Day 5 – South Dakota

Miles traveled: 402
Hours on Road: 13.5
States covered: 1 – South Dakota

I’m done with the theme idea. I just wanted to make a point that for the first three days there were storms.

This country is awesome. In the past five days, we’ve gone from the green, lush, heavily treed mountains, hills and valleys of New England and Pennsylvania, to the flat cornfields of Ohio and Indiana (where the only trees to be found are in oasis-like clumps with a house and barn in the center), to the deep green, rolling hills of Minnesota (where, according to Cal, the pattern is cornfield, farm, bridge, cornfield, farm, bridge), back to mountains, hills and valleys that have almost no trees and where the fields vary in color from the deep green of Minnesota to the yellow color of hay, on to barren Badlands and ending with coniferous mountains where safety on the winding roads seems secondary to maintaining an unreasonable speed limit. Awesome!!!

We got up early again. Parker tried the showers first (he was so greasy he couldn’t wait until after breakfast), but the water wasn’t turned on yet, so he wound up having to wait. The night was exceedingly windy – we were right on the water’s edge – but it didn’t rain. Everyone had a great night’s sleep. After breakfast we packed up, showered, and were on the road. Before leaving, however, Parker spun Cal and Trey really fast on one of those spinny playground things, and Cal felt sick for the rest of the day.

Once again, a 75 mph speed limit where I didn’t go over 68. What’s happening to me? We stopped at a rest stop that turned out to be a kind of museum to Lewis and Clark and was located right on the Missouri River. (Did I neglect to mention that we crossed the Mississippi River the day we drove through Minnesota?) The Missouri River was beautiful! The woman at the welcome counter planned out our entire day for us, and even gave us a map on which she marked our path. What luck that we had stopped there because, while I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, she gave us a specific itinerary, including which direction to go around a scenic loop. Plus, her directions included seeing wild bison. The bison were going to be the highlight of Parker’s day.

The ride was uneventful again. There aren’t many people on the road, and those who are drive fast. No problem there. We went from eastern South Dakota, which was hilly and treeless, to western South Dakota, which first contains the barren Badlands and then turns into coniferous forest on giant mountains – can you say the Black Hills?

The boys were stunned that cows appeared to be randomly wandering throughout the miles and miles of grassy hills along the highway. There never seemed to be a house in sight, but there were cows. It was also billboard heaven along Route 90. There were sections of road that had dozens; it was often hard to read them all going as fast as we were going. One sign was for a restaurant that offered bison burgers. Parker wanted to know what kind of “sick freak” would eat a bison. I guess when he likes an animal it shouldn’t be eaten.

When we made the turn onto the highway to head toward the Badlands, we could see some rocky cliffs off in the distance. But nothing prepared us for the magnificence of the place. Suddenly, there in front of us was mile after mile of multicolored rock, some rising above the land, or as Cal said, “Like the Grand Canyon, but up,” and some dug deep into the earth. We bought our America the Beautiful pass at this park, and it will take us to all the other national parks, monuments, and forests we go to.

We got out of the car several times to walk around, always noticing the signs that warned of the presence of rattle snakes. It was very hot, but the breeze made it bearable, since there seemed to be no humidity. The area just went on and on. How the geology of the area could be so vastly different from the surrounding areas is mind-boggling.


After we finished with the Badlands, we headed for the scenic road that the woman at the rest stop had told us to follow. What I hadn’t realized at the time was that the road actually wound through the Black Hills. Our first stop was the Crazy Horse monument. The construction is paid for solely through donations and the cost of visiting the site as well as the sale of souvenirs, that’s why it cost $27 to get in. Mt. Rushmore was only $10 because it’s a national monument. Crazy Horse’s face is the only completed portion. They’ve blasted away tons of rock to start working on his arm, which points forward, and the horse’s head. It’s going to be unbelievable when it’s completed, but I’ll never see it in my lifetime. It’s so huge that all four faces of Mt. Rushmore can fit on Crazy Horse’s face. We wandered around for quite a while.

Next we headed toward Custer State Park, where the bison roam wild. We drove and drove and drove, but no bison. Toward the end of the loop we finally saw one big guy sitting very close to the road, and while after that was a herd, but it was so far off in the distance it wasn’t very visible.

After the park ended we headed toward Mt. Rushmore. We had to pass our campsite on the way and, since it was getting late (around 7 p.m. by this time), we stopped and checked in, though we didn’t set up the tent. We then drove right over the Black Hills on our way to Mt. Rushmore. About one mile into the drive there appeared to be a traffic jam. What was causing the jam? A herd of bison, right next to the road. Some were only 20 feet from the car. Parker took dozens of photos.

We were so excited about having seen the bison, I didn’t realize just what a crazy road I was on until it was too late to do anything about it. The road was so severe that we’d go 50 feet and have to do a complete u-turn for the switchback, then we’d go 50 feet again and do another u-turn. This went on for 13 miles – up the mountain and back down. There were times that the u-turns were so tight, there’s no way two cars going two different directions could have passed at the same time. Often the inside section of the turn would have about a two-foot drop-off, and the outside of it, while occasionally having a guardrail, often had a 100 foot drop-off. Some switchbacks were so tight, they couldn’t even use the mountain itself but had to build bridges to accommodate the turn, and when the mountain got in the way, they blasted a hole large enough for one-way traffic, so you had to honk before passing through. It was wild!! My fear of heights tried to get the better of me, but you gotta do what you gotta do, and I’m the only one in the car who could drive. So I drove. The worst part is that I had to repeat the drive later that night when we headed home after dinner.

Mount Rushmore was incredible. I had never realized that Teddy was tucked in the back and that George was sticking so far out in front. He also has a shirt and tie blasted into the rock. I also hadn’t realized that Abe was facing in a different direction from the others. Trey and I walked the Presidential Walk and got some close-up views up presidents’ noses. Definitely a cool sight. But my knee gave out as we walked back. There were lots of steps we had to walk down, and my knee got a shooting pain, like an ice-pick jabbing into the outside of my knee, every time I bent it. Trey showed me a way to hop down, and we made it to the bottom where the artist’s studio was located. Then we had to walk back up to where Parker and Cal were waiting for us. Luckily, the motion of stepping up did not hurt at all.

We were starving by this time, but I didn’t want to spend any more money. I had bought groceries for cooking dinner, and that’s what I planned to do. The boys requested we go out to eat, so I told them that if they paid, we could go out. So we did. The drive back over the Black Hills was not as bad. I think I was just too tired to care any longer. When we finally got back to the campsite and set up the tent, we all crashed pretty fast. It got cold that night, but it never rained!

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