We zipped through Iowa, Illinois and stopped to visit my cousins in Indiana. Today we visited my brother, George, in Plainwell and got home this evening. Another trip down!
We leave in 2 weeks to meet up with Trevor in Ireland. Since this is technically an RV blog, I probably won't post unless there is a lot of clamoring for it ;)
Next planned RV trip is in January to Florida. Stay tuned.....

We left South Dakota yesterday morning and saw a few more bison on the way to the Corn Palace.

The Corn Palace was pretty cool, many huge murals made entirely out of different varieties/colors of corn cobs cut in half. The inside of the palace is used for sporting and civic events and remains the same year after year unless the murals need rejuvenating. The outside gets changed every year due to weather, bird and mice damage. They were in the midst of changing to a music theme.

The columns were tiled like field corn.

Farmer Denny

 

 

Willie is nearly done.

We  think that will be Elvis on the left when complete.

Then, on to Nebraska. I think their state motto should be " Move on, nothing to see here". Actually, the enormous fields of corn, soybeans and cows were pretty but after a few miles they get tiresome. We ended up in Iowa for the night. Iowa was a pleasant surprise. I expected it to look just like Nebraska but even though there were many fields being harvested and lots of cows, there were also rolling hills and wetland wildlife refuges. We stayed in a lovely (and cheap!) state park on a lake.

Have you ever seen the bumper stickers that read "Where the heck is Wall Drug"? Well, it's in South Dakota. It used to be just a drug store, now it's an everything store. And, by that I mean, everything you don't need! We thought we would check it out and pick up a couple of drug store items we needed. Well, don't waste your time, unless you love to shop. It's basically a tourist trap where you can buy any souvenir, t-shirt, cowboy hat you want. What you can't buy, is much of anything in the tiny drug store!

So, on to the Badlands we went, where we were greeted by a herd of Bighorn sheep. The sign said there were only 100 in the park. We saw 4 huge groups, I think we must have seen every one of them!

We drove through the park on a 26 mile scenic drive. Between vistas, picture taking, and short hikes, it only took us 3 hours :)
What follows is a small sampling of the 100+ pictures Denny took of the Badlands. I have made them small so you can skip by if not interested. But, if you see one you like, just double click to open it up bigger. You will note there are none of Denny. Since he is not too fond of heights, he wouldn't get close to the edge.

The colors were amazing!

We didn't see any!

Well, the fog persisted but so did we. As we saw the fog lift a bit, we left for Crazy Horse. The mountain was fogged in when we got there, so they let us in for half price and we had a delightful time in the museum and seeing the short movie. Just as we were getting ready to leave the fog blew away and we got a wonderful view of the mountain, right before the fog drifted in and obscured it again.

We left Crazy Horse and drove about a half hour to Mt Rushmore. On the way the fog was lifting and we even got a few peeks of sun. We were able to view the memorial and take the hike up to the mountain. We went to their restaurant for a bite of lunch and when we came out , we were socked in again! We lucked out that we were able to see them at all.

So, pushing our luck, we drove the Needles Hwy back to the campground. It is a very winding, mountainous drive with small one lane tunnels and needle like rock formations.

The weather cleared enough to see about 2/3 of it so we were happy we persevered. I even got to see a herd of mountain goats, I have been looking for them since we got here! Denny ran for the telephoto lens but they were blanketed by fog when he got back :(

We stopped at the Hole in the Wall picnic area on the way back down the mountain for a quick break and short hike.

Time to leave the magic Black Hills this morning and start heading toward home by way of the Badlands National Park. Hopefully, we will lose the fog along the way! On the way, we will see a few more sights and have a few more adventures. Stay tuned.

Another foggy, misty day in the Black Hills yesterday. We went to see George and the rest of the mountain men but no luck. Crazy horse was hiding too. We ended up at a mammoth dig site. It was a small sinkhole that is now totally enclosed in a building . Apparently, the sinkhole formed around a hot spring where grass would grow even in winter. So, the mammoths would go to forage and get a drink, slip in and not be able to get out. Interestingly, all of the elephants found have been males and most were teenagers! They have dug only a third of the way down and have already found 61 woolly or Colombian mammoths. Very interesting!

Today was promised to be sunny and warm so we got up early. It may be sunny ....but it's above the fog! We only have today and half of tomorrow left. If it doesn't lift soon we will miss Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse. That would make me sad  :(
We did drive through the park which is beautiful, even in the fog, as long as you stay away from the overlooks!

Black Hills version of Mackinac Island's Arch rock!

Yesterday was another foggy, rainy day. So, we decided it was time to go caving. Weather can't affect that! So, we went to Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument. Cave pictures don't generally turn out that well but here are two I liked.

Also, on the way back to the campground, we saw a herd of elk with a particularly handsome and well muscled bull. He gave us the evil eye until we quit watching his herd of females!

But, the highlight of the day was when we stopped at a grocery store to get milk and found a little old lady giving out samples....of bourbon! I've tried new products in grocery stores before, but liquor? Not in Michigan! Guess this really is part of the wild west! BTW, it was tasty :)

Today was pretty much a bust. We drove the Wildlife loop in the park and did see some pronghorn and some wild burros (who came up to the cars and begged for food... maybe not so wild after all). Since it was rainy and foggy, we decided to clean the RV and do laundry. Traveling isn't always exciting! But we did meet some nice campers from Arkansas and Texas in the laundromat!

On the way to the Black Hills there was more beautiful scenery, cute animals and The Enchanted Highway, a 32 mile art installation of gigantic steel sculptures!

 

You can see the immense size of these metal art installations by looking in the curl of the center fishes tail, where you will see Janet!

Denny's riding in the stage coach!

Their shoes are watering troughs!

Tomorrow we explore the Black Hills!