Why did the (animal) cross the road?

July 2

Last night proved to be the most difficult night of all for sleeping. According to our meteorologist K, the wind was going about “a million miles a hour.” No joke. It even woke B up, who is a heavy sleeper.

By breakfast, the wind had finally died down and Chef C whipped up some pancakes. We were enjoying the quiet and significantly cooler temperatures when we heard a savage growl behind us. A cougar? A bear? A bighorn sheep? Nope. The odd neighbor’s dog had decided he wanted some pancakes too. Clearly someone hadn’t learned his please & thank yous.

We cleaned up camp and ourselves as best we could and hit the road. Our pit stop in Scenic, SD for gas and ice gave us our first old western town experience. Back on the road, we all watches as an antelope bound gracefully across the prairie, and sped towards the road, only to be clipped by the car in front of us. It was very traumatic, but K swears she saw it bound away. Trying to stay positive, we collectively determined to remain vigilant for roving wild life – something that proved to be a good thing later in the day…

The antelope was not the only animal eager to cross the road today. Soon after we left the Badlands (and entered again, and left, and entered again, and left), we turned onto Route 2, a dirt road found only on the smallest of maps. Although this proved rocky for Heidi, our trusty CRV, it gave us the opportunity to see Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, and lots and lots of cows! B was so excited about all the bovines that she had to get out and photograph them. C & K stayed in the car, comparing Swedish Fish eating strategies.

Once we returned to the road, we eventually drove onto a real plateau (not anything imagined of “sensed” by C). It was neat to look out on all sides and be able to see for miles and miles. We could even see as far as Wyoming at one point! (We’ll be there soon!) Not long after we plateaued, we had our second road animal encounter. A cow had gotten free from the pasture and trotted across the road in the hopes of finding his way. It would seem that we have begun our count of animals thinking the grass was greener on the other side.

On our way to the Wind Caves National Park, our next destination, we passed through Hot Springs, SD, which turned out to be the yellow car capital of the state. More yellow cars (and negative point yellow commercial vehicles) were called in that one town than in the entire state of Minnesota! (C hates Minnesota.)

A huge herd of buffalo greeted us at the entrance to the national park. We came around a curve on the road to see hundreds of them grazing. There were even baby buffalo! You may have already guessed that this was the location of our third animal crossing of the day! So why did the antelope/cow/buffalo cross the road? Creative answers welcome.

At the Wind Caves, we decided to take the “Garden of Eden” tour. On it, we learned that the first tour guide of the caves was a sixteen year old boy, Alvin, who apparently had a habit of leaving his tour groups underground for a night, returning in the morning to get them. Sounded to us like something C’s brother, P, might do. We also learned that Wind Caves National Park is the site of over 95% of the world’s boxwork (a rock formation caused by cracks in limestone that are filled with minerals, before the limestone erodes away.) Aren’t you impressed with these facts and figures? Lucky for us, we have geologist C along, who actually understands what all of that means.

After leaving the Wind Caves, we drove north to see Mount Rushmore. The visitor area of the monument (pathway of the flag from every state) impressed us, because it was so new and clean. The monument was also coo, but looked smaller in real life than we were expecting. We asked an older park ranger to take a photo of the three of us, and after a couple of misfired shots of us (without Mount Rushmore) we gave up on him and asked someone else to take the picture. We concluded that in the future, we should only ask younger people to take photos for us. It my be ageism, but an understanding of the “zoom” button is essential when documenting the trip of a lifetime!

We camped for the night in Piedmont, SD. We stayed in the Ritz-Carlton of campgrounds – it had a playground, swimming pool, even Wi-Fi! We were excited about sampling all of its amenities, but were so exhausted from the day that we just ended up sitting at the campsite, talking. K decided that she was not a fan of the campground, when after jogging back to the bathroom to pick up her forgotten keys, someone yelled “run Forest!” at her.

After four nights of camping, we are all looking forward to the next couple nights, at our stop in tent-less Red Lodge, Montana.

Mileage to date: 2,011

States visited: South Dakota

Yellow car count:

C – 57

B – 54

K – 43

Highs and Lows:

Group high – Buffalo herd. Being together 24/7.

Group low – Watching Bambi get hit by a car in front of us. Being together 24/7.

C high – Mount Rushmore

C low – Batteries.

B high – Buffalo herd.

B low – Getting cranky.

K high – The wind last night that made it hard to sleep.

K low – My yellow car score. I’m an embarrassment to my family of yellow car champions.

Interesting Observations:

The most common fast food chain is Taco John’s (it seems to be a lot like Taco Bell) – We saw our first familiar chains (aside from Mickey D’s) outside of Keystone... Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, probably for the tourists

Even though we have seen a million fireworks vendors, we didn’t have our first fireworks experience until tonight. Strange that something so available is hardly used.