South Dakota - Badlands, Black Hills, Rushmore

After our first camp, we headed west through some amazing open space. Fairly flat, lots of cows for Sharon to talk to, and plenty of billboards advertising the Wall Drug superstore that's only 600 miles away. I'm not kidding.

... and in the distance...

What follows can only be shown in pictures - which doesn't even come close to being there...

... and then our camera battery died. Which is very unfortunate, since we immediately started to encounter mountain goats on the road, the odd bison in the distance, and many a prairie dog in "Prairie Dog Town". Oh well, you can always google a picture of them if you really need to see them.

The other travesty is that we had no camera for our visit to the much-hyped Wall Drug. (I believe we passed at least 50 billboards promoting this place. Again, not kidding.) Ok, not so much a travesty. It's kind of like a faux Wild West Honest Ed's, but run mostly by old people who wouldn't accept Canadian pennies. We bought batteries, new tent pegs, 5 cent coffee and donuts. I decided the ninja stars would not be a good idea.

Across the street was modest burger bar, who kindly charged our camera battery while we ate. So here is the rest of our day:

the tacky town of Keystone, before Mount Rushmore

Rushmore from the highway

An "illegal" picture of Rushmore

As warned in our Lonely Planet guide, the Rushmore tourism folks have made it very "trying" to experience this magnificent wonder. It's still free to see Rushmore, but they'll nail you for parking as soon as you get close. We raced through the gates and snapped some shots before the authorities could catch us. Come and get us in our B200 Turbo with Ontario plates, yankees!

...the helicopter that tried to catch us, and failed.

We then ventured to the nearby Crazy Horse monument:

On our way out, we ended up passing Rushmore again, but from the rear. According to Lonely Planet, there is a naturally formed "5th president" somewhere in the pics below.

I thought I had seen it at the time, but it may have been sunstroke.

more Gorgeous George

Logging... at a state park!

And then we're off to Wyoming...

Escaping Minnesota, entering South Dakota

As mentioned in our last post... there was a HECK of a lot of rain.

Not that we would have minded staying in Minneapolis for yet another night... but we must go on! (I forgot to mention for the baseball fans: the night we arrived there, the Twins clinched the AL Central pennant. Coincidence, or are we blessings in disguise? Time to move and spread the joy.)

So before my digression, allow me to repeat that there was a HECK of a lot of rain. After verifying that roads were somewhat open, we decided to make a break for it and continue our journey.

This is NOT a roadside lake!

They do NOT play water polo in this stadium!

We had great weather and great scenery, as expected. Open fields of corn, massive wind farms, and the much publicized via billboards Corn Palace:

The corn is replaced EVERY year. And admission is free, except when they're hosting concerts. Kenny Rogers is playing there soon, as are other greats like Bjorn Again, and some country artists I wouldn't know of. And on this day, there was an abnormally large number of buses of senior citizens from all over the country descending on this palace of corn. Sharon and I decided to get the heck out of there before things got dangerous.

So we went across the street to a "western-style" bar, who's name escapes me.

That's when I realized that smoking was still allowed indoors in this state. Sure, only one person was doing it, but it struck me as odd - every other state visited so far (and Ontario of course) does not allow this.

Now that I bring up differences in law, how does this strike you?

Sorry we couldn't get a closer shot. This is on a highway... both riders are wearing no helmet, no protective clothing of any kind... totally legal! Land of the free, baby! At least in this state anyway. (Actually, this was taken in Wisconsin, but we saw this in South Dakota too.)

There are other rules that must be made clear at times:

At the front door. Now we have to put it back in the car.

But I digress again! Back to the scenery of South Dakota. Our camera cannot do justice. I leave you with one of our last shots, before setting up camp at a KOA in the middle of nowhere:

And we did manage to get a tent up before it got too dark!

Nighty-night!

Minneapolis - an extended visit

The rain has seemed to stop. If you've been watching the weather - there has been significant rain in the Midwest with some serious flooding in some areas. We are here in Minneapolis - an extra day due to the significant amount of rain that has fallen since yesterday, the risk of flooding on our planned route, and a little persuasion from the hotel bar keep, Nic.

Not the most painful decision. The inn is lovely (we were moved to a larger room when extending our stay - for the same rate), and the city friendly and interesting.

So day 1, we spent some time wandering the city admiring the architecture, doing a bit of shopping (no tax on clothing, shoes or food!) and then wandered over to the sculpture garden just west of the downtown core. There were great sculptures, including the famous Spoon Bridge with Cherry complete with copious Canadian geese enjoying the fountain...
and Henry Moore's Standing Figure: Knife Edge.

On our wander back to the hotel - partly to escape the rain, partly because it was happy hour - we stopped in an old downtown establishment called Ike's. Happy hour in Milwaukee is probably Joe's favourite thing - well other than the no tax deal on food, clothing and shoes! But this place was old time class. Anyone would love it!

Today we got up and found our way to a local favourite, Al's Breakfast. It's apparently the narrowest restaurant in Minneapolis and has only 14 seats along the counter...that is it. The place is so narrow, you only have room to walk behind the people on the stools and so, often, you are asked to move down a stool or so to accommodate others coming in for a bite. Thankfully with the rain today we didn't have to wait outside in a line. The coffee is weak...but the food is good! It apparently won the James Beard award a few years ago for "American Classics Restaurant" a few years ago.

Later, after driving around the city for far too long (because we forgot our maps and the address at the hotel and would rather flounder in the streets in the rain, than go back and get it...and acknowledge defeat!) we stopped at Spyhouse Coffee for a decent cup o java (first one in Minneapolis) and found the address for the Minneapolis Art Institute. It only took us another 40 minutes or so to find it because half of the streets here are numbered - streets going one direction and Avenues going the other...AND there are North, South, East and West variations! But was it worth what we found in the end.

The Art Institute was vast, varied and beautiful. Joe's favourite exhibit seemed to be "Beware her wiles: Woman as temptress in the Renaissance Tradition" as it provided him with various ammunition to lob as we wandered...but thankfully the amazing exhibits soon silenced him. Here are a couple of favourites among many awesome pieces including, Picasso, Warhol, Modigliani and other incredible artists.









So we will evaluate our travel route again and hopefully if the flooding is not too bad, we will be on our way to South Dakota tomorrow! ...or at least soon. If we are still in Minneapolis, we'll try to find some more amazing art to share...there seems to be no shortage here!