Our westward trail has ended. Checked out of our hotel in Rapid City this mornng and started heading east. Destination: the Badlands!
There are a million words to describe the Badlands. The first two are MUST SEE. Seriously, after all the sights we've seen up close and far away on this trip, this rocky landscape was the most amazing natural landmark I have ever seen-- if you can call thousands of acres just one "landmark."
There are a few routes to take in the park. The one we traveled covered 20-some miles and only took us 4 hours or so to complete. If you want to know why we could practically stop every half mile to look and take photos, you'll have to go.
While a cursory description would say these are just varying rock formations, that doesn't cut it. As we traversed the paved part of the park, our elevation changed constantly and, subsequently gave us changing view and angles and general scenery. Sometimes green prairie grass swaying in today's high winds and sometimes tall rocks or deep canyons and sometimes a mixture of both.
Naturally we didn't dare break any laws today -- especially veering off any paths! Not worth it for ANY photo!
Mom checking out the scenery from one of our first of many lookouts.
Tell me again why I bothered curling my hair this morning only to put a hat on in the gale-force winds?!
So many neat layers within rock layers. Awesome. Rain held off but sun only came out occasionally to change the view by the second.
I was totally enamored with the stripes on the rocks. All even heights and widths. All matching shades from rock to rock. Just don't know how it's formed that way, but I am going to read up on that. Such an amazing natural creation! wow.
At sunrise or sunset, or even a full moon as a backdrop, so many of the rocks looked like they could be city skylines.
We did not seei any buffalo roaming on the range, but we saw these big horn sheep scaling the rocks. I thought they were mountain goats but my nephew, who hunts out in this neck of the woods, corrected me. How would I know? I'm the tourist who got excited when we saw big fat black cows and thought they were buffalo!
After our long tour ended, we continued east and stopped in a little town called Kadoka for lunch at a little cafe. We then continued to Mitchell, S.D., home of the world's one and only Corn Palace.
The bad news is that it is under major construction so there were only a handful of "artistic" images on display.
It should be pretty darn cool when it is done since it is honoring 100 years, I believe. The good news is they did have some nice displays on the inside and a handful outside on just one side of the building.
Pretty cool artistry with corn cobs, isn't it? Kind of a tourist trap, really, but worth stopping by.(says the professional tourist).
Here I am hanging out with the Palace Guard. He was teaching me corny jokes. Naturally, I was all ears!
After our quick stop in Mitchell, we laid on the gas (within legal range) and made it to Sioux Falls by nightfall. Stopped at Sonic to eat. Yay. Loved that place when we went there on our mission trip last summer. Just don't have them around home at all.
That Coconut Cream Pie shake will have to last me indefinitely..Not that I won't have some ice cream of some sort in the meantime.
This tourist is still on vacation, after all!
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