Category: Road Trip to Ontario July 2019

What an incredibe day!! And a hot one!! It was about 20C (70F) at 6 am and got up to 34C (93F) in Rapid City!! Feels like Summer!!

On Wednesday, we had been seeing billboards for miles and miles about “Wall Drug”… after a bit of googling, we discovered that Wall Drug started as a drug store in Wall, South Dakota in 1931; and it grew into quite an amazing establishment! We just had to pop by! Several hours later, we had looked all over Wall Drug, ate at the restaurant, and explored the Main Street in Wall! Definitely worth the stop!!!!!

From Wall we went straight south into Badlands National Park. It reminded us of our Badlands out in the Drumheller area. Here are a few photos from some of our stops in the Park:

It turns out that all of the soft green in the photos is Sweet Clover – green leaves/stocks and yellow flowers…. there was ALOT of Sweet Clover!!

Here’s what I thing is South Dakota’s Wild Yarrow:

Brian’s shirt almost matched the clover! 🙂

On our way out of Badlands National Park, we found several of these little (okay, not so little) guys… big ‘ol fat Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs, in a “Prairie Dog Corral”! 🙂

And this is why they were corralled!!!!!! Bahahahahaha!!!! Maybe we have a new attraction for home!!!!! 🙂

We ended up in downtown Rapid City for Supper, at a wonderful Italian restaurant. And, it just so happened that Thursday evenings are “Rapid City Summer Nights” — some local live music, food vendors, local wine and beer…. all right close to the restaurant!

After Supper we went up to Mount Rushmore for their Evening Lighting Ceremony. Here’s a photo before the sun went down; the Memorial faces east, so no sunlight was on it while we were there.

A storm rolled by, just a bit north of the Memorial…

Mount Rushmore, illuminated, with another storm building behind it…

Neither of these storms “hit” us, but…. in the wee hours of the night we had one helluva thunder storm over Rapid City… sheet lightening and bolt lightening! Thankfully it was fast moving and we only had one booming round of thunder overhead with the rest of the thunder further off.

We spent the day driving around the southern part of the Black Hills. It was another beautiful, hot day!

These first couple of photos are overlooking Pactola Reservoir. The reservoirs in the Black Hills were build after WWII, in the 40’s and 50’s to help with flooding, but mostly for irrigation downstream.

This is Sheridan Lake (another reservoir):

In Hill City is the west end of the “1880 Train” / Black Hills Central Railroad (between Hill City and Keystone). Brian is beside one of the permanent displays… Steam Engine #7, 1919, hauling timber out of the Black Hills:

We stopped at Crazy Horse Memorial… still under construction. This first photo is what it looks like today:

This photo shows where they plan to take the mountain:

And this photo is of a to-scale sculpture of how the Memorial is expected to look, once finished:

Here’s a zoomed look at the Memorial:

We went up to the Mt. Coolidge Lookout, and we were able to see Crazy Horse:

We could also see George Washington over at the Mount Rushmore Memorial, but photos just didn’t do it justice. Here’s Brian, spy-glassing from the Mt. Coolidge Lookout:

We stopped in at Wind Cave National Park, hoping to into the caves. Unfortunately we were unable to get into the caves… the 1934 elevator was closed for repairs.

We ended our southern Black Hills day in Hot Springs for supper in one of the local bars, and a visit to the Farmer’s Market, complete with live music!

We headed north out of Rapid City and drove through Sturgis, SD… no Bike Rally while we were there, but that meant we COULD drive through town!

Then we went to Deadwood… Deadwood is where Wild Bill Hickok was killed, in Deadwood Saloon No. 10. They’ve kept the town fairly historic, with re-inactments and the Saloon still exists:

From Deadwood we drove through the Spearfish Canyon. Here’s Brian by Spearfish Creek – the trout were a plentiful!!

Devil’s Tower, Wyoming – what an incredible sight!!

We walked the Tower Trail – a loop around the Tower about 2 miles long.

Our route took us by the Little Bighhorn Battlefield National Monument, so just had to go see it!! It was another well-put-together National Site!! This photo is looking to the southwest, on the hill that was “Custer’s Last Stand”. The headstones were placed where the soldiers fell. They were later re-interred elsewhere, Cutler to Westpoint and the rest of the soldiers at a spot a few feet northeast of these markers.

Thunderstorms rolled through Montana all day – we were lucky and missed them all; just a few sprinkles now and then. We ended our day in Billings, at another great Italian restaurant – pizza was calling!!

We had a quiet drive from Billings back up to Calgary, and an easy Border-crossing. We were able to make it in time for Supper with Mom & Dad, and my nephews Scott & Liam.

And home on the 15^th after helping Mom & Dad move.

We had the privilege of helping Mom & Dad move into their new home on the 15th. Then it was home that evening, picking up the doggies along the way!