The End

September 5

We are in Elkhart, IN until Sept. 9 when we will check in at the SMART National Muster in Goshen, IN.  We spent 4 fun days in Peoria, IL visiting with our friends, Rick and Jude.   Saw a fun movie with Jude....HOPE SPRINGS.  

Since the sightseeing part of the trip is about over, I am closing out this blog.  I really appreciate all of you who have traveled with us this year, and especially those who have given me feedback on the blog.  It has been fun traveling with you.   Stay tuned to see where we venture next year!

August 27-30

August 27

We stayed in Wall another day just to rest and shop.  We drove back to Rapid City to go to Ellsworth AFB only to find that the commissary is closed on Monday!  On the bright side, I was able to get a $12.50 haircut in the salon on base.  After a visit to the BX and the Class Six store (liquor store), we found the Sam's that we were unable to find the other day.  We found the booze there @ $8.00 less than on base...who knew!

August 28

We drove on to Sioux Falls, SD today and are camped at a very nice KOA.   On the way here we stopped at Mitchell SD to see the famous Corn Palace....a convention center with designs made out of corn!  Well, I saw it anyway...Steve elected to remain on the bus with the dogs.  The designs are very intricate like mosaics, and you have to look closely to see that they are made from corn cobs, corn husks, and just plain corn.  I was most impressed by the design of a football player since he was wearing # 15--it had to be Tim Tebow!

Basketball court with corn murals 

Mt. Rushmore in corn

Corn Palace, outside

Gotta be Tim!

Corny but cute. 

 We also visited the huge Cabela's Store in Mitchell (Steve did not stay on the bus).

Cabela's

August 29

We are still in Sioux Falls, which seems to be a very nice city.   I spent some time at the pool in the campground while Steve worried about the refrigerator which seems to be getting warmer by the minute.  We drove downtown after dinner to see Falls Park, which is very pretty, especially from atop the observation tower at the Visitor's Center.

  The falls on the Sioux River are not as huge as they are in postcards because there hasn't been much rain this summer, but this is a very nice park anyway.  We rode the free trolley downtown to see the Sculpture Walk.  There were some very interesting sculptures and some that were a bit bizarre.

I pledge allegiance....

Pioneer mom/Indian mom and their daughters

My fav

  We hiked back to the Falls Park, but were too early for the laser show, so we headed on home to the dogs after I wet my feet int he Sioux River.

The fridge was still warm, so we ran out to Wal-Mart and bought a small refrigerator/freezer which now sits in the way in the aisle of the RV, but saves our food.

August 30

We are finally out of SD and into IA.   We stopped at another KOA, but wow, this one is really different from the last one!   We stayed at the first KOA in Billings, MT near the beginning of this trip, and now I think we stayed at the newest one here in Waterloo.  It is still under construction and will be very nice one day, but it is very basic now.  The water, sewer, electricity (50 amp), and wifi are great, but there is nothing else.   No pool, no dumpster, no map, no propane, etc.   There is a 15 acre lake with about a million geese on it.  Corky had a good swim, but the geese were not happy with her being there. Steve feared for her safety from them and kept her well away.

PS.  the refrigerator seems to be working, but we don't trust it!

Tomorrow we head for Peoria, IL and hope to see our friends, Rick and Jude, again.

Badlands,Grasslands, Missiles, and Wall Drug

August 26

Busy Day!  

We only traveled about 110 miles to our new campsite in Wall, SD, but the rest of the day was chock full of sightseeing.

We started by driving the loop road through Badlands National Park, which had some of the most geologically inspiring scenery of this whole trip!  The landscapes were awesome!  The Buffalo Gap National Grassland meets the multicolored peaks and valleys of the Badlands here, and the combination is breathtaking.  We were greeted by big horn sheep, prairie dogs, prong horns, and bison at various points in the park.

Prong Horn on the Grassland

Big Horn Sheep

Crossing in front of the Jeep

Sun bathing

 Each overlook presented a view more spectacular than the last.  This park is the largest expanse of protected prairie ecosystem in the National Park System and is one of the world's richest  mammal fossil beds.

The Visitor's Center for Badlands NP was very interesting and informative and had a great movie.

Next we stopped at the Minuteman Missile National Monument to learn about America's ICBM capabilities during the cold war and our capacity for defense today.  We got to see one of the 150 missiles that were distributed throughout SD, each one capable of destroying a Russian location with an H-Bomb in less than 30 minutes from launch.  It was a fascinating tour.

Chair that the guy who pushed the button sat in....

Launch Facility Delta-09

Minuteman Missile

Site Delta-09

Having seen these sights, I had several thoughts to consider.  One is that I don't understand why they call this the Badlands when it is so beautiful.  Two, perhaps if I had been traveling here in a covered wagon, I may not have found the area so attractive.  Three, the white men of the 19th century really should have been ashamed of how they treated the Native Americans.  Just saying.

We stopped by the Grasslands Visitor Center too, and found out that those adorable little prairie dogs can carry PLAGUE!  Yikes!   They are still cute.

Finally, we visited the famous tourist trap, Wall Drug Store which is 2 blocks from our campground.  WOW.  If there is any souvenir junk that you can't find there, then you don't need it.

Steve having a great time...(not)

Riding a Jackalope.  

Deadwood, Sturgis, and Crazy Horse

 August 25

We decided to take the dogs with us on our sightseeing trip today.   We headed for Deadwood first, and were surprised to find a bustling tourist town full of casinos and hotels.  We happened to arrive in the middle of  the "Kool Deadwood Nites" festival which is a gathering of about a trillion antique vehicles for show and for sale.  We have been seeing them on the roads everywhere but here they were in force!  Steve's eyes were bugging out of his head!   The traffic was horrific and there was no parking anywhere, so we did not even get to go up to Boot Hill to see Wild Bill Hickok's grave!  All we wanted to do was get out of that traffic!

So we finally found our way out of town and headed toward Sturgis.

 As we came into town we had fond thoughts of our motorcycle friends and regrets that we never made it here with Gordon or Douglass and Erik.  We stopped at the Sturgis Harley-Davidson shop to pick up a t-shirt for a friend, then headed out to see where much of the action takes place during Bike Week.  WOW.

We stopped first at the Full Throttle Saloon, which simply defies description!

Sculpture at the Full Throttle Saloon

Also at the Full Throttle.

A little further down the road was the Buffalo Chip which is where we are told that hundreds (thousands?) of bikers congregate during bike week.  We missed it by about 10 days, but I don't know if Steve and I could have handled it, RVers that we are!  Sturgis is cool!

We drove out to Bear Butte to see the State Park and photograph some bison,  then to the campground as the dogs had had enough of the backseat of the Jeep (can you relate, Gary and Barb?) and we had had enough of them.

Bear Butte

Back at the campground, we dropped the dogs, rested a while, then went to see the light show at the Crazy Horse Monument.  The Visitor's Center is very informative with a film, models of the sculpture 1/34 of the finished size, a museum, gift store, and sculptor's studio.

How the finished sculpture will look.

The monument has been worked on since 1948, and all that is done is the face of Crazy Horse!   I don't think it will be finished in my lifetime.  However, it is a huge undertaking, and when completed will be much bigger than Mt. Rushmore.  In fact, all 4 presidents would fit in the space that will be the head of the horse in this monument.  When finished, it will be the largest sculpture in the world at 641 feet wide and 563 feet high.

All that is completed so far. 

Model of what the finished statue will look like. 

Almost time for the light show. 

The light show was pretty spectacular.  It is projected on the side of the mountain using 3 of the largest lasers in the world, an 8,800 watt stereo system throughout the complex, twenty-five 2,000 watt lights in light banks around the mountain, and 3 of the world's largest slide projectors.  We enjoyed it very much.

Caves in the Black Hills

August 24

Dog tooth spar--Jewel Cave

In Jewel Cave

Hiking at Jewel Cave

This was our day for caves!   We started by taking the long, beautiful drive through Custer City to the Jewel Cave National Monument.  This is the 2nd longest cave in the world (Mammoth Cave in KY is the longest) at 162 miles.  Jewel Cave is named for its many rooms and passages covered with jewel-like crystals that sparkle like gems when illuminated.   Most of the calcite crystal formations are known as dogtooth spar and nailhead spar, and this cave has the most extensive display of them yet discovered.  It was a very interesting cave, and we also took a nice hike on the park trails while we waited for our tour.

Jewel Cave

Popcorn formation-Wind Cave

After leaving Jewel Cave, we headed for Wind Cave National Park, some 25 miles away.   Both caves are called "breathing" caves because they react to the atmospheric pressure by "inhaling" or "exhaling" wind.   Wind Cave was discovered when two brothers heard a loud whistling noise.  The sound led them to a small hole in the ground, (about the size of a park ranger's hat) the cave's only natural opening.  The air "exhaling" from the cave blew the hat off of Jesse Bingham's head!  When he came back another day to show this phenomenon to a friend, his hat was sucked into the cave!  This cave contains an extensive network of box work, popcorn, and frostwork formations and other irreplaceable features.

Boxwork formation--Wind Cave

Also at Wind Cave NP, we saw a some bison and a prairie dog village.   Those little prairie dogs are really cute popping in and out of their holes.

Prairie Dog

Prairie Dog

We finished the day with a trip to Rapid City to go to Wal-Mart to stock up on some supplies.   We enjoyed seeing the Main Street Square and the bronze statues of former presidents that decorate the street corners.