After visiting Colorado and Wyoming, we continued on to South Dakota…another brand-new state for us. We were surprised at the rolling hills and green countryside everywhere. The view was amazing no matter which direction we looked! We arrived in the Sturgis area a few days early for an RV rally (more on this in the next post), so we had some time to start exploring this beautiful area.
Our first stop was the Mammoth Site where scientists work in a totally enclosed building to excavate giant mammoth fossils. You can walk the edges of a sinkhole where Columbian and woolly mammoths and other animals became trapped many years ago. The animals would come for a drink, fall in, and then couldn’t climb up the steep sides to get out.
The treasure trove of fossil remains at this active excavation site include over 60 mammoths and 87 other Ice Age animals. We enjoyed being able to see the bones exactly as they were preserved and to get an idea of the dig process. Scientists are working as you watch!
Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear and sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski chose the 27th highest mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota (6532 ft) for the location of the Crazy Horse Memorial. This impressive sculpture has been under construction since 1948 but is far from finished. A small crew works year-round at carving, removing most of the rock by labor intensive drilling, feather and wedging, and wire saw cuts. While only the 87 foot tall head of Crazy Horse is complete now, the final product will eventually be much larger at 641 feet long and 563 feet tall.
You could spend several hours at this large complex. In addition to the sculpture, there is the 3-wing Indian Museum of North America, a gift shop, restaurant, orientation theater, viewing veranda, original family log home and workshop, and many exhibits. The 1/34th scale model allows you to view what the finished sculpture will look like. Crazy Horse will be shown gesturing forward with his left hand in response to the question by the white man, “Where are your lands now?” He replied, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”
As Air Force veterans, we were excited to tour the Minuteman Missile museum and an associated missile silo site. The Minuteman was a nuclear missile that could be launched with less than a minute’s notice and was part of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) strategy between the US and Soviet union from the 1960s-1990s.
There were 1000 Minuteman missiles hidden beneath the sunflowers and wheat of America’s Great Plains during the Cold War. The silo sites were inconspicuous patches of fenced land spread across the Midwest, where unbeknownst to most citizens giant missiles were at the ready in case of a Soviet attack. If you want an underground tour you need to book well ahead of time–due to the coronavirus they were limited to 6 people at a time and the next open spots were in 4 weeks! Oh well….the silo sites did have an informative, self-guided tour you can listen to on your cellphone.
Not far from the Minuteman Museum is Badlands National Park. As you drive across flat prairie lands, a long wall of jagged hills suddenly appears on the horizon signalling your arrival. It was a super windy and hot day, but we enjoyed the rugged beauty of this park which is known for its maze of buttes, canyons, pinnacles, and spires. The Lakota people called the region “mako sica” or “bad lands” because of the rocky terrain, lack of water, and extreme temperatures.
The 31-mile long Badlands Loop Scenic Byway is filled with awesome views and numerous information and picture spots. The scenery changes often and a new vista delights with each curve of the road. The Visitor Center was open when we visited with limited numbers allowed inside at one time, although they did have a park ranger answering questions outside as well.
The Window and Door Trails are short hikes that give you a great view overlooking the park. We also did the Notch Trail that leads you through a valley and up to a notch in the rock formations. A big 50-rung wooden ladder takes you up to where the trail traces a cliff’s edge and then ends in amazing views of the White River Valley below.
We added another stamp to our National Parks passport book and also scratched off another spot on the National Parks map! Our hopes to also visit Wind Cave National Park in this same area were dashed as all caves in the area were closed due to the coronavirus. We’ll have to do that one next time.
We also visited Bear Country USA which is a small drive-through wildlife park. The 3-mile tour gives you great sightings of North American animal species including elk, mountain lions, sheep, buffalo, deer, and bears. The only animals behind a fence were the bobcats, otherwise all animals were free to roam right up to the car. It is the largest privately owned collection of the American Black Bear and we saw numerous bears that day.
We made good use of our four days in the area before our RV rally was to begin. Stay tuned for my next post about our first RV rally and seeing more of South Dakota!
Love your travel updates. We were in Custer State Park 10 years ago and stayed at Sylvan Lake Lodge at Custer State Park. The lake is a beautiful sight.
Have fun.
I wish we had had more time to check out Custer State Park and the lake. There were so many beautiful and interesting things to see in South Dakota–I’m sure we will go back for another visit! Thanks for following along with us:)
Saw this on a picture of a sign in Antarctica:
Wall Drug of South Dakota, U.S.A.
Free Ice Water, 9,333 miles
That’s crazy! We saw so many signs for Wall Drug in South Dakota….it was like Buccees’ advertising–lol. We did a brief stop but it was a little too much for us and very crowded.
Great article! Love the pictures.
Thanks Sherri–South Dakota’s beauty really surprised us. We enjoyed seeing so many amazing sights and will definitely go back again one day!
Those are mountain lions, not bobcats (though they may have bobcats at Bear Country too–I live in Rapid City). 🙂
Thanks for the correction–I will update the caption!
Very informative and stunning picturesque views! LOVED the animal pics too.
Hi Sandi– I am a sucker for anything animal related. lol South Dakota is truly stunning and we enjoyed our time there.