Sod House--South Dakota

September 2012

Shelby was excited to visit the sod house and location of a prairie dog colony at the edge of the Badlands.

Aren't they cute? Prairie dogs communicate with each other via a series of whistles. Studies have shown they even have specific whistles for individual people and animals. Fascinating!

My favorite room in the house---the kitchen.  One of these days, I will learn to cook on a woodstove. I should add that goal to my bucket list. :)

Words cannot express how thankful I am for indoor plumbing. I would gladly live without electricity and every other modern convenience if it meant I could keep indoor plumbing.

I would have spent a lot of time here during tornado season.

This was the best popcorn ball ever! It was the size of my head, seriously. Shelby and I split it for an afternoon snack on our drive across South Dakota.

Iowa sunset
After touring the Badlands, we decided to drive all the way across South Dakota, a bit of Nebraska, Iowa, and half the state of Missouri to reach Grandma's house. We had already stopped at all the places we planned to tour, and wanted to spend the weekend with Grandma. Nothing noteworthy occurred on the drive aside from seeing a dead porcupine along the highway. Shelby and I figured a porcupine, even a dead one, was a rare enough species to add to our wildlife logbook. :)
After 16+ hours of driving and singing every song from the Sound of Music, we finally arrived at 2:00 a.m. Grandma was waiting up for us and we probably would have slept until noon had the exterminator not arrived at 9:00 a.m. for the yearly inspection of the house!

We met Grandma's new kitten. He was a feisty little fellow. He would ambush us and attack our feet.

We spent Saturday and Sunday with Grandma, then drove to Mom and Dad's house for a few days. After that, I took Shelby home to Kentucky, returned to Missouri, and our cross-country saga officially came to an end.



The Badlands

September 2012

After acting like total tourists at Wall Drug, Shelby and I drove to the Badlands and rented a cabin for the night. We explored the Badlands the following morning. Of all the places we camped, this site was our favorite. The campground was deserted, the trees were beautiful, and we met a nice older couple who let us tour their Scamp travel trailer. The trailer was tiny, but used space very efficiently. Shelby and I both agreed we could live in a Scamp and be perfectly content to travel the country. :)

Shelby awoke before dawn to look for wildlife. She asked if I wanted to join her. I mumbled something incoherent about having seen all the wildlife I needed to see during the summer in Glacier. After driving over a thousand miles, I didn't care about bighorn sheep or prairie dogs---I just wanted to sleep. :)

Shelby's pre-dawn wildlife search was successful!

Shelby

The Badlands look like giant sandcastles.

The Karate Kid :)

Meditation

Don't get too close to the edge!

I don't think I've ever seen a bluer sky.

The Badlands was our final national park to visit on the 3,000 mile road trip. It had been a fantastic trip and we were sad to be nearing the end.



The Adventures of Straight-Shootin' Shelby and Hop-Along Holly

September 2012

Once upon a time in the great Dakota territory, there was a cowgirl called Straight-Shootin' Shelby. She was a fearless wagon driver.

Her sister, Hop-Along Holly, from back east in the civilized section of the country, traveled west to experience the adventure of pioneer life.

 Hop-Along Holly enjoyed the slower pace of wagon train life, even singing a few lines from Home On the Range because her home was now on the range and it just seemed appropriate.

All was well until Hop-Along Holly spied a tarantula on the trail. She informed Straight-Shootin' Shelby that although she had thoroughly enjoyed the meals of hardack and salt pork, she just could not continue to live in a land where the spiders were the size of dinner plates.

Straight-Shootin' Shelby was sad to see her sister go, but understood that wagon train life wasn't for everyone. On her way back east, Hop-Along Holly met a tribe and decided to study the people and customs of the untamed wilderness.



She became a nanny for the natives...



...studied the survival techniques of the mountain men, and

opened a restaurant with Gumbo Lil in a gold mining town.

Straight-Shootin' Shelby eventually left wagon train life and traveled with Annie Oakley for a while before...



making a fortune as a gold prospector in the Grand Canyon with a donkey named Brighty.



Even with all their adventures, Hop-Along Holly and Straight-Shootin' Shelby visited each other every year at the annual Jackalope Rodeo in Wall, South Dakota.

Straight-Shootin' Shelby's barrel racing record on a jackalope still stands to this day. Hop-Along Holly worked in the rodeo concession stand and invented the corn dog.

The end. :)



Mt. Rushmore--South Dakota

September 27th, 2012

South Dakota sunset

We arrived at Mt. Rushmore late at night after leaving Devil's Tower. We rented a camping cabin at a KOA and were exhausted after a long day of driving and sightseeing. Little did we know, we had been assigned a cabin on the steepest hillside in South Dakota. We tripped and slid all the way down the hill to the bathroom and clambered back up grabbing tree limbs for support. If any of our neighbors were watching, they received their daily dose of entertainment.

The Black Hills of South Dakota

A feeble attempt to look presidential.

I have been to Mt. Rushmore three times, and each ranger-led talk is different. This ranger gave interesting details about the lives of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, and informed the group of how Mt. Rushmore came to be created. Mt. Rushmore was built solely for the purpose of bringing tourism to South Dakota. Considering how many people visit each year, I'd say it serves its purpose well.

Spiderweb on a rock
It is strange how a spider's web can look lovely sparkling in the morning sun, but that same web would cause shrieking and flailing if I walked through it. :)