Happy trails to you...

Today was another early riser. The sun was up and shining in the window by 5:30. I do love how much daylight we are getting in order to really enjoy the activities. With sun up by 5 AM and sundown somewhere around 9 or later, we have been making the most of it. We were driving through the Badlands loop road by 7 with the kids still asleep in their bunk. Scott and I stopped at an overlook and the kids started the slow process of opening their eyes. At the next overlook, Scott and I turned around to find Luke following in his pajamas with camera in hand. By the next stop, Lorelei was up and Luke was dressed. We didn’t see any bison in the Badlands which prompted our decision to go through Custer State Park, but more on that later. We were done with our drive and into the town of Wall for a stop into the famous Wall drug by 9:30 am. For those that don’t know, several years ago, a guy named Hustead (first name forgotten) needed to attract customers to his pharmacy in Wall and started putting billboards all over South Dakota, along I-90. So for 200 miles, you see signs saying stop at Wall Drug and you can get a free cup of ice water and buy souvenirs. Really it is tourist trap hell but if you are going through South Dakota, how can you not stop? We got some homemade ice cream and cookies (and water) and then headed on our way.

Our next stop was Wind Cave. Originally, we planned to visit Wind Cave and get a stamp and then visit Jewel Cave and go on the cave tour. I forgot in all of my stress last week to buy a ticket for jewel cave in advance. I also wasn’t thinking about our timeline when we made the decision to take the slower and longer route through Custer State Park, I was thinking about bison.

Custer has the largest privately owned stock of American Bison, over 1300 in the herd. So we took the wildlife loop road and were rewarded with bison 5 feet from the camper and totally causing a traffic standstill. We were also rewarded with views of antelope and deer and the burrows who came and ate carrots right out of our camper window. (The ranger said it was ok to feed the burrows) The kids ate that up and we had a nice picnic lunch and drive. Unfortunately that put us in Wind Cave around 2:30 and we didn’t want to wait for the 3:40 tour. The ranger told us we probably wouldn’t be able to get into Jewel Cave since we didn’t have reserve tickets so we made the decision to back track a little after we get finish North Dakota and come back next Thursday to see Jewel Cave and Crazy Horse. The kids were disappointed about not seeing a cave today but very excited that we were going to come back. We are supposed to finish every park and the capitol in SD so we can’t leave without it!!!

We went on to Mount Rushmore where the kids did the junior ranger program and by then it was getting near 7 pm and time for dinner. We ate at Wendy’s for a change of pace and then picked up pedals, milk and bread at Walmart before making the drive from Rapid City to Devils Tower and a KOA with showers!!! We have seen tons of animals today and it was awesome. Prairie dogs, bison, deer, antelopes, mountain goats and elk. Glad to be moving on to Wyoming where we will have some downtime tomorrow with just Devils Tower and laundry to be done. Pictures on FLICKR are slow to come. I took 320 in 2 days, not sure if digital photos are a blessing or a curse.