The Black Hills of South Dakota

After leaving Badlands, we headed into Wall, SD for an oil change. The mechanic happened to be a short walk from Wall Drug, which is a massive store/tourist attraction selling western wear, sunglasses, cosmetics, camping gear, gemstones… basically anything you could want. There were roadside advertisements beginning about 330 miles away! They grew in frequency exponentially as you got closer to Wall and were interesting to read on an otherwise uninteresting drive. After exploring Wall Drug and picking up the car, we mapped our plan for the day over breakfast.

We headed to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, which was only a small detour out of our way. It was certainly worth it! Eddie kept talking about Close Encounters. We got back on our route, and headed toward Deadwood, SD (spoiler: “historic downtown” does not look like the show! One or both of us might have been disappointed about that).

We drove onward to Mount Rushmore, which was really cool to see in person!

We then drove a little further to Horsethief Lake State Park to camp for the night. The camp host was this 65-70 year old spritely woman who frequently zipped around the campground on an ATV to make sure all was in order.

In the morning, we headed to Wind Cave National Park. The park is one of the longest caves in the world and can only be explored via a ranger led tour. We opted for the longer tour and it was well worth it. We got to see box work, cave popcorn, and frost work, which are all natural formations. At one point, the ranger turned the lights off  and lit a candle to show us what it would like if you were exploring when the cave was first explored about 100 years ago. He then blew the candle out and you could not see your hand in front of your face. It was pretty cool! The pictures we took did not come out very well due to the low lighting, and did not do the experience any justice.

Who knew South Dakota had so much to offer! Thanks, Black Hills… now, on to Colorado!