Thursday, October 5, 2006, Sioux Falls, SD to Rapid City, SD

We drove another 8 hrs on Thursday from Sioux Falls to Rapid City. The most entertaining thing about this drive was the billboards. We did take a side trip through the Badlands which was much appreciated for the change of scenery and the wildlife viewing. For those of you who have never seen the Badlands, they are an amazing array of eroding canyons, stuck in the middle of seemingly never ending plains. Their colors were beautiful: green, yellow, red, and brown in layers from the green that still remained near the base of the natural structures to the hard, brown baked earth at the top.

"The park consists of nearly 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. Sixty-four thousand acres are designated official wilderness, and is the site of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America. The Stronghold Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and includes the sites of 1890's Ghost Dances."

At the interpretive center they had a wonderful video that featured interviews with people who live in the Badlands. They're tenacious, to say the least.

We saw a plethora of wildlife during our short side trip, including deer, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, rabbits, and prairie dogs. The latter were nice enough to put on an entertaining show for us as they jumped high into the air, ran around from den to den, and screeched incessantly.

The other highlights of our day included the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. Every spring, Mitchell's Corn Palace (a concrete building) is completely covered with thousands of bushels of native South Dakota corn, grain and grasses that are arranged into large murals.
"Typical yearly themes are South Dakota Birds or A Salute To Agriculture; this past year's was Youth In Action. Locals take great pride in the Palace's 'corn-septual art' and 'ear-chitecture.' Mitchell isn't called the Corn Capital of the World for nothing."



The other place we stopped, well really we just drove by, was Wall Drug. We had seen hundreds of billboards advertising Wall Drug during the last few days. Several friends had suggested that we stop there. I now believe that one doesn't really have a choice, especially after all those witty signs. Raised on television and cereal boxes, we're drawn there by the simple command "Visit Wall Drug," repeated about 600 times as you drive through lonely prairies. We did restrain ourselves from going in. Just looking at the outside of what is now a mini-mall including a pharmacy museum and stores, was enough for us. There were plenty of people visiting though, so we didn't feel too guilty moving on down 90W. For the history of Wall Drug, click on this link: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/SDWALdrug.html

We ended our driving day in Rapid City, SD.