John and Linda's Travel Journal: South Dakota

Our drive to Rapid City, South Dakota included a one night stopover in Hardin, Montana. The drive was very scenic.

On the way to Rapid City we took a short detour to Devil's Tower. It is a unique geological formation that was proclaimed the first national monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt.
The drive to Devil's Tower...

Devil's Tower...

At one of the scenic pullouts there was a prairie dog town with hundreds of prairie dogs! When we got out of the truck they crept close to us hoping we would feed them. From the looks of these chubby guys, many people do!

We arrived at Rapid City KOA on September 17.

Our site was level and nicely landscaped.

The next day we visited downtown Rapid City. We enjoyed walking and looking at the historic buildings.

Firehouse Brewing Co. is in an old firehouse

Scattered on downtown corners are statues of American presidents. They also have a Presidents Center where you can read all about former presidents. We did not search for every presidential statue because we did not want to walk that much. We had read about a downtown hop on hop off trolley that cost only $1 per day. At the corner below we saw a trolley schedule. It was due in 5 minutes so we decided to wait for it. There was another senior couple already waiting for the trolley. After 10 minutes John looked at the trolley schedule again and noted the small print at the bottom said the trolley only runs from June to September. Glad he saw that. I don't know how long we would have waited for the trolley. We let the other couple know and we started walking around town.

Trolley stop corner with John Adams' statue

There's another presidential statue

We had 2 more days in Rapid City so we decided to visit Badlands National Park on the next day. One the way we stopped at the famous Wall Drug. Opened in 1931 as a drug store it has grown into an indoor shopping mall with stores selling everything from western clothing, knick knacks, footwear, jewelry, toys, and a restaurant. They still provide free ice water to visitors. In the backyard mall they have walls and walls of photographs of the area and its history.

John found a nice bench to rest on...

Established as a National Monument in 1939 and redesignated Badlands National Park in 1978, the park is 244,000 acres in size. It is the largest expanse of protected prairie ecosystem in the National Park system and is considered one of the world's richest mammal fossil beds. More than 1 million people visit Badlands National Park each year. Most of our day there was foggy, windy, and rainy. We decided we were going to stop at every overlook regardless of the weather. The peaks, gullies, buttes and prairies were beautiful...

Don't step too far back!

We walked on the Big Badlands Overlook trail which was partially gravel and partially boardwalk with many steps...

The view from the top

Push that boulder down the hill!

In this area there were many fir trees with small blue berries.

On our last sightseeing day we drove out to see Mount Rushmore. Nearly 3 million visitors from all over the world visit each year. Fortunately the weather was much improved when we arrived.