Stray Kat

Driving south trough the Black Hills of South Dakota is a relaxing experience.  The roads are winding and there’s little traffic, with dark but widely spaced pine trees on all sides, and there are occasional river crossings and camp sites.  I saw more bison warning signs, although I never saw the bison, and the idea of them wandering though this dark forested landscape gave the place a primeval feel.  I could almost see what it would have been like here before…

Read More Read More

About 25 miles south of Rapid City, South Dakota is a place that I think everyone has seen in pictures, Mount Rushmore.  I drove down to see it though the lovely Black Hills, taking my time, and just enjoying the scenery. I expected a famous site like this to be more crowded in the summer months while kids are all on school holidays, but although there were certainly plenty of people there, it never felt overcrowded.  It’s designated as a…

Read More Read More

I’m not usually one to rave about shopping places.  In fact, I’ve been known to go to great lengths to avoid them at all costs.  But I had been seeing amusing billboards for Wall Drug for, quite literally, over 300 miles as I drove across South Dakota, and I needed fuel and coffee anyway, so decided to see what it was all about.  It turned out to be not so much a single shop as a complex maze of shops,…

Read More Read More

Maybe it’s just something about the name, but I’ve always wanted to see the Badlands of South Dakota, although without knowing all that much about them.  It’s listed as a National Park, but I’ll say here that I never saw a gate, a ranger, or a visitor’s center.  But it’s a big place, so it’s entirely possible that I just missed them.  Actually, it’s a huge place, and although I traveled the main drive for a while, I spent most of…

Read More Read More

It’s been a couple of days since I’ve posted anything, mainly because I’ve had very marginal phone coverage, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy!  I left Sioux Falls and drove almost straight west across the Great Plains of South Dakota.  As I think I’ve established, I love mountains, but I’ve surprised myself by also kind of falling in love with these rolling grasslands!  This is the area that’s always called the breadbasket of the country, and I…

Read More Read More