Amazing South Dakota

After our stops in Deadwood and Sturgis, we headed to Hart Ranch Camping Resort in Rapid City, SD for a 4 day stay. I picked this spot because it was part of our RPI membership and it appeared to be centrally located to the places we wanted to visit in South Dakota. It turned out to be the perfect place to stay in this amazing area and the price through RPI was fantastic - only $30 a night. There is so much to see near Rapid City and it was a perfect location for our bucket list stop: Mount Rushmore.

Since Rapid City wasn’t too far from Sturgis, we arrived at the campground around noon. Their check in time was listed as 3 PM so we assumed that we would not be able to check in yet. Our plan was to ask if we could leave the van in their parking lot and head to Mount Rushmore before checking in. The staff was very helpful and said that would not be an issue but they could also see if our site was empty. If it was, we could check in and leave the van there. What luck, it was empty!

We parked, set up the van and headed out to see Mount Rushmore. I was a bit worried about traffic and a long line to get into the park. Online it recommended to go early in the day to avoid the crowds. Well, I guess going the day after Memorial Day is the best time to visit. We had very little traffic and were able to drive directly there without any stopped traffic. We both enjoyed getting glimpses of the monument on the drive in.

one of the views from Iron mountain road as we approached the monument

While it was a little crowded on the viewing platform, I am sure it was a small crowd compared to most days in the summer. I have to say, I was a bit overwhelmed walking out past all of the flags with the presidents looking down from the mountain. What an impressive monument! It is hard to imagine how they blasted and carved the faces on that rocky mountain. There was a group of students near us and one girl was explaining what each president stood for and why they were chosen to be memorialized. This was before we visited the museum, so we were not familiar with the history so we listened in.

as you can see, it wasn’t very crowded but it was quite windy!

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum chose these 4 presidents because they represented key events in U.S. history: George Washington represents the birth of the nation; Thomas Jefferson represents the growth and expansion of the country; Abraham Lincoln represents the preservation of the nation through the Civil War; and Theodore Roosevelt represents the development of the U.S. and its expansion to a global power. I think he chose well. These presidents were some of the best that we have had and clearly were instrumental in the foundation and continuing growth of our nation.

After we took in the view of the monument, we decided to take a walk and found ourselves on the Walk of Presidents. This walk makes a loop from the visitors center up to and across the base of the mountain. As you follow the trail, there are displays under each president that explains why they were chosen and provides information about their lives and presidencies. As you read the display, you look up and it appears that president is looking directly down on you. It was a very impressive display and a unique way to view the monument. The best part of it was that there were very few people on the trail. I think that most of the time, there was only one couple in front of us so it felt like we had a private and personal tour.

After the walk and touring the visitor’s center and museum, we headed out and decided to drive over to Custer State Park. Since Tim doesn’t like heights and mountain roads, we avoided Needles Highway and just took a more direct route through the center of the park. It was still fairly scenic and we got to see the prairie dogs and a few bison during the drive. The only drawback to this drive was that they were doing road construction so we had a couple delays and a good bit of dust and dirt from the work crews.

we ended the day with a beautiful sunset at the campground

The next day, we decided to head over and check out Wall Drug and Badlands National Park. It took a little over an hour to get to Wall, SD so we went in the morning so we could shop and have lunch at Wall Drug Store before going to the national park. Wall Drug Store is the ultimate tourist trap but definitely worth the stop. The drugstore pretty big and includes many smaller stores and art galleries in addition to the original drugstore and restaurant. We spent a couple hours wandering through the stores and eating lunch. Of course, we had to get the 5 cent cup of coffee with our lunch! The food and the coffee were pretty good. Tim also enjoyed a donut with his lunch.

With full bellies, we headed out to Badlands National Park, another very scenic park with landscape that is almost indescribable. Once you see it, you understand why they called it badlands. These rocky structures jutting out of the ground pretty much everywhere seem totally impassable. I can’t imaging being a settler heading west on a wagon train and seeing this unforgiving land. It had to be so overwhelming. It almost was overwhelming driving through it in the truck.

Since I took a ton of pictures, I will let them tell the story of this landscape:

After our drive through the park, we took a scenic route back to the campground through National Grasslands (a new one for us; did you know there were national grasslands??). I didn’t get any pictures since I was driving but it was such a different landscape with the prairie and grasslands compared to the badlands. We saw many ranches and cattle grazing along the route home. That is probably enough for this post. More of amazing South Dakota in the next post!

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