THE BADLANDS and BEYOND

I took my bad boy through the Badlands today. What a timeless place! Layers and layers of sedimentary rock laid down over eons—then carved into sand castle shapes by the relentless wind! Life must be very hard in the Badlands – one hot mother in the summer; one long, cold winter. And the wind blows all year long.  Awesomely beautiful. Great place to visit. Wouldn’t want to live there.

Next stop: Wall Drug for ice cream!  A quick stop was pretty much all we did as there were gaggles of tourists flocking to see of the zillions of gift shops and trinkets – so many people it felt very claustrophophic!  We ate our ice cream and got the heck out of there!  Next was a quick look in the Wall Harley Shop for a T-shirt for Norm, but no luck.  All were fairly ‘gaudy’ and he decided against getting one so we drove on down the road to…. 

   Mount Rushmore!  We arrived about 30 minutes before they closed so we didn’t bother to go inside, just stopped at a scenic  overlook and took a few snaps then headed on down the road to Deadwood passing scads of ‘tourists traps’ along the way. This area has really gown up since our last visit. Then we had trouble finding a motel – now the road is lined with them and also tourist’s shops after shops.  Today casinos, motels, Prairie Dog Farms, Christmas Stores, Go-Kart tracks – you name it, line the streets.  It reminded me of the first time we returned to Angenguo, Mexico to see the Monarchs. The single bumpy, dirt road with one ‘shack’ gift shop at the sanctuary entrance had morphed into a wide, paved road lined with tienda after tienda  offering ‘junky trinkets’ to all who visited. My recommendation: If you go to Mount Rushmore go ‘off season.’  Hopefully, you’ll miss the hoards of cars and people scurrying everywhere. No one can say Americans aren’t staying home to vacation this year, but we’ve noticed I-90 seems sparse with traffic so maybe gas prices are keeping everyone on cacation close to home.

Leaving Mount Rushmore we drove to Deadwood in search of dinner, but although it looked like a sweet little town, it too had grown into a tourist trap: LOTS of stores and LITTLE parking! We’ve been very careful all along this trip not to get ourselves into a parking situation we can’t get out of , so we just drove through Deadwood and continued on down the road to Spearfish, S.D. where we spent our first night aboard Proud May in a nice little campgroup at the edge of town.  The campground  was full to the gills with folks, yet surprisingly quiet.  It rained cats-n-dogs in the night, but we were snug as a couple of bugs in our nest on Proud Mary. 

Another great day on the road….And the beat goes on…

~Nancy

Wander a whole summer if you can. Thousands of God's blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. ~ John Muir

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