July 7th

July 7^th

Prairie's that stretch out for miles, rolling hills of wheat and farms with row after row after row of corn. That pretty much sums up Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. There was nothing but prairie until bam we crested over a hill and the rows of corn ran right into huge rock formations of the badlands. The abruptness of it surprised me. It was beautiful. Reminded me a lot of Goblin Valley and the rocks of southern Utah – except you could still see corn in the foreground.

Great Faces, Great Places. So far South Dakota has got it right. We have seen some pretty spectacular sights in South Dakota. One of which was the famous Corn Palace of Mitchell South Dakota. We started seeing billboards about the time we crossed the border from Minnesota and decided a palace made of corn was something we had to see – plus it was free and what could be better than that. The also aggressively advertised coffee for 5 cents at the Wall Drug. What a deal, if we were coffee drinkers we would have stopped. Anyway the corn palace turned out to be a huge community center for sporting events and the like that wasn’t actually made out of corn but was decorated with 1000’s of ears and stalks of corn. It was pretty darn cool. Each year they choose and theme and then decorate the entire outside of the building with murals depicting that theme made entirely of corn. They were still building some of the murals – it was pretty cool to watch them cut the stalks with a miter saw. There was a lot of corn there. The building must double for the states food storage. Inside they sold everything corn related. The kids had a great time browsing in the gift shops and begging us to buy overpriced junk. That is one of there favorite parts of the trip.

We also saw the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. That may not seem like much but to the biggest Little House on the Prairie Fan ever it was quite the find. Anna was pretty excited too – she has started reading the little house books and has talked a lot about them during the trip – comparing their life to the things we have seen about the life of the pioneers.

We also stopped by the ranch store and bought some peanuts to feed the prairie dogs. It was pretty cool. They were everywhere. And they were pretty friendly and would let you pet them if you were really slow and calm. I touched one – it took me a couple tried to muster up the courage to touch it but it wasn’t too bad. I just kept telling myself they were more like dogs than rodents. All the kids liked to pet them and Dallin was especially good at it. Rachel on the other hand had most of them running away from her the second she came near. She was just too loud and moved too fast but she finally managed to pet one.

We reached the Badlands just about ½ hour before the visitors center closed so we ran in to get our passports stamped and then found a RV site. As were were pulling in a big motor home cut in right in front of us. I just knew they would get the last spot. Turns out there were two spots available but he was too long for both so we got our pick. The campground is nice except for the bugs and the lack of showers. The mosquitoes are really bad. I am getting eaten alive and they itch like crazy. My legs are on fire. It would help to take a shower – but there are none. I might end up trying the RV shower after all. We made dinner and ate it outside on the picnic table – it was then that I realized how beautiful it is. The setting sun lit up the rocks and brought out spectacular colors. The hills are stunning the look almost 2D – like someone put up a movie set or something. They are really cool. We had considered skipping the badlands due to time constraints but I am so glad we didn’t. It is one of South Dakota’s “great places” to be sure.

Tonight we went to a ranger program on the rock formations of the area and the paleontologists and their finds. This area used to be full of prehistoric mammals that have left there record thought the abundant fossils. Tomorrow we are excited to go hiking and scout around for fossils – who knows maybe we will find the next fossil that leads to the next “big pig dig”.