July 8th Leaving the Badlands for Custer State Park

Saturday, July 8, 2006
Day 13
Drive to Custer State Park, South Dakota

We happily left the hot, dry, eerie feeling Badlands today. This is a photo of the badlands. We like it there, but then again we didn’t. It is a strange place. At the same time beautiful, yet strangely barren. It is difficult to describe how the place makes you feel.

As we entered into the Black Hills where Custer State Park is we felt smiles coming to our faces. The hills really do appear black from afar. They are green grasses and darker green pines interspersed. Really beautiful! I think I love mountains because whenever I see them I always smile.

We stopped for gas while still in or near the Badlands in a little town called Scenic. What a weird little place. The buildings were from the early 1900’s, and looked it. The people seemed odd. The gas station didn’t even take credit cards, and they only had premium gas for $3.21 per gallon! Yikes. We put in 40 bucks and got out. Rod kept mentioning the movie The Hills Have Eyes. I’ve never seen it, but apparently it is a scary one, and the place must have reminded him of the movie…

We also stopped to wash the car and part of the trailer. Yeah! It needed a wash badly. The Badlands will do that to your car! About 3 minutes after washing the car in Rapid City, Brianna decided she had to go to the bathroom so bad… You know the drill, right. Why she couldn’t have realized this minutes earlier is beyond us. So, we pulled over to the side of the road and used the facilities in the RV.

We finally got here 2 hours and 20 minutes later, all to go just 105 miles! But boy is it gorgeous here! I won’t have any trouble staying here the 3 nights we are planning. Tonight we took a drive on the Wildlife Loop Road, where you can view native wildlife. It was amazing! We saw white-tailed deer, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, bunnies, turkey (6 toms), more pronghorn, and more, and more, and then a bison, and another. These animals were so close you could almost reach out of the car and touch some of them. The bison literally crossed the road mere feet in front of us! This is truly the land where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play. We really did see some baby antelope running and playing and head butting.

On the technical side of things, the refrigerator is definitely not working properly. It continues to be way too hot in there, around 50 degrees in the refrigerator. I put the milk in the small cooler I have with me. Most of the food won’t go bad in there, but I am worried (thanks for making me a worry-wort grandma). We called a repair person today who was recommended by the camp host. He gave us a couple suggestions, but none have worked yet. We will call him again in the morning to see if he can come look at the unit. I have a bad feeling we are going to need to take the RV in and screw up our reservations. On the bright side, it’s not like we’re going to starve.

Tomorrow, Mount Rushmore!