Day 7 - I'm Melting...I'm Melting...

Exactly whose idea was it to travel to the Badlands in the middle of July? She should be fired from her job as travel planner.

After admiring our fearless driver, note the temperature!

112 degrees! Holy cannoli it's hot! And, yeah, it's a dry heat and all that. But it's still 112!!! That's what greeted us as we rode into South Dakota.

You'd think that I'd be getting better at this, but the state signs always seem to take me by surprise.

South Dakota seems to be the land of billboards. Along I-90, anyway. It probably started with the infamous Wall Drug signs. They worked so well for Wall Drug that every other business decided they also needed 10,000 signs to lure people in. The Wall Drug billboards began about 300 miles before the town of Wall.

The ad campaign that began luring people in almost 80 years ago.

Yup, that's pretty much our plan for the weekend.

Besides the billboards, the scenery changed from corn and soybeans to hay fields and grazing cattle. There was also some interesting wildlife along the way.

We got off the interstate and headed for our campground in Interior, SD. Unexpectedly, we suddenly got our first glimpse of the Badlands!

Through the windshield

I hadn't realized that we'd actually be driving through part of the Badlands National Park on our way to the campground. I think that "amazing" is one of the most over-used words around today (especially on reality tv,) but it is certainly apropos here. The landscape is so foreign and other-worldly. It's like no place I have ever been or seen before. I have to sort through a bajillion photos for my next post. Those above are just from the window of the car.

Our campground was just a couple of minutes outside the park. It was SOOOO hot, we headed directly to the pool, as we usually do. It was so hot, you couldn't walk barefoot on the cement surrounding the pool or touch the metal ladder. It was totally a run and jump in kind of day. The pool was very crowded, so the kids weren't as brave with their new swimming skills today. After our swim, I was refreshed by an nice, cold Sioux City Sarsaparilla.

For dinner, we ordered Indian Tacos that they make right here at the campground. They are pieces of Indian frybread topped with meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and salsa. They are often made with buffalo meat, but here they used beef. I don't know how "authentic" they were, but they sure were tasty. We also had Indian frybread with cinnamon and sugar. Very nutritious, I'm sure. But, hey, we have to experience the local cuisine, right?

On the drive over that afternoon, Don and I were saying that we wished that Gavin had seen National Treasure 2 so that he could see the depiction of Mount Rushmore and the surrounding mountains and caves. Well, guess what was on tv tonight? It was perfect timing, except that the kids ended up staying up later than I wanted. We had a very early morning planned. Plus, Gabriella now thinks that we are going to find a hidden city of gold in a cave under Mt. Rushmore. Hey, who knows?