Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore

Sorry that I am late with our update from yesterday!!

Wow, what a day!! We saw so much beautiful scenery that it is going to be hard to describe and do it justice.

First we started our road trip through Custer State Park and what a gorgeous place. We saw trees, hills, mountain streams, and wildlife. Some of our pictures will help describe it better. We got pictures of wild turkey, pronghorn, bison/buffalo and burros. And we went wild taking pictures of the scenery.

As we were taking the scenic drive through Custer State Park, we took a side trip to Mount Rushmore. Again, beautiful scenery!! And such a great tribute to some of our past presidents.
Then, back into the state park and the Needles Highway. And, words definitely cannot describe how awesome this drive was. It is named the Needles Highway for a reason, there is a rock formation that looks like the eye of a needle. We also saw a mountain climber actually tackling one of the formations.

So, enjoy the pictures (these are only a few of many)  and let us know what you think. We are going to check out Hot Springs and the scenic drive to and from there today.

Custer State Park

The Wildlife

Mount Rushmore

Needles Highway

Custer, South Dakota

We left Wall, SD at around 9:30 this morning and arrived at the Broken Arrow Campground in Custer, SD at around noon. This was a very short travel day for us!!

The campground is small but very nice and located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is an RV camp and horse camp. There are about 30 horses here right now. I am in my element!! I love horses!!

We plan to get started on our sight-seeing adventures tomorrow and will be posting pictures of what we see.

Wall Drug and the Badlands National Park in Wall, South Dakota

We started our day today with breakfast! Scrambled eggs and toast. Had to fuel ourselves up because we were heading out for a rather long drive through the badlands. Also made sandwiches for lunch and packed a cooler.

We first went to visit Wall Drug and walked through all the various stores that are a part of it. Fascinating place. They do it all there, sell almost anything and feed you so you will stay a long time!! :-) Charley and I bought a Badlands tee-shirt as our souvenir of this visit and Charley got himself a Badlands back scratcher also. I am sure I will probably use that too from time to time. Pictures attached.

We then, with Cheyenne, headed out on our drive through the badlands. I drove today and gave Charley a break. He takes better pictures than I do anyway so this made sense. This scenery is absolutely awesome. It is incredible what nature can do if we humans just leave it alone!! With our binoculars we were able to see buffalo in the grassy valleys of the badlands, just little black specks to the naked eye. We could also see some farms and cattle scattered within these valleys. I have to say I admire our farmers in this country, especially farmers like these who are so far away from everything!!

We stopped at several of the scenic overlooks in the park and had lunch at our last stop before heading back to the campground.

It is really hard to describe the badlands with words so we will let the pictures tell this story. Attaching several that we hope you will enjoy.

We will be leaving Wall tomorrow morning, heading for Custer, SD and the Broken Arrow campground. We are less than 100 miles from there so this will be a short drive. We will be there for at least one week to see all the many sights in that area.

Wall Drug

The Badlands – words are not necessary

Wall, South Dakota

First, I have to update you on our dinner last night at Chef Louie’s. It was wonderful and we highly recommend it! Charley had a NY Strip and I had a Filet Mignon and they were both delicious!! If/when we are ever back this way we will definitely stop in again.

We have arrived in Wall, South Dakota and have gotten all set up for a two night stay. We left at 9:30 this morning and arrived at 1:30 this afternoon. Not a bad trip at all.

Charley and Cheyenne have already walked down to take a look at the exterior of Wall Drug to see if it still looked that same as last time.  We are planning to check out the interior tomorrow and then head into the Badlands for a road trip to see this sight!! Just planning to stay in, cook dinner and relax tonight, with an occasional walk for Cheyenne of course.

Below are some pictures from our trip here today.

We crossed the Missouri River again.

Fields of sunflowers to go with the corn and soybeans!!

One of our first looks at the Badlands today.

We hope to have some great pictures of the Badlands tomorrow and maybe Wall Drug too!!

Maintenance Day in Mitchell, SD

We have been working on some cleanup and minor repairs today. Planning to rest this afternoon and go out to what appears to be a great steak place for dinner tonight, Chef Louie's Steakhouse and Lounge. This place got rave reviews from the public and we cannot wait to see if we agree.

We will be leaving in the morning for Wall, SD and will be staying two nights there. Plan to go to Wall Drugs and tour the Badlands before moving on to western South Dakota for a stay of a week or more.

Mitchell, South Dakota

Our first day here was very nice. The temperature right now is 72 with a forecast of 55 for the low tonight. What a welcome change from the steamy temperatures we left behind!! And from what Charley checked in the Yellowstone area, we are going to be glad we brought along some cold weather clothing on this trip!! They are forecasting a low of 41 at Yellowstone tonight. Can you believe the difference??

After grocery shopping early this morning, we went into Mitchell and visited the Mitchell Corn Palace. What a fascinating place!! There are murals both inside and outside the building that are done strictly with various colors of ears of corn along with the corn plant, used in a number of ways. You can see examples of this in the pictures I am attaching.

And there could not possibly be a more appropriate part of the country for this palace to be located, based on all the corn fields we saw on our drive here!! Another unusual thing is that you can tour this facility FREE. Can you imagine? How many places do you know of that are absolutely free? And they provide guided tours and videos as well. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were more places like this? Guess they depend on their food/snack and gift shop sales. All of the areas that are done using corn are redone every year and finished in early July. The video we watched said that there are 100 acres of land designated to support a corn crop for this update each year.

We also (Charley just had to see it) visited Cabela’s. This is a store that is a lot like the Bass Pro Shop. They sell hunting, fishing and boating supplies primarily. Charley concluded that he likes Bass Pro Shops better.

We spent the rest of the day just relaxing until time to fix dinner. Had barbequed pork chops, rice, salad and Texas Toast. We really enjoyed this home cooked meal – been a few days since we have had one…

Planning to do some maintenance (cleaning) on the 5er and F450 tomorrow and get ready to move farther west on Monday. Not planning to spend the entire day on this, must have time for a nap!!

We also have to finalize the campground we want to stay in for a week or more in western South Dakota. We have it narrowed down to two that have been recommended to Charley through his research. We will get that decision made tomorrow and check on reservations.

These are pictures of some of the farmland that we saw on our trip from Mulberry Grove to Mitchell. Miles and miles and miles of corn and soybean fields and farms.

The Mitchell Corn Palace - These are just a few of the pictures we took and they really do not do justice to the fascinating workmanship/artistry of this place.

 

And last, but not least…….Charley and Cheyenne out for a walk...

Cooler Weather, Finally!!

We left Platte City, Missouri this morning about 8:30 and arrived in Mitchell, South Dakota at about 5:30. Another long travel day but we did not have many campgrounds to choose from between those two places. We took our time and made quite a few stops so we were not too, too tired when we arrived. And, guess what?? The temperature was only 83 when we got here!! Hurray for small miracles!! It is suppose to get down to around 62 tonight. Now we can slow down a little!! :-) Quite an improvement over 100, don’t you think?

The drive here was somewhat boring. Miles and miles and miles of corn fields, soybean fields and farms. All beautiful scenery but too much of a good thing….

Planning to stay in Mitchell for three nights, leaving Monday morning for western South Dakota. Planning to tour the badlands, go by Wall Drug Store and may spend the night in Wall, SD. We have not decided for sure yet. There is a lot to see in the western part of South Dakota so we will probably be spending at least one week there, if not longer.

Pictures will be posted starting tomorrow.