Vacation Day #7

Yesterday morning we all dragged out of bed, and then Pavan took the kids to the playground while I showered. Then I took advantage of the time alone in the camper to get some cleaning done...sweeping, spot cleaning the floor, washing the counters, cleaning the bathroom, etc. The thing that amazes me the most is all of the dust on everything. Driving with all the windows wide open, combined with the always present wind in the plains seems to create quite a layer of dust in the camper! The good thing is that cleaning the entire camper only takes 20 minutes, at the most!

We hit the road right at 11AM, and the first thing we did was take a wrong turn! We followed the signs that said they would take us to I-90, but about 12 miles down the road the sign to I-90 pointed up a gravel road! Well, that couldn't be right!!! So we pulled out all the maps and realized we were supposed to turn right, not left! There was nowhere to turn around, so Pavan just slowly turned us around right in the middle of the road. It's not like there was any other traffic anyway! So we headed back the other way and found our way onto the Badlands Loop...a 40 mile loop of road that takes you right through Badlands National Park. You get off I-90 at Cactus Flats and end up back on I-90 in Wall...which was perfect because we wanted to visit Wall Drug.

If you ever drive through South Dakota, I highly recommend you take the Badlands Loop and experience this amazing National Park. I cannot put into words the beauty of the Badlands. You can just imagine people hiding out in the many crevices, and the contrast between the varying landscapes is just breathtaking! As you can tell by my 150 pictures...I just couldn't seem to get enough of it! Every time we turned a corner, it was something even more beautiful than the last! The one thing I didn't count on, though, was the extreme dryness of the area. You would walk out of the camper, and could feel the moisture being sucked right out of your nose and mouth and throat! We'd get back into the camper after 20 or 30 minutes at one of the overlooks, and suck down a glass of water. We were very careful to keep the little ones hydrated!

After we left the park, it was only about 10 miles to Wall. We stopped for a couple of hours at Wall Drug, which is quite a place! I think we could have spent a couple of more hours poking around all the stores in Wall, but after lunch we headed toward Mt.Rushmore, where we knew Dad and Margaret were waiting.

All the way from Wall to Rapid City we could see some storms developing off to the north. As you can see, the contrast between the yellow prairie land and the dark sky was beautiful. We turned off I-90 just before Rapid City, following the signs to Mt.Rushmore, as our campground is on that same road, 5 miles west. It was an interesting drive in the camper, at times I felt like we should all start chanting "I think I can, I think I can", and then holding on tight as we came back down the hills. Again, the landscapes were amazing. To think that a couple of hours before we'd been in the Badlands, a dry, desert area with many canyons and wide open spaces. And now, we were in the mountains!

At one point we knew we were getting close to the area where Mt.Rushmore is located, but I wasn't prepared to round a corner and see the monument right from the road! I was shouting, all of the kids came running up to the front and we all had our noses pressed to the window! It was just amazing. We are planning to head back to Mt.Rushmore for the lighting ceremony tonight. We can catch a shuttle from the campground, or take our own cars if necessary. There is also a lighting ceremony at Crazy Horse, but it's a lot more expensive. I think we'll just visit Crazy Horse on our own during the day today.

The KOA here at Mt.Rushmore is HUGE!! We are lucky enough to be about 10 spaces down from the front gates, but the campground goes on forever! Dad and Margaret were supposedly going to be two spaces over from us, but they are actually about 5 spaces down from us, on the other side of the road. Oh well. Last night Dad had plans to grill brats and hamburgers. As soon as he got the grill going, it started to pour down rain! Not only that, but we soon discovered we were under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Flash Flood Warning, and TORNADO Warning!! We went up to the camp store to ask where we should go in case of bad weather, and were told that most severe weather breaks up when it hits the mountains...the worst we might get is huge hail!!! We ended up eating dinner in our camper, and looking through all of the pictures I've taken so far.

This morning Dad is making biscuits and gravy in his dutch oven, and then we are going to visit Crazy Horse and Custer State Park, then the lighting ceremony tonight. 

Here comes Margaret with breakfast, gotta run!

More later

Rebecca