Where the Prairie Dogs and Big Horn Sheep Play

September 12, 2008
We got an early start this beautiful sunny, cool morning and headed west through the great plains of South Dakota. Our first stop was Mitchell, SD and the Corn Palace!!! YAY, a building decorated with corn cobs! Awesome! Almost as good as the world’s largest cattle head sculpture (we panned that one). Next we crossed the Missouri River once and finally where they have dammed it up to form Lake Francis Case at Chamberlain, SD. What a vista! We then stopped at the old 1880 town and took that tour. It was all it was advertised to be. Through the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands to the Badlands. You can literally see for miles in any direction because it is so flat. Grasslands indeed. Then to the Badlands. This is really indescribably beautiful and we spend a little more time there. We passed a family of prairie dogs and boy they are not camera shy at all. Before I snapped this picture, the little critter stood up on his back legs and posed for me, but I missed it!! Too cute. Then we came up on the Big Horn Sheep and we couldn’t really get close enough, but we snapped the picture anyway.
Last but not least, we stopped to see the Wall Drug Store, famous nationwide and it was all it was cracked up to be. You can get anything you want there, literally! It was opened in 1931 during the Great Depression and hardly anyone stopped by there since it was a mile or so off the beaten path. The owner had the bright idea of offering free ice water to travelers since the roads were dusty and had not yet been paved. People began stopping by and as they asked for something and Wall Drug Store didn’t have it, they would get it. So today it takes up 4 city blocks to accommodate all of the inventory!
We came into the Mountain time zone so by the time we got to Rapid City our bodies thought it was 7 instead of 5 and we snagged a room at the HI Express (they are everywhere out here) and plan on seeing Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse National Monument, the Wax Museum of the Presidents (yippee), Sturgis, Deadwood and then we’ll make our way into Wyoming.
We are having the time of our lives. We are both so glad that we just did it instead of talking about doing it.