I forgot to include my impressions of Minneapolis: LOVED IT! Full of parks and beautiful neighborhoods. Spread out comfortably. Lots of space between the homes. Urban but not crowded. Lots of new condos downtown. Seems like the perfect midwestern city. Sorry Greg, but Minneapolis makes Madison look pretty small townish.
We said goodbye to Ed and Mary and Minneapolis at about 8 a.m.
They kindly packed up a bunch of goodies for us to take on the road. Then we stopped at the Co-op market. I miss Co-op. I remember going to Co-op in Castro Valley as a kid when we lived in Hayward; and, as a young adult in Berkeley. We wanted to stock up on some healthy food.
Very long drive today. We crossed the Missouri River. We stopped at the Lewis and Clark memorial/rest stop.
The speed limit in South Dakota is 80 so we made pretty good time. Plus we crossed another time zone and gained an hour.
I liked the drive. South Dakota is prairie country. Green rolling hills for as far as the eye can see. I started humming, "I can see for miles and miles" to myself.
Arrived at Badlands about 3:30 in the afternoon. Beth is now 62 years old so she bought us a discount national park pass. Good thing I married a cougar.
We entered Badlands and took a short hike. Ed gave me lessons in IPhone photography. I have been playing around with portrait mode.
The Badlands are striped like Juicyfruit Gum.
Very unique landscape. It seems like big blobs of mud up close. Good place to film a movie about another planet. They could have filmed an episode of, "Lost in Space" here. [Peg -sorry for the historical references. Look 'em up on Wikipedia].
Beth commented that the best part about Badlands is its name. I think it is a great park with an even greater name.
We stopped for a picnic which included Kat's pickles
I got some Sambal Oelek chili paste from Ed and put it on our pepper jack cheese which was not peppery enough. I am going to buy some of that stuff when I get home. Lynn probably has some lying around. She has more condiments in her fridge than anyone I know.
We scored a Trifecta on our badlands safari: bighorn sheep, bison and prairie dogs
We settled into our modest but comfy room at the Best Western in Wall, S.D. I saw that Wall Drug (which had been advertised on billboards every 2 miles for the last couple of hundred miles getting here) was only a few blocks away. A complete waste of time. Except, they had a few small bears for sale
Dinner was a salad from Co-op in the room.
We are off to Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument and Custer Park tomorrow.
Love,
bear and Beth
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