Southwest South Dakota

Flying to Casper and Rapid City

Our next destination on this vacation was Rapid City, South Dakota, a 3.5 hour trip as Bianca flies. Since my personal limit on the plane is 3 hours, we decided to stop at Casper, WY, to refuel and wait for the winds at our final destination to be manageable; the day had started with a prediction of winds at KRAP at 15 knots gusting to 30, but forecast to become 8 knots in the afternoon.

We took off from Idaho Falls Regional Airport and, after climbing to 11,500, leveled off and settled down to enjoy the ride.Our first waypoint was Jackson and Katrina was thrilled to be able to take pictures of both sides of the Tetons and get another look at Jenny Lake from the air. Once past Jackson, though, we ran into turbulence which stayed with us for the next hour and a half until we landed in Casper.

Stopping at Casper turned out to be a great idea. Not only did the weather check show that the winds had not died down, but the World Cup game between the U.S. and Belgium was about to start. We had to wait, the FBO had a high-definition TV, so we knew what we were doing for the next two hours.

Two hours later the U.S. was out of the World Cup, the winds had not died down sufficiently and we were hungry, so we borrowed the world's biggest pick-up truck and went into town looking for food. Not many choices, so we ended up having sandwiches at a laundromat/Subway/yogurt shop.

One more weather check showed that the winds were finally below 15 knots, so we got on the plane and a little bit over an hour later were landing in Rapid City. The flight was uneventful, other than the ubiquitous turbulence and five minutes during which the GPS was not able to get a signal. But we made it there, parked the plane, Miranda helped us get a car and a hotel room and off we went to explore the area.

After dumping our bags in the hotel room  we were off to downtown Rapid City, looking for the Firehouse Restaurant, which both Miranda and the receptionist at the hotel told us was the place to go for good beer.  We found the restaurant easily, had what was indeed good beer and wandered around the neighborhood, looking at the statues of presidents they had at every street corner. I was able to recognize enough of them to feel gratified.

 Day 1: Custer State Park,  Black Hills, Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore

Next day was a long one. It started with a drive to Custer State Park, where we had the opportunity to see lots and lots of bison, way more than we saw at Yellowstone. One of the herds we found must have had over 100 bison in it! We also saw people that did not understand the meaning of wildlife and thought it was a good idea to get really close to the animals, turn their backs to them and take selfies. Luckily no one was harmed.

We also saw groundhogs and wild donkeys, and more people who don't understand the meaning of wild. As usual in these parks, cars stop in the middle of the road when they spot something and I'm ok with that. What I wasn't ok with was the guy that couldn't be bothered to get out of the car but thought it was a good idea to use food to entice the donkeys to come closer. And come closer they did, as the picture below shows, but again luckily no one got hurt.

Leaving the park we were off to the Black Hills, driving up through narrow tunnels and windy roads that offered spectacular views of the rock formations, many of them decidedly phallic. We ended up at Sylvan Lake, where we got to join the crowds swimming, sunbathing and strolling around it. Without bathing suits we opted for the hike version and spent one very pleasant hour walking along its margins.I will say this about the Black Hills: half a day is not enough, I will have to come back to visit it again and hike along its trails.

Some more driving, including a stop in Custer for ice cream and we were at Crazy Horse, where they are chipping away at a mountain until it becomes a statue of Crazy Horse atop a horse and pointing to his lands. It's work of epic proportions with  Crazy Horse's head itself being bigger than the four heads at Mt. Rushmore put together. And the head is what we have so far, along with a vague idea of where his pointing arm will be. Given work started over 50 years ago, my guess is that it will not be done in my lifetime.

We finally made our way to Mt. Rushmore where I was disappointed to find out that they did not accept our annual national park and monument pass. We forked the cash, of course, parked the car, walked through an avenue with flags of all the U.S. states and went to take a look at the four presidents. They were indeed impressive. It amazes me that there are people who look at a mountain and think, "I will make a statue out of this piece of rock." 

We grabbed some dinner, including bison chili, and headed back to the amphitheater for the lighting ceremony. It was a touching patriotic ceremony, with a small movie about the monument, singing the national anthem and a homage to the veterans and members of the armed forces present, who were all invited to go up on stage and lower the American flag.

After that it was back to the hotel for some shuteye.

Day 2: Badlands National Park and Deadwood

Next morning we were off to the Badlands, an hour's drive away to the East. Nice straight road, but billboards for Wall Drug all over the place, promising us 5 cent coffee. That was not enticing enough for us to stop (actually the idea of what 5 cent coffee would taste like scares me) and we drove right past Wall until we found ourselves at the entrance to the park.

It's easy to see why it's called Badlands. It's huge, hot and large areas of it look inhospitable. Oh, and there are signs everywhere warning us about rattlesnakes. The place was beautiful, though, with the hills having bands of multiple colors, from browns to reds and yellows, apparently telling us the story of when this place was a sea and flood lands before becoming today's prairie. Fossils can be found everywhere and tourists are encouraged to hunt for them. This is another place I want to come back and visit again, in a more leisurely manner. But I will do it in autumn.

Our second and last stop for the day was Deadwood, an hour and a half drive to the West. A pleasant drive, and on the way there we started seeing more and more people riding Harley-Davidsons, an oddity until we realized we were going towards Sturgis, the site of what is touted as the world's biggest motorcycle rally. It was not rally season, but apparently the aura of the place is enough to attract bikers there all year long.

As for Deadwood, all I can say is this: we got to see the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

Going Back Home

We left early for our trip back home, hoping to avoid turbulence. Our goal was to make it to Ogden, Utah, with a stop at Casper to refuel. We took off around 8 am and made it Casper in mostly smooth air. But all good things must pass, and the two hours between Casper and Ogden were some of the worst turbulence we encountered during the whole trip. But Bianca behaved admirably, no parts fell off despite all the shaking and we landed safely in Ogden. where the nice people at the FBO gave us the royal treatment. Not only did they get us a car and hotel reservations, they also brought out a red carpet for Katrina to alight from the plane. She felt honored. It was hot.

By then we were touristed out and wanted to just spend some quality time in the hotel's swimming pool, get a good night's sleep and leave the next day. Unfortunately it turned out that the hotel was being remodeled and the pool was closed. We had to change to plan B and wandered around the downtown area, looking for a place to eat. It was the fourth of July and most places were closed, but we did find an open sports bar close to the hotel where I had a stuffed burger, definitely one of the great culinary inventions. We ended the day going to the movies, mostly to avoid the heat. Did I mention it was hot?

Not much to say about Ogden, other than the fact that it was hot and at most street corners in the downtown area had either a piano or statues of horses. 

Next day we woke early again and headed off for the airport, prepared the plane and took off, flying over the Great Salt Lake on the first of our last three legs of this vacation. We stopped at Battle Mountain to refuel and again in Auburn for lunch. By early afternoon we were back home, exhausted but happy we had done this trip.