Billings, MT to Custer, SD

Day 38: Thu 28 Aug: The high plains go on and on...

Last night, before sleep, I realized that in the next day or two I was going to hit 5,000 miles on the Rabbit, which was oil change time. Since it was new, I wanted to take it to a VW dealer (silly, in hindsight). Well, the VW dealers nearest to my estimated 5,000 mile point were in Rapid City, SD; Sioux Falls, SD; and Fargo, ND. Actually, those are all the VW dealers in the northern plains. Vermont has more VW dealers than both the Dakotas, combined.

I had thought about catching I-94 to Fargo, but 5,000 miles was closer to Rapid City. Also, there are a lot of national parks near Rapid City, so I called the dealership and they had an opening on Friday afternoon. That meant I'd be spending Thursday night there and would have time to visit some of the parks. Cool.

The drive on I-90 from Billings, MT down into northeastern Wyoming and then southwestern South Dakota was a lot of brown hilly grasslands. It was very uneventful. There were some pretty steep hills along the route though.

I visited Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, which, most interestingly for me, recounted the history of the conflict between the US government and the plains Indians in the 1870s.

I went to Devils Tower National Monument. It's very cool. It was gong-show busy (I like Brian's term for very crowded tourist attractions). I did the loop around the tower, which was pretty. You can free-climb the tower, with a permit. I saw some people doing it.

There was also a prairie dog village in the park. Man, are they cute! I could watch them all day. Even better than chickens. They interact with each other, are curious, kiss and tussle and play, and generally act like little dogs while the graze the grass.

From there, I headed on towards Rapid City.

I visited Mount Rushmore National Monument just before sunset. It's pretty, but also gong show busy. And it's the definition of a patriotism park. The granite plaza leading up to the base of the monument and the arena for presentations was a bit over the top.

It was here I started learning more about the geology of the region. The Black Hills of South Dakota are an interesting granite outcrop in an otherwise vast, flat, expanse of sedimentary rock. All the peoples who have come across it have treated it specially. After hundreds and hundreds of miles of flat grassland, coming across a Ponderosa Pine forest must have been a treat. And sculptors like to carve things out of the hills.

Keystone is the town at the center of the Mount Rushmore tourist business and it was so crazy I swore I wouldn't stay there. A park ranger at Devils Tower had recommended that I go to either Jewel Cave or Wind Cave (both caves with interesting formations), but if I had time for only one, that Jewel Cave was prettier. So I ended up staying in Custer, not too far from Jewel Cave. It's the off season now and you can pretty much stay at any hotel for under $50. I found one I liked, a mom and pop rustic-style motel with really large rooms and checked in.

My plan for tomorrow is to get up early enough to do a tour at Jewel Cave, and then Crazy Horse, go to my oil change at 3:30pm in Rapid City, and then head to the Badlands. I'm a bit concerned about when the Badlands are open, since the web site implies that they close at 5pm, and I'm not sure if I'll make it or not, but I'll try.

I stay up too late reading, and then fall right asleep.