The Black Hills

Thursday we started out from our motel in Chamberlain, SD and continued to cruise through the flat and bleak grasslands. We made a stop at Wall Drug Store to see what all the hubbub was about. It was a cute little shopping center, heavily western themed to look like an old west town, and with lots of cowboy and South Dakota merchandise. Our only purchases included a set of pocket knives, Tyler's a nice Buck Knife (which came in handy while camping), and mine a Victorinox Key Chain pocket knife. Oh, and Tyler has been collecting shot glasses along our travels; I'll make sure to take a picture of the collection at the end of the trip.

After leaving Wall, we headed for Bear Country USA. A few miles before we reached Bear Country the landscape got really interesting with large hills covered in pine trees. Bear Country's drive-through zoo was well worth it. While the elk, wolves, sheep, goats, and waterfowl, were not that impressive, the bears were. There were dozens of bears spread out over a large area of grassy hills with man-made caves and pools for them to play in. We were literally a few feet from the black bears. And many times we had to move slowly, or stop to wait as one of them walked in front of the Volvo. It was awesome! There were also a bunch of mountain lions in one section. We were lucky enough to see one of them climbing in the trees over the cars as we were pulling up to the mountain lion area. Unfortunately, it was too far to get a good picture. The park also had a few Bison, which Tyler had never seen before, and he was sure to point out right away how goofey they looked with their over-sized heads. At the end of the drive-through section, there was also Babyland. This was like a typical zoo, except with no cages, just fenced in areas. Here we saw two full-size grizzly bears, a lot of baby black bear cubs, badgers, skunks, porcupines (eating corn-on-the-cob), foxes, coyotes, grey wolves, racoons, beavers, bobcats, and otters.

After Bear Country we were running ahead of schedule and decided to drive down to Custer State Park and try to hit Needles Highway. This drive was amazing. Very soon after we started we stopped the car at a random spot because we could see a vista through the trees and got out of the car. We suddenly realized you could see Mt. Rushmore from where we were. We climbed to the top of a large boulder and looked out at the huge valley below Mt. Rushmore. It was incredible. Then we proceeded up the road to find tunnels cut into the rock that framed Mt. Rushmore in the distance. Going up and come down the mountain provided a lot of vistas, both of the Mt. Rushmore valley and of the plains that we had traveled across.

Finally, we made it to Needles Highway. This part of the trip provided spectacular views of interesting rock formations caused by wind erosion. This culminated in the area where the "Needle's Eye" (a perfectly eroded hole that looks like the eye of a needle) is located. Here we got out of the Volvo to climb around on some of the rocks. There will be lots of pictures of this area of the park on my Flickr account once I have time to upload them.

Finally, we made it to the KOA Kampground, and it was surprisingly nice. Our camping spot put us in a nice wooded area alongside other tents and a few cabins, with a brand-new shower/laundry/bathroom building very close by. They also had a pool, hot tub, pub, restaurant, grocery store, camping store, horse-back riding, and outdoor movie theater. We cooked dinner on the campfire in our new cast-iron frying pan: bacon, hot dogs, eggs, and toast. Then we headed to bed early.

This morning we woke at 6 AM to get an early start on our drive to Yellowstone. We showered, and ate breakfast at the pancake tent where they sold all you can eat pancakes for $2.50 a person. They were delicious; just like "Uncle Bill's" fluffy pancakes.

On to Yellowstone.