Black Hills

Wow, well, we made it to Black Hills! It is more beautiful than I could have imagined. Even the developed areas are wild and free by city slicker standards. This would be a cool place to run a restaurant or bed & breakfast, or just own a little cabin to spend the summers. Wow, that’s the only thing I can say to describe it here. Wow.

We started the day with a peanut butter sandwich and were on the road by 8:30 am to get a jump on the long day ahead of us. We stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, which was a disappointment: I was thinking a literal palace made entirely of corn, but it’s actually a community center with large art made of corn above some seats on a basketball court. Not great. Something to do with fire regulations, I think. BAH! We did happen across Lake Mitchell, though, and found an impressive flock of pelicans and got some awesome pictures of them!

My sweet love did ALL the driving today, except for a small stretch of highway between the Wall Drug (which is a big tourist attraction, though I’d never heard of it before this, and much better than the Corn Palace of Shame) to the next rest stop after I started having a panic attack about how winding the roads were going to get. I’m glad we switched seats, because that panic was nothing compared to the mortal fear I experienced later as we drove up the side of a mountain to get to the Sylvan Lake Lodge, egads. At one point, there’s a tunnel that is big enough for only ONE car, though it’s a two-way road. The Sylvan had some funny situation going on, so the manager called the Legion Lake Resort to hold us a cabin. It is the cutest cabin, perfect for a little romantic stay in the woods ☺ We’re ill equipped for a cabin stay, but they’ve got a little grocery store and restaurant at the bottom of hill, nice and convenient, and my idea of “roughing it”.

We were amazed at how many deer we saw on the way up the mountain, and they were right outside the car just looking up at you like, “Hey, how’s it going? Got any food?” We haven’t seen any wild bison yet, but they are here in this very park, Custer State, and there are warnings everywhere about how dangerous they are. I’d love to see some and take pictures from afar, WAY afar! That’s the beauty of having a zoom lens. After we settled into our cabin, we took off on a walk, and right outside the cabin looking straight at us were three very friendly deer!! They stayed there and looked at us with interest while we shot a buttload of pics, I couldn’t believe it! I suppose to people out here the deer are as common as squirrels, but to us, it’s so incredible to get that close to them! They nibbled on the grass demurely as we admired them and they never did get spooked, not once, even with all the clicking of our digital cameras.

We explored the large, mountainy ridges that surround this tiny serene lake, and then settled down near the waters edge to admire the mallards coupling, the birds twittering, the fish jumping, and a very large Osprey trying to get dinner for himself. We’ve got photos of it all, never fear! The fluffy sprawl of clouds over the lake had me mesmerized until the chill in the air finally sent us to the cabin to snuggle in for the night. So now we’re here relaxing in silence, no tv, no water park or kids running down hallways, no freeways, no cars, no sounds (except the chorus of our bellies that are strangely in unison, I hope my IBS isn’t contagious), no internet access…just us in this grand place that I imagine is quite similar to what it was when the world was new to human life.

Tomorrow’s agenda: Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, find an internet café (preferably a Caribou coffee, I’m dying for a chai latte!) so we can post this and our photos, then off to tour the Wind Caves, which are reportedly some of the largest caves in the world! YAY! Now I’m off to take a look at the beautiful gemstones I found for a STEAL at the Wall Drug. In case you’re wondering, I picked up 2 rose quartz, an amethyst, moss agate, blue lace, clear quartz, blood stone, fancy jasper, obsidian, malachite and adventurine, all for only $3.07!!!!!! I’m very tempted to stop back there to pick up more because they were so cheap, hopefully time allows. I would still like to stop off at a couple of the trading post places around Rapid City to look for totem animal carvings, cuz I’m into freaky stuff like that. Whee!

Our live animal report for the road is good: we saw LOADS of pheasants, ducks, cows, horses, regal white cranes and deer roaming around alive and well!! It is, however, a sad day for lots of others ☹
Roadkill Report: 3 bunnies, 9 pheasants, a raccoon, a muskrat (perhaps), 2 “chunkies”, and 2 “tiny somethings”. Lots of semi tires also lots their lives today; tons of rubber bits on the road.

Today's Mileage: 366.7

Restaurant Report: Today we only ate out once at a shitty little place called the Cactus Grill near the Wall Drug. It was food, that’s about all I can say for it. I kept telling myself that we were eating better than they did in the old west, and at least I’m not turning tricks for my meals like the ladies of those days had to. Ick.