Day 3: On the Road Again

On the Road Again...

South Dakotans say yes to billboards. 

Some things about South Dakota: 1. It's amazingly flat for a great deal of the state. I think there is one cell tower in the whole state yet the reception is perfect through much of the state. 2. There is a lot of grass. Seriously, grass upon hay upon grass. 3. South Dakotans say yes to billboards. In places people never go, there is still a billboard for something or other, and right next to it is a billboard for Wall Drug. But, it works. You begin to depend on billboards for trip planning and so on. We are cantankerous enough to resist Wall Drug, but we might not be able to resist the giant dinosaur in their backyard.

Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD

We paused our drive in Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the illustrious corn palace. It did not disappoint. We arrived in Mitchell before the corn palace opened so we headed down the road to Jitters, a breakfast restaurant run by a wonderful woman named Vonda. You may have remembered driving overnight from your younger days as not so much of a biography deal. But, when you get older, you can be very cranky after a night of driving. The solution to that is Vonda in Jitters. The food was good, the coffee decent, the decor was based on making people comfortable, and Vonda was so nice and kind, the combination of which gave us the fuel to go on. The beauty of it all is a breakfast at Vonda's takes as long as it takes to get new tires at Graham's Tire from square jawed South Dakota straight shooter Travis.

Admiring the view in the Black Hills.

Needles are in the background.

After a trip to the one and only corn palace (which was neat on the outside but a gift shop inside, good price for post cards though, I wish I had purchased them all there). We headed west to the black hills. Exhausted, but excited, we explored the black hills, which was unlike anything we'd ever seen. We got our first glimpse of the faces, which was a thrill and drove through the needles. The needles are amazing, sharp points of rock jutting up with hair pin turns. It was stunning, we got out as much as we could and found mica, granite, rose quartz and other exciting rocks (if that happens to be your thing). After the needles, we headed to Custer State Park to find a campsite. Find it we did at Center Lake. A campsite off of the Needles, it's on a lake that has the amazing benefit of having warm water for the top three feet, but some sort of spring feeding it so by your feet in the deeper areas it was cool water. Perfect for a long drive and a heat wave. After setting up camp, we were Custer bound for dinner.

There are several options in Custer. Some look pretty good. One place in particular looks like a tourist joint, with a Leo's Lobstere-esque announcement of the prices on the outside of the building. The hook for Josh was the mention of bison meat, so onward we went.

Cheesiest restaurant in the world.  The cheese almost made up for the bad food.  

The Cattleman is easily the cheesiest restaurant in the world. In order to eat you need to go through a gift shop adored with dolphins, shells (1000 plus miles from the ocean), southern dressed dolls, and the like. We selected a tasteful hot pink back scratcher with the faces on it. In this large restaurant, everything you could imagine was for sale. The food was so bad, even the French fries were bad.

After that experience we headed to Custer state park, expecting nothing because a place as cheesy as the Cattleman crushes your hopes. We drove into the park stuck behind motorcycles, exhausted with full days and only hours of sleep, children bickering about nothing, doing this to cross it off the list and move on. After all, what really happens at twilight?

Buffalo at Custer park at twilight.

Buffalo graze. Theyn find 900 of their closest friends and they hang out in Custer National Park. After driving through for a bit and seeing only the deer we've seen in NY, our hopes were low, the around a bend, buffalo. Giant, one ton creatures hanging out, eating grass, chatting with friends and family with loud gutteral noises, and tolerating these other ton sized metal things holding people. It was amazing. Buffalo could care less about you. They are so big, they do their thing and will do it a foot from you or the other side of the park from you, which is amazing. I loved seeing these creatures, who's main goal was to have a good meal and hang with their family. Although different species, our goals were the same, I just hope that the grass was better in Custer state park than the food in the Cattleman. After it got dark, we headed back to the Needles to our campsite. A word of caution. Don't drive any part of the Needles at night, it's petrifying! But we made it and went to bed, excited to hang with George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe and, of course, to sleep.