Badlands to Black Hills National Forest(& Mt. Rushmore) 111 miles

Woke up early to another bluebird sunny day still in our lunar landscape aka the Badlands. Ollie our reliable alarm clock woke up early as he knows that he gets fed first. Then next we got the stove out and boiled water for coffee and tea, always a good way to start the day. Packed up our things as usual and loaded up the truck. We set off to the Badlands visitor's center to pick up some info and maps. They had some great exhibits there that showed the millions of years of natural history that had taken place within the Badlands. We left the visitor and started out on the Badlands loop road. After seeing many Prairie Dogs (think squirrels mixed with groundhogs...very funny) squeaking about and running in and out of the homes in the ground, we came across some Bighorn Sheep lying around on some rock as sure footed as anything. The views within the Badlands are absolutely amazing. It is extremely hard to capture the awesomeness and sheer expanse of the landscape. You can really see how the land had transformed over the millions and millions of years. We then took a detour down the Sage Creek Road, which is still within the Badlands NP, but it turns to dirt road and takes you out to more remote areas. There we came up on some Bison grazing and looking as massive as they do. Again it is hard to capture in words or photos the scenery and wildlife.

So on down the road we went eventually meeting back up with a paved road that would take us to the town of Wall (Home of Wall Drug) and back to I-90. Of course in Wall South Dakota we had to make a stop at Wall Drug since we had seen signs for it back in Minnesota. As you can imagine, Wall Drug is pretty much the only thing that makes up Wall South Dakota. It is a conglomerate of shops, shops and more shops that contain everything from cowboy boots to an oversize statue of a rabbit with a saddle (ask Camilla). Leaving Wall, SD believe it or not we spotted our first Vermont license plate of the trip. I don't think they noticed our plates, nor do I think they would have cared, but of all places to see a Vermonter it had to be Wall, SD! So on down the road we went, heading for the Black Hills of South Dakota.

We were making good time today and we only had about 100 miles to go to get there, we decided we would see Mt. Rushmore. We arrived there at about 5pm and parked in the garage because of the shade for Ollie. It seems that this Senator is not welcome at this presidential wonder of the world. That was fine since he had a good runaround earlier in the day and he had his own blog to update. Again the scale of Mt. Rushmore and the artistic work it had taken over so many years was amazing. We have seen it so many times on TV and in movies, but to see it up close and in person is inspiring. Needless to say we took a lot of photos. After gazing up at the monument for a while we decided to head back to the truck and drive into Custer state Park for the night. Since it was a very busy holiday weekend, all of the tent campsites were booked up, so we stayed at the Creekside Lodge where we got our own cabin...yeah shower!

Tomorrow...see Crazy Horse Monument then drive to Bozeman Montana

Vermont Plate sightings = 1