The Black Hills

Well, today was not our best day.  The lesson learned was that we do a little better when we have a well-planned out day- playing things by ear or "winging it" doesn't really work as well for us.  I don't want to be too negative so I'll try to balance out the negatives with some positives.

We had a long and very un-scenic morning drive.  Our route took us to very remote areas of southern Wyoming and it's a good thing we didn't have car trouble- sometimes it was 30 miles or more before we saw signs of civilization.  Our lunch destination was Hot Springs, South Dakota and I had read that there were many spots in town you could access the warm water.  I thought it would be fun to picnic and dip our toes in the warm water.  Well...not knowing the layout of the town, we turned the wrong way and finally asked someone to point us in the direction of warm spring water.  We were sent a few miles out of town to Cascade Falls...no falls, no warm water.  Only a trickling stream which was not warm and big signs that warned us of poison ivy.  We had picked up Subway and did sit down to eat it at a shaded picnic table.  We left and as we headed back through the town of Hot Springs- in the direction we didn't go originally- we saw many nice places where you could picnic along the springs which I had read were 117 degrees coming out of the ground!  Oh well...we kept on going.

It wasn't too far from there that we entered the Black Hills.  Very pretty and so different than the landscape we had seen.  We were very excited to see signs warning us that we should beware of buffalo.  It wasn't long before we saw a few herds of them and this lazy guy right along the highway.
Along with buffalo, there were cute prairie dogs popping their heads up everywhere!

Because it was an area full of wildlife and a national park, the speed limit was 35 mph or slower.  Lots of slowing down to check out the view or an animal.  This made Sadie crazy, which made Evan crazy, which made Mark and I crazy.  Not a great vibe in the car as we traveled this very scenic, but very long, curvy and mountainous route through Custer National Park.   At the end, we were excited to get a great view of Mount Rushmore- our next destination.

Mount Rushmore was very cool.  Neat to see it in person.  On our way out of the park, we were excited to have a long horn sheep and it's 2 babies come right down to the road we were travelling on.

It was already nearly 6:00 ( a lot later than we had hoped) and we didn't have any hotel reservations made.  With very little phone signal, I hadn't been able to do much calling.  We were heading to Rapid City- 30 minutes away- and had a list of hotels a mile long to choose from.  I chose a Ramada that had a nice looking pool and took pets.   Not so nice.  The room reeked of smoke and it was really a dump.  We decided we couldn't stay there.  Thankfully, they let us go without charging us and we moved across the parking lot to another hotel.  Much better.

After a quick swim, we are tucked in now.  Unfortunately, we didn't get up to Sturgis and Deadwood, areas we had hoped to see.  We now have 14 hours of driving ahead of us and should probably suspend all sight seeing, except for what we view out the car window.  We really don't want to stay another night at a hotel and it will likely be 11 before we get home tomorrow night.

Oh well- I'm hopeful that a good night's sleep will refresh us and we'll enjoy seeing glimpses of the Badlands tomorrow and even hope to make a quick stop at Wall Drug or the Corn Palace.  

One more day...