Custer, SD to Brookings, SD

Day 39: Fri 29 Aug: A screaming comes across the plains.

I woke up, and checked out. Well, I didn't really check out because there was no one there. I just left my key in the box and left.

I drove to Jewel Cave National Monument, and took the "Scenic Tour". There are elevators down into the cave. It was pretty cool. This cave is either the second or third longest explored system in the world (Mammath Caves being the first). The cave walls are covered in calcite crystals, with some draperies and flowstones. The colors came out a lot better with the flash on the camera than it looked in person. Some of the rooms are enormous -- large enough to fit the entire Visitors Center; one large enough to contain the parking lot. Unfortunately those huge rooms are accessible only via extremely tight passageways, so we didn't see them.

They also offer (like Mammoth Caves) spelunking tours, for the adventurous and non-claustrophobic. In the Visitors Center there's a small tunnel you have to be able to crawl through in order to be able to take the tour -- so you don't get stuck while you're underground.

Then I drove around Custer State Park. The whole area is awash in publicity for National Treasure: Book of Secrets, including the afore linked web site.

But, as you can see from the picture, there's a lot of bare granite poking up, and the parts that aren't bare are covered in ponderosa pine. It's pretty, and interesting (there's a bison herd and pronghorn antelope), but it's not the Rockies.

After driving the "Wildlife Loop" and not seeing any bison (I saw one beside the road elsewhere in the park), traveling behind slow cars, I realized I didn't have a whole lot of time before my 3:30pm appointment at the VW dealer.

I headed off to Crazy Horse Memorial, watched the orientation movie, and then had to leave for Rapid City. I wish I could have stayed there longer.

The oil change was uneventful -- the staff were really friendly. They recommended a locally-owned coffee joint with wifi, which turns out to be a midwest franchise chain (Dunn Brothers Coffee), but they were friendly and had public terminals where I researched my trip to the Badlands. It appears the Visitors Center closes at 5pm this time of year (it was after 5pm). I wasn't sure if the park was open or not, but figured I check and see when I drove by.

There are multiple entrances. I headed to the northeastern entrance, furthest away from Rapid City, but closest to the highway in case it was closed. It wasn't! They have campgrounds and stuff there so, like the other big parks I went to, at some (late) point the gate staff go home, but the park is always open. I drove from east to west, at sunset, through the park. It was beautiful.

The badlands at Petrified Forest National Park are more colorful, but these are interesting in that grass is often growing on the flat tops. There are two levels of grassland, one high, and one low, and the badlands are the transition between the two levels.

It really was beautiful. I found a good spot to watch the sunset, and discovered a setting on the camera that was better for photographing sunsets than the "sunset" setting (which adds a red filter and gives it colors it didn't really have in person). Unfortunately the sun had actually set by then, but I did get some great pictures of the wispy clouds in the sky.

The picture to the left was taken with the red, sunset, filter in place.

I had only just started driving by sunset. I had a lot of plains to cross. I drove across all of South Dakota (to Sioux Falls), and up a bit of the east side before stopping for the night at a motel in Brookings, SD (at 4am). I was exhausted.