We kind of galloped through South Dakota. We could have spent a week (or month!) around the Mt. Rushmore/Badlands area. So much to do and see!
We didn't leave Wyoming until Tuesday. Our first stop was Belle Fourche, South Dakota, the geographical center of the U.S. That doesn't make a ton of sense until we read the sign that said if you count Alaska and Hawaii, then it is the geographical center!
On Wednesday, we headed to Mt. Rushmore. Three of us had never been there before and there was so much new infrastructure there, including parking structure, gift shop, visitor center, Avenue of Flags, and museum, that wasn't there 23 years ago. FYI, you have to pay for parking, but the monument itself doesn't charge.
Mt. Rushmore seen through the Avenue of Flags
J and S did the junior ranger program there. The junior ranger booklet for the older kids was HARD. They both learned a lot.
When we drove away, you come around the corner and there's this pretty cool profile view of George Washingon!
We briefly drove past Crazy Horse, took some pictures from afar. It is $11/person or $28/car, so we didn't spend the money to go in.
We headed to Jewel Cave National Monument. It was pretty late in the day when we got there, all the cave tours were sold out. There were several tours you could take in length, strenuous or easy, but the one we decided we never wanted to take was the Wild Caving tour that you had to fit through this box to be able to go on it (special tour and all, so you wouldn't accidentally end up on it without knowing):
We didn't end up taking a tour there, but headed on to Wind Cave National Park and DID end up on a cave tour there. It was pretty amazing. Wind Cave has something called "boxwork" that is basically fossilized cracks. The rock that cracked eroded but the material left in the cracks was harder and stayed behind.
South Dakota is very beautiful, it's worth some serious time spent here!
The National Grasslands Visitor Center (the only visitor center for ALL our National Grasslands),
and The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site--very interesting for the adults who grew up in the Cold War era
There are two actual missile sites that you can tour, one requires tickets and the other is just go see an actual missile silo.
After this, we headed to Badlands. It's really quite pretty, reminds me of Goblin Valley in a way. You are driving along, lots of prairie views and then the stark stone with the striated colors.
We headed to Pierre to see the capitol building before calling it a day.
On Friday we visited the Corn Palace!
We drove up to De Smet, the town where Laura Ingalls grew up and met Almanzo Wilder.
After a long drive, we went to Storybook Land! The entire place is themed around nursery rhymes and children's stories and is free unless you want to ride the kiddie rides. It was fun to visit, J and S rode the rollercoaster and I rode the train with them.
More road kill! This time, it was just a butterfly stuck in my grill. Pretty instead of gruesome this time!
On Saturday, we drove like mad to make it to the Bismarck North Dakota temple. It was the last day it would be open before closing for two weeks for the semiannual cleaning. We got there just in time!
We didn't leave Wyoming until Tuesday. Our first stop was Belle Fourche, South Dakota, the geographical center of the U.S. That doesn't make a ton of sense until we read the sign that said if you count Alaska and Hawaii, then it is the geographical center!
On Wednesday, we headed to Mt. Rushmore. Three of us had never been there before and there was so much new infrastructure there, including parking structure, gift shop, visitor center, Avenue of Flags, and museum, that wasn't there 23 years ago. FYI, you have to pay for parking, but the monument itself doesn't charge.
Mt. Rushmore seen through the Avenue of Flags
J and S did the junior ranger program there. The junior ranger booklet for the older kids was HARD. They both learned a lot.
When we drove away, you come around the corner and there's this pretty cool profile view of George Washingon!
We briefly drove past Crazy Horse, took some pictures from afar. It is $11/person or $28/car, so we didn't spend the money to go in.
We headed to Jewel Cave National Monument. It was pretty late in the day when we got there, all the cave tours were sold out. There were several tours you could take in length, strenuous or easy, but the one we decided we never wanted to take was the Wild Caving tour that you had to fit through this box to be able to go on it (special tour and all, so you wouldn't accidentally end up on it without knowing):
We didn't end up taking a tour there, but headed on to Wind Cave National Park and DID end up on a cave tour there. It was pretty amazing. Wind Cave has something called "boxwork" that is basically fossilized cracks. The rock that cracked eroded but the material left in the cracks was harder and stayed behind.
When we drove away, we saw a lone bison, grazing. We saw a handful more before we left the park boundaries.
South Dakota is very beautiful, it's worth some serious time spent here!
We packed a lot in on Thursday. We went to Wall Drug,
The National Grasslands Visitor Center (the only visitor center for ALL our National Grasslands),
and The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site--very interesting for the adults who grew up in the Cold War era
There are two actual missile sites that you can tour, one requires tickets and the other is just go see an actual missile silo.
After this, we headed to Badlands. It's really quite pretty, reminds me of Goblin Valley in a way. You are driving along, lots of prairie views and then the stark stone with the striated colors.
We headed to Pierre to see the capitol building before calling it a day.
On Friday we visited the Corn Palace!
We drove up to De Smet, the town where Laura Ingalls grew up and met Almanzo Wilder.
There were two sites to tour, both more than $10/person. One
was the Ingalls homestead site with reconstructed buildings and the other was
some restored buildings in town. We just walked around the grounds and took pictures.
After a long drive, we went to Storybook Land! The entire place is themed around nursery rhymes and children's stories and is free unless you want to ride the kiddie rides. It was fun to visit, J and S rode the rollercoaster and I rode the train with them.
More road kill! This time, it was just a butterfly stuck in my grill. Pretty instead of gruesome this time!
On Saturday, we drove like mad to make it to the Bismarck North Dakota temple. It was the last day it would be open before closing for two weeks for the semiannual cleaning. We got there just in time!
We attended church at the Bismarck 2nd Ward, Bismarck North Dakota Stake. The stake center is right next door to the temple and we got to see some of the temple presidency in the ward. We're going to take North Dakota a little bit slower, lots of miles to cover between the sites we want to see and we are getting our pace figured out.