Stage 3 - Black HIlls

After some traditional Swedish pancakes at the farm - we piled back into the van to head across South Dakota.  Our first major decision was taking a short detour around Pierre (capital of SD) to go hit the Oahe Dam.  The Oahe dam is apparently the third largest Earthen Dam in the US.    When my wife hears the words slight detour - her default answer is "no".  If it was the top ranked dam - maybe I would have used my veto power - but for the third ranked dam - I decided to keep truckin....

After reconnecting with I-90 we then took the scenic route through the Badlands.  The trip through the Badlands exceeded my expectations.  The pictures do not do it justice but it was pretty stunning - as it was very different than any other place I have seen in the US.

The topography made it challenging to cloimb some of the hills - but that did not stop Jake from making an effort.  This forced Karen to the car - as she was unwilling to witness Jake scale some of the peaks.  He suffered a few cuts but otherwise came away unscathed.

The next stop was the iconic tourist trap Wall Drug.  Home of the 5 cent cup of coffee.   We had a bite to eat, browsed around and Jake had his cup of coffee.



After our stop in Wall it was time to play Karen's favorite game.  "Name the obscure relative we are staying with tonight !".  In this case we were crashing at the guest cabin of my brother's wife's uncle (Paul).  He lives in Custer - which is in the heart of the Black Hills and convenient to all the things that we wanted to do in the area.  After getting ourselves settled we headed over to Mt Rushmore - about a 20 minute drive from our cabin.  My only real memory from my last visit to Rushmore in 1980 was my sister throwing up.  They have made some changes since then to the viewing area and have a nice path around to get different viewing angles.

We had a bite to eat and then stayed for the lighting ceremony.  They show a nice film about the history of Mt Rushmore and highlights of each of the Presidents.  They then light up the mountain. Overall a very nice evening at Mt Rushmore.

The next morning we headed to climb Harney Peak in Custer State Park.  We were halfway there when I realized that I left the backpack of water back at the cabin - so we had to double back to get the water.  Harney peak is the highest point between the Rockies and the Alps - luckily you start pretty high but it is still a longer hike than my kids have ever done (7 mile total).  They did a great job and were rewarded with awesome views.

After the hike - we took a ride around the Custer State Park.  One of the key features of Custer is their Buffalo herd. 

We were doing the tour around the park in the middle of the day - so there were not many animals that were active.  There were some burros that were pretty friendly. 

We wrapped up the evening with a nice steak dinner at the Alpine Inn in Hill City. We were celebrating Jake's 15th birthday.  Although he probably would not have chosen to spend his big day in Western South Dakota - he had a good day. 

After dinner we settled back in at the cabin and started to pack up for our next leg out to Wyoming and Yellowstone.