(I meant to post this a few days ago but we did not have WiFi up in the mountains)
Well, our summer adventure got stated almost a week ago and it seems like only yesterday. We arrived at our first destination on Sunday afternoon the 6th of July, at Custer State Park, South Dakota - about eight miles outside the little town of Custer. Driving over the holiday weekend was great because we had little to no traffic all the way. The only bad thing is that all campgrounds wanted a three day stay and it forced us to stay in hotels for a couple of nights - a heart wrenching sacrifice! We are travelling with our dog and that is an adventure in itself. The first night, the 4th, was almost a problem, Buster Brown Bear, had to hold it all night because he refused to go out with all the fireworks around, I wish we had some Valium or some other dog anxiety reliever - dogs and fireworks don't go together.
Well, our summer adventure got stated almost a week ago and it seems like only yesterday. We arrived at our first destination on Sunday afternoon the 6th of July, at Custer State Park, South Dakota - about eight miles outside the little town of Custer. Driving over the holiday weekend was great because we had little to no traffic all the way. The only bad thing is that all campgrounds wanted a three day stay and it forced us to stay in hotels for a couple of nights - a heart wrenching sacrifice! We are travelling with our dog and that is an adventure in itself. The first night, the 4th, was almost a problem, Buster Brown Bear, had to hold it all night because he refused to go out with all the fireworks around, I wish we had some Valium or some other dog anxiety reliever - dogs and fireworks don't go together.
The second
night was even more exciting. We stayed
at the Sheraton in Sioux Falls, we had a fifth floor room, got all comfy after
a nice dinner and settled for a comfortable sleep - then whamm! At 1:30 in the morning the fire alarm goes
off, announcement comes over the public address system, as loud or louder than
the alarm, repeating over and over (over the shrill sound of the fire alarm)
that we had to evacuate and walk out in an orderly manner. To the guests, an "orderly manner"
meant proceed like a stampede of cattle down the stairs being chased by hungry
wolves. Needless to say this didn't go
over too well with the dog and certainly not with me. So we quickly get dressed and proceed to the
stairs. A couple of things became
obvious: First, overweight and handicapped
people should not be staying on any floor above the first. The second thing is that the Sheraton (and
probably every other hotel) do not make their emergency stairs wide
enough. Not only was the dog panicked
from the alarm and the public address, but the hundreds of people trying to get
down the stairs in their underwear and PJs and no bras (talk about sagging utters!) and all pissed at the fat lady that could not
walk and was blocking everybody. The dog
was OK once we got past the first landing and everybody else squeezed around
the heavy set lady (I felt sorry for her, but at over 300 pounds she could not
be helped) and got out the back door. The
"all clear" was given about 45 minutes later and we all got back to
our rooms. It took us over half hour to
settled down and get back to sleep.
about forty
minutes after we fell asleep, (and WTF) the fire alarm goes off again and we
repeat the same process again! By this
time a was fully awake and was ready to hit the road again at 2:30 a.m. with
less than hour of sleep. The all clear
was given a few minutes later, actually, a false alarm, and we all went back to
bed and managed to get a total of four hours sleep that evening. I think the fact that a couple of hundred
travelling softball team kids were staying at the hotel might have had
something to do with the alarms.
(Note: No apology or comment from the hotel)
The trip
from Sioux Falls to Rapid City was an interesting contrast in terrain, The
southern part of South Dakota transitions from rich and lush prairie farmland
(miles and miles of to high plains
grazing land to the Badlands, where up to recently nothing grew, but certain
types of weeds have been making inroads into the Badlands and the lower parts
of the eroded "canyons" are lush with vegetation and yellow flowers. We took a cruise through the Badlands and
stopped for some short hikes.
Another
interesting thing about southern Minnesota and South Dakota is the number of
electricity-generating windmills.
Between the two States thy have over 4000 windmills in these parts of
the States and Minnesota, at least 15% of its electric power comes from wind.
One of the
interesting (or annoying) things about I-90 in South Dakota, are the Wall Drug
billboards. We counted at least 55 signs
advertizing everything from a free glass of water to dinosaur exhibits. We had to stop at the place and we had some
buffalo burgers for lunch. Great
tasting, more lean than hamburger, but boy, I'll have to be more careful when
we eat them because they produced a lot
of gas in all of us, and I'm not talking the sweet smelling kind.
Our camping "rig."
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