Our final month of summer travel treated us to a variety of special views of our country. After a few delays for service items, we finally made it into the Badlands of South Dakota. Still trying to catch up to our original schedule, we only had a day there, but still managed to drive the scenic loop, see some animals and, most importantly, purchase some eclipse glasses at the visitor's center! The city of Wall was also interesting if mainly for the famous Wall Drugstore. Jeffrey's favorite part was the ice cream shop where he enjoyed a chocolate shake.
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| Great view in the Badlands, South Dakota |
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| Another of our favorite Badlands views |
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| Two average tourists in the Badlands |
Finally getting back on track, we made it to Piedmont, SD, which is just a few miles away from Sturgis. For those of you not motorcycle-savvy, Sturgis hosts a giant rally every summer and half a million (at least) motorcyclists descend on it as well as all the towns within a 100-mile radius. Luckily, our time in Piedmont was over before the official rally kickoff date! While in Piedmont, we took day trips to visit Rapid City, Sturgis, Deadwood, and Devils Tower in Wyoming. The Tower was our country's first national monument and it really is an amazing rock (as well as a cool centerpiece to the "Close Encounter's of the Third Kind" movie made in the 1970s). We did the 1.5 mile walk/hike around it's base and took way too many pictures.
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| Two Gators at Devils Tower |
We then moved Max down to near Hill City, SD, putting him in the heart of the Black Hills and near the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse monuments. By this time the motorcycles had arrived and were our constant companions as we explored the area by car. Except for the low rumble of their engines early in the morning, they were all very nice and although it did make for larger crowds in the touristy areas and EVERY store in EVERY town was full of bike rally merchandise.
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| Every picture we took of Rushmore could be a postcard |
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| Still lots to carve on Crazy Horse, but even his head is impressive |
In the southern areas of the Black Hills we enjoyed multiple Bison/Buffalo sightings, a lone coyote, and way too many prairie dogs to count. We also visited the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD -- basically a sinkhole that managed to snag an impressive quantity of mammoths over many years because it was too slippery to get out of. It is being escavated "in situ", so you really get to appreciate the "dig" efforts. Dad and Sheila actually worked at this site a few years back as part of a Road Scholar trip.
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| Herd of Bison/Buffalo |
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| Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota |
Our next stop was at Chimney Rock in Nebraska. Our RV park was very close it and we had a perfect view right out of the front windsheild -- VERY cool in the evening when they lit it up! Chimney Rock and other various rock structures in this area were part of the gateway used by settlers going west in the mid-1800s. Nearby city, Scottsbluff, offered even more information about this hard and dangerous trek along the Oregon Trail. Many americans didn't survive the journey.
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| Chimney Rock when the lights went on one evening |
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| Chimney Rock from our RV site |
Our final major destination of the travel season was to get ourselves positioned in the 100% totality zone for the solar eclipse. We picked York, Nebraska, and even had an Austin friend drive up to join us for the event. On the big day, we unfortunately had light clouds, but were lucky to get a decent view of the totality and "diamond ring" at the very end of it. At that point the heavy clouds came through, so we got Max on the road south -- day 1 of a 4-day trek back to Austin, Texas.
Upon arriving and getting settled, we were greeted by hurricane Harvey and as I type this, are cooling our heels in Max while it rains rains rains on top of us. The winds so far aren't an issue -- and I must say the cooler temperature is a surprise -- but hopefully we won't be stuck inside for too many days!
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