Part 4: Yellowstone National Park to The Badlands, SD
Come along on our adventure through South Dakota: Four giant presidents carved into a mountain, America's favorite roadside attraction, camping in the middle of nowhere, even shooting stars across the Milky Way....
Day 13: Slough Creek Campground, Yellowstone to The State Game Lodge, Custer, SD
Drive time: 8 hours, 38 minutes; 492 miles
We said farewell to Yellowstone and headed east toward the Black Hills National Forest. We stopped in Cody, Wyoming, for lunch at the Irma Grill located in Buffalo Bill Cody's hotel which he named for his daughter.
We stretched our legs with a walk around the town before heading to the Black Hills of South Dakota where we had a reservation at the State Game Lodge in Custer. The lodge was built in 1920 and served as the "Summer White House" for Calvin Coolidge in 1927.
Day 14: The State Game Lodge, Custer, SD to The Badlands, SD
Drive time: 3 hours, 38 minutes; 191 miles
Up and out to Mount Rushmore by 8 a.m. I'm not sure why, but I wasn't particularly looking forward to our visit to this national landmark. A bunch of presidents carved into a mountainside? Sounded a bit lame -- plus I had seen photos of it. How much more of it was there to see? Well, I was wrong. It was amazing -- the grandest piece of art ever.
From there, we drove up to Deadwood in hopes of seeing some familiar landmarks from HBO series of the same name. As much as Mount Rushmore exceeded my expectations, Deadwood underachieved them. It was really dead. No sign of Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock or Al Swearengen...not even a backdrop from which to take a photo to prove that we were there.
The day picked up as we barreled along to Wall, SD, home of Wall Drug, America's favorite (according to the good folks at Wall Drugs) roadside attraction. Wall Drug has over 500 miles of billboards on Interstate 90, stretching from Minnesota to Billings, Montana. They spend an estimated $400,000 on billboards every year -- many of them promoting free water. We, along with 2 million other visitors, fell for the billboards and stopped.
The afternoon was getting away from us and we didn't know where we were going to stop for the night. Just outside of Wall was the Badlands National Park and so that where we went. It was like landing on another planet.
It looked like nothing could survive this environment. But then we came upon a herd of sheep.
As we got to the south end of the park and evening was coming on, we realized that there was a campground that we could stop at. So we did. We set up camp in the middle of nowhere. Cooked dinner and had a lovely supper.
It was one of my favorite nights of our trip....Dark comes early there and there's little to do but crawl into the tent – so it was easy to wake up in the pre-dawn morning. The clear night sky in the plains with the horizon far away in every direction has not lost its power. We hadn't seen such a sight in years: the bright constellations, the Milky Way, even a shooting star. This was once the birthright of every child on earth. It is saddening to realize that with our thoughtless night lighting pollution only a few children will ever know what it is to see such a sky and wonder about what it means.
To be continued. Stay tuned....
No comments:
Post a Comment