ROAD TRIP!

As I mentioned in my last post, we decided that the long Memorial Day weekend would be a perfect opportunity for a road trip.  By that point, we had been hanging out at home for more than a week, and we wanted something fun and interesting to do in our new state.  We decided on Wall Drug and the Badlands because Wall Drug was where literally everyone asked us if we were going and we kind of wanted to get it out of the way (there is waaaaaaaaaay more to South Dakota than Wall Drug, people!).

Friday at work, I told my co-workers about my obsession with finding a buffalo to hug, and they all told me I was absolutely crazy.  Apparently one does not hug a buffalo.  They are massive and not altogether friendly.  However, Marcia, one of the members of my crew, told me that on the road we were following to get to Wall, there was a herd visible with three white buffalo, which are considered sacred.  So we headed out full of expectation.  Long story short, we found the herd and zero white buffalo there in.

Nonetheless, spirits were high and we were undeterred.  We followed Route 14 out to Wall, which goes along an old stagecoach line.  There were several geocaches hidden along the way, and true to form, Leah had to stop and pee several times.  It was a fun ride, and we started to see some of the local wildlife, including the infamous South Dakota pheasant.

Pheasants are to South Dakota what white tailed deer are to most of the Eastern Seabord.  As a co-worker put it this week, "Either you've hit a pheasant, or you know someone who has."  Before I started, I was told that South Dakota's unofficial state holiday is the first Saturday in October when pheasant season starts, and I truly believe that most of those hunters are just eking gleeful revenge on the birds for cracked windshields and bumpers.  Indeed, the basement floor of our local grocery store, Dakotamart, has walls of stuffed pheasants available for purchase!

We did not hit a pheasant.  Instead as we were driving, a kingbird flew smack into our windshield!  It seemed to glance off and keep going as there was no corpse in the road, and we declared it the bird's fault and kept on trucking!

I kept yelling at Greg to stop the car at any of the signs which swore there were "original wagon wheel ruts" from the pioneers and stagecoach lines that went along that part of the country.  He finally did, and our general reaction to what ground we saw was, "If you say so..."   Not easy to spot, to say the least.

We enjoyed reading Wall Drug signs along the way (think Burma Shave or South of the Border), and eventually zeroed in on it.  Parking was no problem, and we made our way inside, immediately upon which Leah a) decided she had to pee and b) decided she was terrified of all humanity.

Downtown Wall, SD, about two blocks away from Wall Drug

We dealt with the bathroom issue first and then headed out to the 'backyard' where there are sculptures and animals to climb on and take pictures with.  Leah hopped on the giant jackalope and Greg and I sat in a covered wagon.  

We even found this beauty...

We grown ups also had a blast riding the bucking bronco, but Leah was a bit too cool for that.

Thereafter, it was decided we were hungry, so we had lunch at the Wall Drug Cafe.  There was quite a line, but it moved along fairly quickly, and we enjoyed our meals.  Greg got the buffalo burger, Leah a cheeseburger, and I got a hot roast beef sandwich.  We also got one of their famous donuts and a piece of pie.  Leah declined to get a drink and stole my drink using a free ice water cup.

After lunch we did a bit of souvenir shopping--I wanted to send out some postcards, and we got a pack of playing cards on clearance since we didn't bring our games with us.  We checked into the bathrooms and then decided to head for the Badlands as it was mid-afternoon and we wanted to get moving.  I had no real concept of what the Bandlands were, and Greg was busily telling us about when he had been there in 2018, but I still didn't really 'get it'.  We could see them rising in the distance and eventually got to the main entrance, which was on a field teeming with prairie dogs, so we got out for a few pictures.

We wound up buying an NPS annual pass, as we plan to take a few trips to NPS properties this year, and then started following the crowd to various overlooks and sites.  We seemed to keep following one family from North Carolina and their son kept going down into the canyons on increasingly narrow paths out to the edges of the little rock formations.  The rock is VERY soft and you can crumble it with your fingers, no problem.  The Badlands are the remnants of a once massive ocean.  Everything you can see with your eyes was once underwater.  There are tons of fossils to be found and really cool formations.  Well, I sort of became determined that I would hotfoot down one of the formations as well.  It was not easy wearing Crocs and the earth constantly shifting underfoot, but eventually I got down one big hill, despite Leah crying and begging me not to (she was nervous about us falling off the edge).  My valiant efforts inspired Greg to come down to where I was, and that pushed me go a little further and ask him to take my picture on the edge down in the canyon.  It is now my Facebook profile picture and one of my favorite pictures of myself.

Afterwards, we rolled back up (I really wasn't sure I was going to make it back up at one point, but an obliging shrub gave me the handhold I needed!), and kept going along the little dirt road to Roberts Prairie Dog Town.  Here, you can visit the prairie dogs and some of them stare at you before darting off if you get too close.  We decided to see how close we as a family could get to one, and we set our sights on a 'victim' and walked quietly and carefully altogether, stopping when he seemed to get scared.  It took us about 15 minutes, but we finally got within 5 feet of him. Or her.  Hard to say.

When that one finally ran away, we did it again with a second one, and then called it a day.  It was such a fun collective thing to do, just holding hands, whispering to each other, taking pictures, trying to speak quietly to it (LOL!  Like it knows or cares!), etc.  Afterwards, we decided to go have a look at the three buffalo that were lounging nearby, but we didn't get anywhere near them, just admiring from a distance.  On our way back to the car, a woman called us over to another set of prairie dog holes, but instead of prairie dogs, there was a badger rooting around!  So that was pretty cool, as none of us had ever seen one of those in the wild either!  

Afterwards, we kept driving, though it was well past five and we were all pretty darned tired.  We decided to finish the loop we were on and then come back the next day to finish the main drag through the area, although, we did have to drive a good portion of it to get out.

At one rest stop, we were stopped by a gentleman from Minnesota who was impressed we were so far from home, much less that we had moved to SD!  He chatted our ears off for about ten minutes before we bid him a fond farewell, but I truly do like that kind of friendliness and interest in each other from strangers.  It was pretty cool.

Eventually, we made our way back to Wall, taking note of a couple things we wanted to do the next day for fun.  We checked into the Travelodge and then headed out to find dinner.  The first place had no one working.  The second place was so overcrowded there was nowhere to sit.  So we eventually went to the DQ near the hotel.  It was convenient and fast and we had an OK meal there.  After that, we returned to the hotel and watched some crappy TV before falling asleep on actual beds for the first time in two weeks.

Now, the Travelodge seemed to be going through some things.  There was a sign on the door that said if wanted ice, we'd have to go to the Days Inn.  And that breakfast would be provided, but we'd have to go to the America's Best.  So in the morning, we went over, stopping for a couple of pictures with the buffalo.

The breakfast was OK, but crowded owing to the fact that two hotels' worth of guests were trying to eat, so the line for the pancake machine was crazy, and I wound up eating yogurt and Greg had a bagel.  We returned to the hotel to check out, only to discover sometime overnight it had shut down completely, as there was a sign on the door saying if people had a reservation they could go to the Days Inn and they would try to accommodate them.  We were grateful we got in under the wire!

Leah wanted to go back to Wall Drug and we thought it might be good at that hour because it was early and should be quieter, but upon making our way over there, we found out the shops didn't open for another half hour, so we went geocaching around town.  One geocache was hidden at a local playground, and Leah and Greg climbed around and had a lot of fun together doing that.

We went back to Wall Drug and Leah got the merch she wanted, before we headed back out.  The first place we stopped was The Ranch Store, where they have a prairie dog village at which you can hang out with and feed the prairie dogs.  In the store, you buy unsalted peanuts and then go to town feeding them.  The field is packed with babies and adolescents, as well as full grown adults, and Greg decided to take the time to bond with a prairie dog to the point it was willing to eat out of his hand.

Leah and I were not so lucky, and mainly wound up just tossing peanuts at them and watching them play.  It was still a lot fun!  Afterwards, we drove over the Prairie Homestead, one of the last few remaining sod houses left in South Dakota.  The pioneers and homesteaders to this area, including the Wilders by the by, all lived in sod huts due to a lack of available wood from trees.  These huts were started by digging into banks and creating 'caves', which were then secured with some timber and baked earth bricks.  The huts were not the most pleasant things on earth--when it rained they frequently leaked.  In this old home, the only divider between rooms was a sheet of builders paper.  There was a fascinating little movie to start and then a tour, which was self guided.  There was the original sod hut and then a wood addition that was put on later, as well as a chicken coop, root cellar, barns, and outhouses.  

As I said to Greg, if this were me, I'd be saying "Edgar, hitch up the team, we're going back to Boston!"  It certainly gives you a sense of how hearty the pioneers must have been.  Although frankly one wonders given that the Native Americans seem to be doing fine what exactly their story was...

After our tour, we went back into the Badlands for lunch at the visitors center and ate Indian tacos, which were made with a mixture of beef and buffalo, so I can say I have eaten buffalo.  I bought a lovely little Native American pot with a buffalo on the side which we have proudly displayed downstairs.  We drove back through the Badlands for another look, although frankly, I fell asleep!  When we went out the other side, we were just in time to watch a herd of buffalo coming up to and across the road, so we stopped to watch and take pictures for a while.

It was time to head home, a two hour drive back to Pierre along Route 14.  We decided to stop in Cottonwood, basically a ghost town, which you can read about here.  In 2010, the population was listed as nine people, and we saw one person come out to see their dog as we drove around and took pictures.

While I was out taking photos, Greg was all "OH!  There's a geocache nearby!" and so we decided to make a go of it.  We followed a dirt path through a field 3/4 of a mile to find the damned thing, bouncing and jouncing all the way.  "I'll find a place to turn around!" he said as we rolled past an abandoned house that had a dessicated airplane tail in the side yard.  But before he could, we were at the cache site, a fence at the local cemetery.  It took a long time to find the cache and Greg was fully prepared to give up, but I said, "We did not come all the way up here to not find the damned thing!" so we stayed till the job was done, and I am pleased to say I am the one who found the cache.

See the road?  Yeah, neither could we.

Rather unfortunately this meant we had to roll back down the hill, but we didn't seem to hit anything, so that was a plus!

We eventually got home, without any further incident, and declared our road trip a success.  We all really enjoyed seeing some of South Dakota outside the big city of Pierre and mostly are awed by the wide open spaces.  It is absolutely crazy how open the country is here.  As I remarked to a friend, "I finally feel like I can breathe."