We Enter "The West"

We left Sioux Falls, SD at 7:15 this morning and hopped right onto our old familiar I-90, heading to Badlands National park. Steve quickly discovered that the speed limit in South Dakota is 80! And believe it or not, on two different occasions, we saw cars pulled over for speeding. Were they breaking the sound barrier or something?

While crossing South Dakota, it was interesting to see the deep green color of corn give way to the tans and buffs of grassland. Herds of dairy cattle were replaced with herds of beef cattle. It felt like we were finally entering "The West". To confirm this we saw a herd of pronghorn antelope as we approached Badlands. 

We also ran into miles and miles of fields of sunflowers as far as the eye could see. There were also similar fields of millet. So this is where our bird seed comes from!

Since we were seeing signs for miles telling us about Wall Drug, we just had to see it on our way. It turned out to be everything we expected...tourist trap!

When we got the the Badlands, I told Carol that they shouldn't be called the Badlands. They should be called the AWESOME-lands. As we drove through and stopped at every scenic lookout, we sounded like a couple of people watching a fireworks show: "Oooh!  Aaah!  Wow!"

After the Badlands we took a scenic highway through the National Grasslands (Never knew there was such a thing) to the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore. Unlike the Badlands, the Black Hills are completely covered in tall, thick pines. The change of topography and terrain was abrupt and stark, but both places are beautiful sights to see.  And, of course, the sculpture itself, even from the viewing distance, is hard to comprehend.

Finally, it was back to the hotel and a bite to eat.

The next specific destination is Glacier National Park, and right now we need to figure out how to break up that trip into legs.