For the most part, I have managed to find camp sites that are only 1 or 2 kilometers off of i 90 so that we are not wasting a lot of time just getting 2 or from the highway. The site in Welcome was just off the highway so we went a kilometer into town and filled up our gas tank. We were underway early and we hoped to get into Sturgis at a decent hour.
As we started out, we continued on relatively flat prairie land but had to deal with wind that was even stronger than the day before.
Within a couple of hours we were entering South Dakota.
After entering any new state there would be a Visitor's Center and rest stop. In South Dakota, many of thse rest stops were decorated with very big teepee frames.
Shortly after entering the state, we rounded a curve in the road and Rick said there was a big bull in the field to the left. Of course I had to get a picture of it! now i must point out at this time that it can be difficult to get that perfect picture when you are travelling 90 km/hour and the road is less than smooth. I tried several time to get that darn moose and each time I would have him centered in my frame we would hit a divot in the road and my frame would move. As a result the best picture I managed to get was this:
No really impressed! But I was curious about why there was a big bull on the hillside. A simple Google search for a bull on hill I90 brought me to the website for Porter Sculpture Park. ( http://portersculpturepark.com ) I didn't see any billboards for this place or any highway signs announcing that it was at the next exit. Too bad because it seems like it would have been an interesting spot to visit. Definitely put it on the list for the next time w are out that way. In case you are interested, the picture I was trying to get was this:
I got this from Google since my attempt at getting this guy's picture was an epic fail. If you are driving on I90 westbound you will find this place within and hour of crossing into South Dakota. If your not travelling that way any time soon have a look at their site. Seems like there are some pretty cool structures there!
A little further down the road the water tower at Mitchell caught my eye. It was the forst decorated one that I saw on this trip.
About mid-state we crossed the Missouri River. The drop down into the river valley was amazing and it really marked the change in terrain in South Dakota. Up to this point we did have some hills and valleys, but the terrain remained mostly flat and agricultural. After crossing the Missouri River the terrain turned much more rugged, particularly as we drove towards the Badlands of South Dakota and then the Black Hills.
While travelling any long stretch of road that is mostly farm fields or barren rocks it can sometimes be difficult to keep yourself entertained. it seems like many businesses and tourist attractions know this and used Bill boards very effectively to alleviate some of the boredom.
These bill boards might be the big flashy ones or they may be more of the home made ones. Some had props. In any case, it did make for an interesting ride. There were Billboards for tourist attractions as well as businesses.
Here are a couple of the ones with props:
And then there were the businesses. The businesses that had billboards started them miles and miles away from their establishments. It was not like you saw a billboard for a place and you got to it by taking the next exit. Or the exit after that. One of the businesses that we started to see billboards for when we started out was Al's Oasis. We started seeing them at 7:30 am and they increased in frequency as we neared the establishment 5 hours later! They obviously did their job because we decided to stop there for lunch instead of a sandwich in a rest area.
It turned out that the oasis had much more than just a restaurant. There was a souvenir shop, a grocery store and a little candy store. The outside of the complex was made to look like an old western town.
The food was ok but nothing special. We had to run the Jeep a little bit before we could move on so I had a little walk around and captured some wildlife sculptures in the area. These 2 were just across the road from Al's Oasis.
There was a little motel beside Al's Oasis and i noticed that they had little bear sculptures all over the front entrance and up one of the walls.
The other business that should be mentioned for their amazingly frequent billboards and advertising was a company called Wall Drugs. We started to see their billboards first thing that morning and the businsess itself was still 600 kms away. The amazing thing was that these billboards very very frequent. Like every 2 kilometers frequent. They, according to their signs, had coffee for 5 cents, home made pies and donuts, leather goods, free water, hamburgers and just about anything else you can imagine.
They made sure you didn't miss their exit as well...
You can read all about this interesting little business by going to their website: http://www.walldrug.com
The signs obviously do their job. I think the website said they had over 2 millions visitors per year. Pretty impressive. I know at one point rick said after seeing all their signs you almost feel like you have to go there. If we weren't so tired and anxious to get to our camp for the night we probably would have gone to see the place.
Other items of note as seen from the roadside, included some long horn steers, a patriotic tractor and a very big American Flag.
If you recall, I talked about the winds from the day before. I thought that they would die down over night and it would be a more pleasant drive. I was wrong, If anything the winds were worse today and that made it a difficult and stressful drive. The air was very hot and dry as well so stepping out of the RV into the wind felt like being hit by air from a blast furnace. To give you an idea about how bad the wind was, even the ponds in the fields had wind ripples.
Rick handled it like a pro although he was exhausted by the time we reached camp. He earned his 2 day rest!
Now with all this wind in South Dakota I'll bet you are wondering about windmills! Well there were windmills there. Lots of them. It was rare that you could not see a windmill farm anywhere on the horizon at any time. Most of them were working too! We saw maybe 2 or 3 big farms not operating but at least a dozen that were. These were huge windmill farms. Certainly with the winds we experienced it seemed like good idea.
We passed a business that supplied the bases for the windmills and their size was impressive!
We also noticed signs that warned the highway could close and to go back to the last town. This lead us to believe that these roads in the winter were probably not the place you want to go. This wasn't thike the Emergency Detour Routes that are used back home when there was an accident. This was more for road conditions. We saw it on several smaller highways along the way but this was the first time we had seen the signs on a major interstate highway.
Also, you might be interested to know that the speed limit on I90 in South Dakota was 80 miles per hour!
Also along the way today we found out where Bigfoot lived!
We passed the site of the old west town and saw some fun things in the field. At first we saw the pioneer wagons off in the distance and then, a little further on, we saw the Indians riding towards the wagon train.
I will end this day's story with pictures of the scenery through the badlands and then into the black hills area. We finally made it to our campsite at around 7:00 pm and welcomed our little break from the road.
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