Along the road to Montana

We scheduled some RoadTrek maintenance and stayed in Worthington, MN for a couple of nights, also so Carol could take care of a book editing deadline. Then we headed west on Tuesday morning, Montana or bust! At first we were mostly seeing farmland and prairie grasslands, for miles upon miles. Everything looks nice and green here, so they've apparently been having some rain. We entered South Dakota shortly after leaving Worthington and spent most of the day driving across the grasslands. We visited Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse memorial just a few years ago, so we didn't plan on stopping there again. However, when we entered the SD badlands and saw the sign for Badlands National Park, we stopped, and were very glad we did.

South Dakota prairie. The perfume from the blooming grasses smells sweet!

We collect national park stamps in our little Park Passport book and the first visitor center we came to after leaving the interstate was for the Minuteman missile site historic park. For those readers who didn't live through the Cold War, this was a big thing--our deterrent to the Soviet Union destroying us with a nuclear first-strike was our armament of 1000 Minuteman missiles scattered all through this empty part of South Dakota, armed and ready to hit Moscow if we got the word that they had aimed a missile at us! Crazy, huh? Guess it worked, since we're still here.... At any rate, the National Park Service has preserved some of the sites, a control center for the "missileers" as they called them, and a missile silo armed with a (reproduction, not fully loaded!) Minuteman missile. Pretty cool.

Carol enters Minuteman missile site.

Reproduction Minuteman missile ready to go.

After collecting the Minuteman park stamp, we headed down to the Badlands National Park Visitor Center and got a map and some info on what we might be looking at. This is such a cool park!! The badlands just rise up out of the green prairie, looking like a moonscape, or a giant's crazy sandcastles.

Jack and Carol at first Badlands overlook.

We drove the scenic loop and took photo after photo, although as usual the photos don't do it justice. There's lots of wildlife as well. A bison herd roams free (although as we found out, they are actually fenced into a very large grazing area--50 miles long maybe--to keep them out of the surrounding ranchers' grazing areas). The pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, and mule deer go wherever they want. On our drive we saw several bison bulls at a distance, a small herd of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, one pronghorn, two huge prairie dog towns, and lots of birds.

The Badlands rise up out of the prairie like some phantasmagorical landscape...

Carol scaring herself again.

In fact we added a couple of birds to our lifelist here. We got close looks at several small burrowing owls sitting on fenceposts, watching the prairie dogs. We figured they must eat the smaller "dogs," but from Wikipedia research it seems that they actually use abandoned prairie dog burrows for their nests, and eat smaller animals that the prairie dogs scare up, like mice, voles and lizards. Then we saw an upland sandpiper sitting on a fencepost--long legs, long beak, looks more like a beach bird than a badlands bird. Great drive, great wildlife and scenery! Love this park!

This bison kept walking closer and closer to us. Note prairie dog on alert in foreground.

This Rocky Mtn. bighorn ewe walked in front of the van, to join a small herd of ewes and lambs on the other side.

We ended up near Wall, SD. We had been seeing billboards for the past 500 miles, at least, for Wall Drug--obviously a tourist hotspot, why we're not exactly sure--and decided we'd go there and look for a campground for the night. We'd seen these Wall Drug ads for years on various cross-country drives but never stopped till now. Wall Drug turns out to be a historic pharmacy, of all things to be a tourist hotspot. Through the years it's taken over the town of Wall with blocks of store buildings that sell and display pretty much everything (lifesize animatronic T-Rex, anyone?). Busloads of tourists flock in here. It's a pretty cool old-time town though. Still has the old town parking on both sides of the wide, wide streets. Very easy to park and walk around in. (Editorial note: Why did we lose the "downtowns" in our small towns and opt for malls?? At least we see them coming back in some of the small towns we drive through...)

Wall, SD downtown (mostly made up of Wall Drug).

We found a friendly campground a couple of blocks from Wall Drug and then walked over there to grab some supper--buffalo burgers! First we lovingly photograph them, then we eat them. It's the American Way!

On Wednesday we continued our drive toward Montana (passing the geographical center of the United States along the way). We entered Wyoming and stopped for lunch. Although we were in Wyoming for just a short time, we managed to go whitewater rafting, horseback riding, and fossil digging---all without leaving the Wyoming Welcome Center!! Wow! They have the coolest state visitor center we've ever seen!

Just a few of the "activities" at the Wyoming State Welcome Center. This last photo is a fossilized cypress tree found at a nearby coal mine. Even though it's turned to stone, you can still count the rings! (It was about 500 years old when it died, they say. Lived in this area gazillions of years ago, when the climate was much different?)

Well, folks, we made it to Montana in the early evening. Jack checked out the Bighorn River, one of the most famous flyfishing rivers in the U.S., and made his fishing plans for Thursday, and now we're in Cottonwood Campground in the flyfishing town of Fort Smith, Montana. Jack's in hog heaven.

Mileage: 131,303
Starting mileage: 124,375

State Count: 15 (Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana)
Also Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario)