Where ARE We? South Dakota....

Got up this morning and left the same time as the bikers. Apparently we hit South Dakota during the annual Sturgis, a long distance motorcycle ride. Kept seeing bikers everywhere. The drive through South Dakota was once again filled with corn fields (and I found out, soybean fields). There were some things to break it up though. When we saw cattle being herded across a bridge over teh highway, Kevin got a bit confused and had to ask Where are we? South Dakota, obviously. Hotspots like 1880's Town and Wall Drugs had billboards hundreds of miles before their actual location so we had plenty of amusement there. Looking for ice water and Dinosaurs? Wall Drugs got it. Praire dogs that are "never mean, always keen"? The Homestead has you covered. Of course when you actually pass these places they could be all of 5 small buildings clustered together, as in the case of 1880's Town. Didn't quite live up to the hype, but still amusing. The best was the Corn Palace. We didn't actually stop to see it, but it seemed like the whole town revolved around it. It even was on their water tower.

This way actually the only thing at an exit where we switched drivers.

Our gps wanted us to "Turn right on the dirt road" to get back to the highway. No thank you.

Parker's sculpture park. Right before we saw the cows crossing the highway.

As much fun as the billboards were, the scenery was getting a bit redundant when out of the flat lands abruptly rose a rocky, mountainous landscape. Finally we had made it to the Badlands! Our first national park and first major stop on the trip. You would never expect to see the amazing, jagged rock formations and beautiful colors after so much flat land, but there they were. We stopped at the visitor center to get  better idea of where to go and to ask about camping. We were a little concerned about staying since we heard there was a chance of scattered storms, but we decided to check if there were sites anyway. When talking to the ranger about the weather he first just pointed to the sign that had the weather for the day. After further inquiries about the severity of the recent storms he did say that a couple days ago some campers had their CAR blown over by the wind.  Well that decided it; we were getting out of there before the night. We toured around the park, saw some incredible sights (the pictures will do a better job than I can) and climbed on and around the ridges. Eventually we decided we had seen enough and headed out to Mt Rushmore.

About 30 minutes out away from Mt Rushmore a tornado and severe thunderstorm warning came over the radio. We pulled over, checked the weather and realized we had to make it all the way to Wyoming to get out of this mess. So after waiting for the weather to clear a bit we were back on the road, driving 7 hours to Greybull, WY. Goodbye torrential rains, hail, possible flashfloods, and potential thunderstorms. Hello middle of no where Wyoming. I realized Greybull was where I had been 3 years ago for a geology trip. A little crazy to be back in the tiny town. Got to see a lot of sights again which was neat. Our campsite was a tiny lot next to the road, but we were so tired by that point we figured it would work.

Our campground for the night. We really stayed here.

This is what I loved about Greybull.