What I love about our group is that if we see a sign for a place that looks interesting we stop or head that direction. So today we saw a sign for Wind Cave National Park so we decided we should ... read more