Travel day(s)

The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD!

We left Wisconsin on Sunday (6/2/13), drove for a couple of hours, and made it to Minnesota (beautiful driving there; lots of trees followed by lots of pretty farms). Crossed over the Mississippi River! We drove for a couple more hours through the southern part of Minnesota and then crossed into South Dakota. SOUTH DAKOTA IS HUGE. It seems like we drove forever (there were something like 400 miles to get to the other side of South Dakota). Also, it’s really boring. The most exciting thing to look at are the billboards. We stopped at a couple of tourist traps and really enjoyed ourselves before continuing onto our intended stop for the night: the Fort Pierre National Grasslands. 

Our campsite at the Badlands

We arrived at the Grasslands around 7:30 or 8 PM (still light out, though, especially since we were getting closer to the time zone change). The Grasslands offers dispersed camping where you just pull off the road and pitch a tent for free, no permits or fees necessary (also important to note: no amenities, either). We get there, it's huge and it's beautiful in a desolate sort of way. But there's also a lot of private farm lands. Because it's a dispersed area, there's not as many clear signs about what's public land and what's private land. We drove around for awhile, saw a lot of wildlife, getting more and more uncomfortable with the fact that we were driving through people's backyards. Finally, we decided that we would be uncomfortable with the idea of getting woken up in the middle of the night at gunpoint asking what we're doing there. We really couldn't tell what was the national grassland and what wasn't. We drove on further down the road (about 200 miles) to the Badlands National Park and pitched our tent there. It was actually a very fortunate decision as highway 83 (where the grassland is) got severe thunderstorms that night, with major damage to crops and vehicles. At the Badlands, however, it didn't even rain. The coolest thing was that 200 miles down the road, we could SEE the thunderstorms because the land is so flat.

The next day, we drove through the scenic loop at the Badlands, went to Wall-drug (another tourist trap), saw Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, and drove another 8 hours to get to Dubois, Wyoming for the night. Tim and I both really enjoyed driving through the Badlands and would recommend it to anyone. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before. Wall-Drug was so much fun because it owns its cheesiness and does it well. We played a game in the shooting gallery and saw a T-Rex! Tim and I both preferred Crazy Horse to Mount Rushmore. I think it's because there is a lot of emotion and cultural significance to the Crazy Horse monument. Again, I would highly recommend it to anyone in the area (you know, if you're just passing through). 

 

Driving from Crazy Horse in the Black Hills of South Dakota to Dubois,Wyoming was a very long trip. Everything is SO spread out here. We stopped in and had dinner with Tim's sister's husband and then drove on for another 5 hours. We arrive at our hotel right before midnight. The driving was unlike anything I had ever done before. We were 6000 feet above sea level, it was dark, and there was not a soul (car or building) in sight for a good 200 miles. It was weird. I'm glad Tim stayed awake while I drove the last leg. 

Now, we're here in Dubois, well rested and ready to head into Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It will be awhile before we can update again. Lots of love, Bonnie

Wall-drug!

Wall-drug!

Wall-drug!!!!