Today was our Wally World moment. I'll get to that in a moment.
In the middle of the night there was a lightning storm like you've never seen. The lightning was all around and lit up the sky like it was daylight. It was windy, and rainy; but no problem. It was just a very cool site to see the lighting.
We did our usual RV pack up with morning -- unplugged, filled the fresh water tank a bit, dumped the tanks and got on the road. We drove to Wall, SD, home of Wall Drug. It's a Costco size building with homemade donuts, and every knick-knack you could possibly imagine -- shirts, magnets, coins, spoons, bumper stickers, and that's just in the first couple feet of the store. Ellie said it was an Old West Santana Row. It was an amusing stop since we had been seeing signs for it since we first entered South Dakota, so hundreds of miles with billboards every few miles. After that much marketing, we had to at least check it out. We had donuts and Lukas bought a slingshot, then it was back on the road.
I'll have to say, South Dakota may some undiscovered marketing geniuses. Lots of billboards, and they were clearly aware that billboards were the only form of entertainment. Billboards promoting a Mexican Restaurant, "Mexican Food. American Water" and "Mexican Food so good that President Trump may want to build a wall around it." Plenty of other billboards promoting ma and pop restaurants coming up. Plus, signs like, "Don't By Shredded Cheese. Make American Grate Again."
About 30 miles from Rapid City, SD, we saw a temporary road sign that said, "Mount Rushmore closed today. Will Reopen Saturday." Wait, what?!?!
As it turns out President Trump was at Mt. Rushmore and the park was closed to visitors. Well, this throws a wrench in things as we were scheduled to visit Mt. Rushmore in the afternoon before making our way to the campsite, then continuing on towards Yellowstone in the morning. So we'll have to flex and see how to tackle this.
We exited the freeway in Rapid City and went to Bear Country USA. This was a drive through animal exhibit and we saw everything, and everything up close. Bears just feet away from the cars as they walked around cars, mountain rams stopping traffic as they crossed the street. Elk, wolves, buffalo, tons of bears, foxes, and more. That was about a two hour tour as you could only go about 5 mph throughout the exhibit.
We ran into Walmart real quick for a fly swatter and a few food and drink items.
Obviously we skipped Mt. Rushmore since it was closed and went onto the Crazy Horse Memorial. We watched a video about how the project got started, the sculptor, and his relationship with the Native Americans. It was very interesting, and required more time then we had to see and take in everything, but we did what we could, took some pictures, then made our way to Big Pine Campground.
Big Pine was one of the few places that had spots still available when I was making calls, and it's not bad. It's a basic campground, gravel sites, but we got hook ups, so that's good. Got the main AC going as the weather is still pretty warm and humid.
So the plan for tomorrow is now to backtrack about 40 minutes to Mt. Rushmore and visit the monument first thing in the morning. If we can get there and visit in the morning, we should be ok as we have a full day of driving to Cody, WY. Probably won't be able to do the hiking trails, but we'll make the best of it. I just hope this is our only Wally World moment and can see the mountain.
We've certainly exited the plains and are starting into the Rocky Mountains. A lot more up and down, and a lot more visuals to look at. I'm pretty sure I've identified the source of the leak that Steve was having a problem with. Something with the city fill tank is leaking, so I've just been filling the fresh water tank and using that, and it's been working just fine.
In the middle of the night there was a lightning storm like you've never seen. The lightning was all around and lit up the sky like it was daylight. It was windy, and rainy; but no problem. It was just a very cool site to see the lighting.
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| Wall Drug. The world's largest drug store. |
I'll have to say, South Dakota may some undiscovered marketing geniuses. Lots of billboards, and they were clearly aware that billboards were the only form of entertainment. Billboards promoting a Mexican Restaurant, "Mexican Food. American Water" and "Mexican Food so good that President Trump may want to build a wall around it." Plenty of other billboards promoting ma and pop restaurants coming up. Plus, signs like, "Don't By Shredded Cheese. Make American Grate Again."
About 30 miles from Rapid City, SD, we saw a temporary road sign that said, "Mount Rushmore closed today. Will Reopen Saturday." Wait, what?!?!
As it turns out President Trump was at Mt. Rushmore and the park was closed to visitors. Well, this throws a wrench in things as we were scheduled to visit Mt. Rushmore in the afternoon before making our way to the campsite, then continuing on towards Yellowstone in the morning. So we'll have to flex and see how to tackle this.
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| Black bears just fee away from the car. |
We ran into Walmart real quick for a fly swatter and a few food and drink items.
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| Crazy Horse Memorial under construction. |
Big Pine was one of the few places that had spots still available when I was making calls, and it's not bad. It's a basic campground, gravel sites, but we got hook ups, so that's good. Got the main AC going as the weather is still pretty warm and humid.
So the plan for tomorrow is now to backtrack about 40 minutes to Mt. Rushmore and visit the monument first thing in the morning. If we can get there and visit in the morning, we should be ok as we have a full day of driving to Cody, WY. Probably won't be able to do the hiking trails, but we'll make the best of it. I just hope this is our only Wally World moment and can see the mountain.
We've certainly exited the plains and are starting into the Rocky Mountains. A lot more up and down, and a lot more visuals to look at. I'm pretty sure I've identified the source of the leak that Steve was having a problem with. Something with the city fill tank is leaking, so I've just been filling the fresh water tank and using that, and it's been working just fine.
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| The sculpture and the mountain behind it |
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