Devil’s Tower

Our next stop was Devil’s Tower National Monument. We spent 2 nights at the KOA right outside the park. Silver Girl won’t fit in the campground inside the national monument — and we needed full hookups to do some laundry!

This was the view from Silver Girl in the KOA.

We went into the park the first evening when it was cooler. Did a little shopping and figured out what hike we wanted to do the next day. There had been a line about 1/2 a mile long all day to get into the park. So the next morning we got up early and into the park before it officially opened. No traffic — no crowds! We took the hike around the base of the tower.

There were two groups of climbers. The first 2 pictures are what we could see and the second 2 are zoomed in.

Wall Drugs

After seeing all the signs on the highway, we had to go to Wall Drugs. We’d been here once before and only looked in a few of the shops before leaving. It was really crowded and we were uncomfortable. We did get a close up visit with the dinosaur.

Badlands National Park

The first time we were here we didn’t make reservations for a camping site. Boy are we glad we did this time and got a site with electric. It was hot, hot, hot — in the 100’s everyday, with a high of 104. Most days we went into the park in the evening or early morning. And stayed in during the heat of the day. It was pretty windy so we could be outside until it was 96.

Views at the campground are great!

One day we drove out to prairie dog town. Bison and prong horn were there too.

Sunrise comes early this far north. We set the alarm for 3:45am. We drove out into the park. I thought there would be more people out and about. We only saw one other person taking pictures.

The view was almost as good from the campground.

Left Tailrace Campground

This Army COE campground on the Missouri River in Fort Thompson, SD was our home for a week. When we checked in the campground host said we had the best site. He was right. He also said they had a great prime rib sandwich at the casino in Ft Thompson. So one afternoon we went to the Lode Star casino run by the Crow Creek Sioux tribe for lunch. Unfortunately they were out of prime rib. But the food was good. We were so full we skipped dinner.

Missouri River on the drive into the campground

Table shelters common in SD

Our view

The Big Bend dam is here. It’s one of several on the Missouri River and it produces electricity.

South Dakota Roadside Art

I just love the billboards in SD. They are unique and most of the time funny. I don’t know where or when it started but my guess is with Wall Drugs.

Wall Drugs may be cool but it wasn’t cool here. Today it was 104.

World’s Only Corn Palace

Mitchell, South Dakota is the home of the World’s Only Corn Palace. I knew that the outside was decorated in murals made of corn. But was surprised when we went inside to find a basket ball arena – currently being used as the gift shop.

The outside of the building looks like its plywood that they cover in corn – cobs, husks, and tassels. These guys were stapling up tassels to finish the mural.

Tassels being put together for the mural.

All kinds of corny things for sale!

Showing the map of the different colors of corn cobs. They’re all grown in Mitchell.

Next year’s theme is the circus

Gift shop / basketball court