Sightseeing East of Rapid City, SD

Trying to beat the heat today, Dave and I left the motorhome at 8:15 this morning for our sightseeing trip in the car.  Round-trip, we drove about 220 miles today.

First we visited The Prairie Homestead, a sod house and farm built in 1909.  For $18, homesteaders were given a land grant of 160 acres.  At least an acreage of these farms had to be tilled in order to keep the land.  Many people gave up before the allotted five years because the weather was harsh, both in the winter and the summer, and the farming was harder than they had expected.

Sod house built in 1909--soddy on the left and a later addition on the right. 

Close-up of the sod part of the house

Cacti on the roof of the soddy

The soddies had packed dirt floors.

The soddy wall

The outhouse was half-occupied.

Even the chickens had a sod coop.

Some of the current residents of the prairie homestead:

White prairie dogs were all over the place.

We visited the prairie homestead first, then back-tracked to the Minuteman Missile Site.  Click on Dave's blog to read about the Missile Site.

We stopped at the Trading Post next the Missile Site to peruse the store and have a hot dog.  We both had buffalo hot dogs, which we had never eaten.  They were good--spicier than a beef dog, but not as spicy as a Polish dog.

Buffalo dog

Then it was on to Badlands National Park.  These three sightseeing stops were all close together, which made it worth the trip east on I-90. 

It was getting hot by the time we arrived at the Badlands, so we didn't go on any of the hikes.

Our last stop of the day was in Wall, South Dakota at the iconic Wall Drug Store.  After seeing the billboards advertising this place, many tourists, including ourselves, stop to visit this place.

Once you get inside this block-long store, you find many different stores selling almost anything you might (or might not) want.  The store even has a chapel!

Dave met up with a friend.

After we each indulged in some Wall Drug Store ice cream, and Dave got his "free for veterans" donut, we headed back to Rapid City and our home-away-from home.

Crossing into South Dakota

South Dakota is a new state for both Dave and I.   We had a short drive of only sixty-some miles today.  The following picture is taken coming into the small city of Spearfish.  We'll come back here another day to explore the many things that this town has to offer.

A view of the Black Hills from Spearfish

After stopping at a very nice Walmart in Spearfish to buy a plastic embroidery hoop to use with my Redwork embroidery kit that I bought at Devils Tower, we soon reached our destination of High Plains Campground/Jack's Campers in Piedmont, South Dakota.

This is a very basic campground located behind the trailer dealership.  We were pleased to see that they Jack's Campers has a very nice camping parts store, as well as many, many trailers for sale.  Business appears to be booming!  As a service to their customer, they run a campground.  Non-customers, like we are, can stay here too.   I read a review of this place on the RV Park Reviews website. The price is right at $17/night.  We have full hookups with 50 amps, good satellite signal since there are NO trees, and excellent Verizon cell signal.  There are no restrooms, showers, or other amenities. 

Site 21

There isn't much of a view except for trailers for sale, but I did take the following pictures of the landscape behind the RV park.

 

Tomorrow, if the heat doesn't get the best of us, we're going visit The Prairie Homestead, one of the few remaining "soddy" homesteads in South Dakota.  It's located off I-90 east of Rapid City, near the Minuteman Missile Site, Badlands National Park, and the infamous Wall Drug Store.  We'll see as much of all those sites as we have time for, but due to my interest in pioneer stories, I've put the visit to the soddy at the top of the list!

Good News-Bad News

It was a good news/bad news kind of day.  We were able to hear the Supreme Court decision about the constitutionality of Obamacare before we left to see Devil's Tower this morning.

The good news:  the commerce part of the mandate was struck down. People cheered.

The bad news:  the mandate was deemed constitutional as long as it's treated as a tax.  People didn't cheer.

Good news:  We saw many prairie dogs at Devil's Tower.

The good news:  We really liked Devil's Tower.  We got there early enough to get a parking spot.  We did the 1.3 mile hike around the tower and survived to tell the tale. 

What a great view of Devil's Tower! 

More good news:  I have been looking for quilt kits featuring Redwork embroidery.  I found one at the Devil's Tower visitors center.  What a good souvenir!  It came as a kit with the embroidery floss and needle included.  The kit is part of a series called "America the Beautiful Redwork Series", so maybe I can find some more kits featuring some of our favorite national parks, and sew them all into a wall hanging. 

The only bad news at Devils Tower was that it was hot and the hike was at an elevation of over 4200 feet.

Proof that we were there!

We saw several sets of climbers

The good news is that we did the 2-hour scenic drive around the Devil's Tower area.  We decided not to take our lunch with us because we thought it was too hot to eat outside.  We stopped for lunch at Cindy B's Cafe in the very small town of Aladdin (15 residents).  We both had the home-made hamburgers and fries.  The prices were high, but not too bad considering the town is out in the middle of nowhere and has no competition for miles around.  I also visited the 115-year-old general store next door. 

The bad news:  Cindy B's air conditioner was broken and they did not have any fans set up in the room we ate in.  We were already hot from our walk at Devil's Tower, and then when our hot food came, the lack of air conditioning just made us hotter.

They weren't kidding when they advertised "hot food"!

The good news:  After lunch we continued on the scenic drive.  It wasn't far to the Vore Buffalo Jump site near the town of Beulah.

The bad news:  We were greatly disappointed in the site.  It cost $5 per person to walk over to the site and look down.  Dave decided to forgo the view and went back to the car.  I wanted to see the site, so I paid the five dollars.  When I looked down, all I saw was a metal building with a metal roof, where they evidently do the archeological work. 

Archeology Site

We had been to Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump in Alberta, Canada in 2001 and we were expecting this site to be similar.  It wasn't.  Don't waste your time or money unless you like peering at an archeological site where you can't see anything and where no one is working.

The good news:  We didn't have far back to Sundance and our air conditioned motorhome was waiting for us.

More good news:  The RV park's small swimming pool was empty and inviting. 

The bad news:  The steps down to the pool area had just been painted and I would have had to walk quite a ways (in the heat) along a gravel road to get to the pool.  No, thanks.

The good news:  Our large RV shower was ready and waiting for me to jump in and cool off.

So there you have it, our good/bad day and it's still only three o'clock!

First, a Visit to Little Bighorn Battlefield, then Arrival in Sundance, Wyoming

Today's travel day was spent in the haze of a fire--where the fire was coming from, we don't know.  We didn't see any flames, but we could smell the fire.  When we got to Gillette, WY, the sky cleared and the fire haze disappeared, along with the smell. 

Gas was $3.39 in Gillette, so we decided to gas up before we got to Sundance, a wise choice since the price was at least ten cents higher in Sundance.  Love that Gas Buddy app for our Droid phones!

The other Droid phone app that we have been using a lot on this trip (we use it at home, too) is Weather Bug.  It helps to know what the forecast is for all these areas we are passing through.  Both apps are free!

We arrived at Mountain View RV Park in Sundance, Wyoming a little after 3:30 pm.  We were soon parked in our site with the air conditioning on.  The temperature was a tolerable 85 degrees with some wind.  We are glad that we'll be here two nights--we are tired of arriving somewhere new each night!

Site 44

After the fire haze lifted we were able to enjoy the vistas in Wyoming.

This picture was taken while we were in the fire haze.  Are these the smoky mountains? ;-)

It worked out well to visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Historic Site this morning while the temperature was cool.  We didn't have time to take the audio drive around the park, but we saw some of the highlights. 

The Custer's Last Stand Memorial

The graveyard at the Memorial

The Visitor's Center

The Veterans Cemetery

I'm glad we made time to visit this sobering, yet now peaceful part of American history.

Deer Lodge, MT to Hardin, MT

Today was another hot one.  It was windy as well as hot, which didn't make for a good travel day.  But we didn't see any accidents today and we are safe and sound tonight, so I am thankful for our blessings.

Today we drove past the three B cities:  Butte, Bozeman, and Billings.  Some day I would like to make time to visit each of these cities.  When we're in the motorhome towing a car, we whiz on by cities, but I enjoy visiting cities when we are staying near enough.  Also, a note to ourselves to allow an extra day to acclimate to a new time zone.  We only lost an hour when we entered the Mountain Time Zone, but it affects us more than we realize, especially now that it's the second day. 

When we got to Grandview RV Park in Hardin, Montana this afternoon, the temperature was 107 degrees.  The humidity was low, but it still felt hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.  Now at 9 pm, the temperature is down to 83. 

I checked out the town of Hardin, but I must admit that I wasn't too impressed.  It seemed like a good town for a bike ride because the streets were wide and flat and the RV park was close to town, but the town had a lot of empty storefronts and seemed economically depressed. 

I was very glad to get back to the air-conditioned motorhome!  Times like this are when we are very glad we have two air conditioners.  I know, we're spoiled. 

Today's pictures show the many bugs that we picked up on our drive today.  Dave washed the front window, but we had gone no more than 30 miles before it was all bugged up again.

The terrain of this part of Montana was quite varied.

The haze from fires in the distance was evident and we could smell fire for a while.

We saw this sign at a rest area east of Bozeman:

Tomorrow, if it's cool enough in the morning, we'll visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield and then head on our way to Sundance, Wyoming and a visit to Devil's Tower.  We are hoping that the high temperatures will abate!