Thursday, July 19
Thursday: July 19
Drove 356 miles
We crossed the Missouri River and had breakfast at Al’s Oasis with 300 of our closest Corvette friends. (The Corvette Club is having a rally in Rapid City, SD this coming weekend.) We continued on I90 except for a side trip we took through the South Dakota Badlands on Hwy 240.
Our first stop was at a Historic Plains Homestead site. The Browns, Edgar and Alice, homesteaded 160 acres near the Badlands in 1909. It is their actual home with many of the original furnishings. Let me tell you - these were sturdy people that built a life out here on these plains. I couldn't have done it.
There is a colony of rare white prairie dogs around the site now. They are protected here because this is the only known colony of them.
It was a scenic bypass and the views were amazing. The pictures don’t really capture what we saw with the naked eye because we were passing through at high noon and the sun was so bright it washed out most of the color. Even so, it was wonderful.
Then it was on to Wall, SD to the famous Wall Drug! You see billboards all along the interstate, state after state, advertising this place (and it’s 5 cent per cup coffee) so we had to stop and see what it was all about. Amazing! The place is like one store after another all under one roof and it covers a whole city block. Well maybe that’s a “town” block because Wall Drug is almost the only thing in Wall, SD. Tim bought a really nice Stetson cowboy hat and I bought a lightweight Charlie 1 Horse cowgirl hat so now we’re really ready to hit the western trail. And check out the pictures from here on out of me in my new Brighton sunglasses. Too cool!
We reached the campground right around dinner time and were so surprised. The campground is beautiful. It covers hundreds of acres with almost all the RV sites under Ponderosa Pines surrounding beautiful rolling pastures. Our site was large with no one directly next to us, so Sprocket had plenty of territory to watch over.
We decided to head back into Hill City for dinner. We ate outside on the roof of a saloon looking place. Very nice!
The "parlor" of a sod house, the type built by the first settlers on the plains because there were no trees, thus no wood for buildings.
Close up of the sod wall.
The boudoir. Oh I can just feel the bugs dropping down on me at night!
Another view of the bedroom
Me standing on the roof of the sod house
The root cellar.
View of Tim in the doorway of the Sod House. Mr. Brown had expanded it with a wooden entrance facade and a wooden room off to the right.
Inside view of the root cellar
The outhouse. read the sign to get more details on the facilities.
We girls can't afford to miss an opportunity.
Rare white prairie dogs at the Brown homesite location
Beautiful!
Cute poem. You antique car buffs will enjoy.
Picture of truck in the poem
View of the homesite looking out over the prarie dog community
The following pictures are all from The Badlands of SD. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how they got the name.
Tim and Sprocket climbed to the top of one of the buttes.
This is the view they had. Rough country!
This is as far as I could make it up the butte in my slippery sandals.
The colors were spectacular!
The Badlands are certainly "bad" but they are also beautiful.
The colors are so beautiful, they wouldn't look real if you painted them this way in a painting.
And the sky was soooo blue!
Another view of what Tim climbed with Sprocket.
Even the prairie grass is colorful.
Prairie on one side of the road
Badlands on the other side
See the billboard advertising Wall Drug?
Wall Drug sign advertising 5 cent coffee.
The famous Wall Drug store.
7/19/2007 :
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