Walnut Grove, Minnesota

Continuing on we headed east, opposite the direction Laura typically headed, and made a stop in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Walnut Grove is another Little House town and the location of the familiar Plum Creek. We un-hitched our wagon at Lake Shetek State Park where we noticed that we had travelled far enough east that there were enough trees that it started feeling a bit like someplace that we might stay back home. The staff was a little frazzled when we checked-in as the electricity in the park was out due to some construction work, but it was repaired a few hours later. In Walnut Grove we spent some time at the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum then got back on the road. All the driving over the last couple of days was pretty good as we were off the Interstate much of the time and passed through some nice small towns.

Little House - DeSmet, South Dakota

A 131 years after Laura Ingalls, we finally arrived in the small town of DeSmet, South Dakota. We made camp for the night at Lake Thompson State Rec Area in nearby Preston, SD. Lake Thompson is a fairly large man-made lake that was not there in Laura's time, we found it to be pretty windy but a good place for a stop on the way through. Laura arrived in DeSmet in 1879 via covered wagon, eventually writing the Little House on the Prairie books. Many of the places mentioned in the books are located here including Silver Lake and the Big Slough. We toured the original Surveyors' House where they stayed one winter and a later house in town that Pa built that are cared for by the local historical society. We also visited the Ingalls Homestead a hands-on living recreation that features Ma's Little House, a dugout, a schoolhouse and other buildings and experiences from the time. This is a great stop for kids as they can really get a sense of being there with lots of details right from the books.

An oasis and a celebration of corn!

From the Badlands we headed east then just before crossing the Missouri River we stopped at Al's Oasis to re-stock with much needed supplies. One of the things we noticed on this trip is how spoiled we are by the variety of product at the grocery stores back home, Al's was a welcome stop being the best stocked store we had been in for quite a while. We then continued east and stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota at the famous Corn Palace. The Corn Palace is covered in giant mosaics made from corn that depict different imagery each year. The 2010 theme was transportation through the ages, unfortunately the stagecoach was the closest image to our vintage camper. Overall pretty interesting for a quick stop and a part of many classic road trips.

Badlands National Park

Time to move on, we hit the road early in order to get to the campground at Badlands National Park. All the sites are first come first serve and while there are some other options in the area we wanted to be sure to get a site. Arriving at the campground a little before noon all the sites except a few were open, however by the time we had eaten lunch and were ready to explore the park the choice sites were filling up quickly. By the time we returned after it was dark we found the campground to be just about full.

I had been really looking forward to visiting the Badlands and as expected it proved to be the most unique landscape we would encounter on the trip. We made a brief stop at the visitor center then encountered some pretty heavy rain just as we got into the most picturesque parts of the park. Once the rain stopped it was apparent that it had brought out more color variation than we would have seen otherwise, so perhaps it was a good thing. We also checked out nearby Wall Drug and had dinner at a nice locally owned restaurant in Wall. On the way back to the campsite we traveled through a unpaved stretch of the park and had an interesting phone message from my mother in-law. "You wouldn't happen to be in the Badlands would you?" Turns out they were in the park only about a 1/2 mile ahead of us on their way back to NY from a road-trip to Idaho. (Must be some Gypsy genes in there someplace!) Anyway we spent a couple of hours with them before heading our separate ways for the night. Amazing how small the world can be sometimes!

If you want to see more of our photos from the Badlands I've posted a bunch in the trip set on flickr.

Exploring the Black Hills

Over the next few days we visited a bunch of other places in the Black Hills working out of our campsite in Custer State Park. Some of the places we visited included the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, Jewel Cave National Monument, Bear Country, and the historic 1936 WPA Dinosaur Park in Rapid City. We also drove the wildlife loop Custer State park where we found ourselves stuck on the road in the middle of a huge herd of Buffalo. Once again I was glad that the Shasta was safe back at the campsite but a little sad at the missed photo opportunity.

I Just recently ran across a really cool old travelog that is posted on the Tin Can Tourists site. It describes a more ambitious cross country trip than ours that was made in 1937 towing a Travelo trailer. I'll post the link here because one of the places they camped at was in Rapid City near the then new Dinosaur Park. They also describe the partially completed Rushmore monument, and like us stopped for a night in Buffalo Bills hometown of North Platte.

Log Book of the Travelo Land Yacht, “Betsey” By Samuel. A. Esser

Mount Rushmore & Crazy Horse

The next morning we took the Iron Mountain Road up to see Mount Rushmore and then onto the Crazy Horse memorial. Iron Mountain Road is one of two scenic drives in the Black Hills that has these super narrow tunnels. Technically the Shasta would fit through all the tunnels and the photo opp potential is pretty amazing, but to keep things on the safe side we left the trailer at the campsite. (Secretly though.... I still wonder if we can find our way back here for a few hundred photos of the Shasta in these tunnels sometime!)

Mount Rushmore is simply amazing and is definitely not one of those landmarks that is smaller in real life than you thought it was. The sculpture exhibits on how the work was done and the study or reference models are really interesting as well. The Crazy Horse memorial is also an amazing piece of sculpture, but one that will be in progress for many years to come. Work has been underway for over 60 years and the original sculptors family is now continuing on his work.

South Dakota - arriving at the Black Hills

Shortly after we crossed the border into South Dakota we drove through some road and bridge construction zones with pretty rough driving on loose dirt. Then through the tight twisty turns of the beautiful town of Hot Springs with historic buildings on its main street that were built with locally made red bricks. Then through Wind Cave National park, or rather above Wind Cave. And finally at the end of the day we arrived at Custer State Park. Months ago we had made reservations at the Game Lodge Campground from which we could make day trips throughout the Black Hills region.

After making camp and getting a good nights sleep we woke the next morning to find a herd of Bison just over a split rail fence adjacent to the campgrounds restrooms. Based on what the rangers were saying this was a fairly small group compared to the herd that roams the park but to us this was really impressive and super close to our campsite.