Because of the "situation" we are in as a country, one weekend a month during the summer months you can visit any national park for free. They've decided to wave their entrance fees for specific weekends in order to attract more visitors. We happened to be in So. Dakota during one of these free weekends so we decided to make the sort of long trek from our campground to the Badlands on Saturday. On the way there we stopped in Wall, So. Dakota to visit the famous Wall Drug. What an experience!
6/20/09:
Trying on cowboy hats at Wall Drug
Down at the end of the hall is a T-Rex display. Every few minutes he wakes up and roars. It seemed to be a little bit too scary for some of the younger kids!
Back in 1931 Dorothy & Ted Hustead opened the only drugstore in Wall, So. Dakota (pop. 326). In the beginning business was really slow. "One hot Sunday in July [1936], though, a great change swept us up." Dorothy decided that her husband could handle the store alone since they had no customers and went home for a rest. About an hour later she came back with a brilliant idea. She was unable to sleep because all of the noise from traffic driving by on Route 16A. Most of them were traveling to Mt. Rushmore and/or the Badlands. She came up with the brilliant idea of putting signs up along the highway telling people to go there for free ice water. The next weekend Ted put up those signs and by the time he got back to the store people had already begun showing up for their ice water. Those signs worked and they have never been lonely for customers since. It has grown today into this huge tourist attraction with all sorts of things to do and see.
"Free Ice Water. It brought us Husteads a long way and it taught me my greastest lesson, and that's that there's absolutely no place on God's earth that's Godforsaken. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need!"
The Badlands
My mom is deathly scared of heights. I love this picture! It appears as though she is standing on the edge, but she is actually very far away from the edge. She played along with me and I got this great photo! LOL!
We were actually out on a ledge. It was soooo windy! I was afraid we might get blown off! Too scary for me!
"The White River Badlands in southwest South Dakota are the best places in the world to study and understand the effects of erosion. It is there that geology and life of the past connect themselves with the present. For approximately 30 million years, layers of mud, sands and gravels were laid down. In those layers are fossils of many different prehistoric animals preserved for modern study. About one to four million years ago erosion began to outpace the deposits, leaving colorful spires resembling castles."
"This area was once a portion of a giant salt water sea. Upheaval and volcanic activity pushed the sea floor up. As the water drained away, it left behind broad, marshy plains. About 25 million years ago three-toed horses, sabre-toothed cats and other prehistoric animals roamed the area. When they died, many were buried by river sediments or just sank into the marshlands. Periodically white volcanic ash covered the soil, hot winds blew across the plateaus and the terrain continued evolving."
Bighorn Sheep
All of the animals were losing their winter coat so they looked pretty dingy. This guy has a collar on too.
It is amazing that this sort of scenery is not too far away from the green gorgeous pictures taken in previous posts around Mt. Rushmore! Our planet is pretty cool!
More flower pictures from Dave
Trying on cowboy hats at Wall Drug
Down at the end of the hall is a T-Rex display. Every few minutes he wakes up and roars. It seemed to be a little bit too scary for some of the younger kids!
Back in 1931 Dorothy & Ted Hustead opened the only drugstore in Wall, So. Dakota (pop. 326). In the beginning business was really slow. "One hot Sunday in July [1936], though, a great change swept us up." Dorothy decided that her husband could handle the store alone since they had no customers and went home for a rest. About an hour later she came back with a brilliant idea. She was unable to sleep because all of the noise from traffic driving by on Route 16A. Most of them were traveling to Mt. Rushmore and/or the Badlands. She came up with the brilliant idea of putting signs up along the highway telling people to go there for free ice water. The next weekend Ted put up those signs and by the time he got back to the store people had already begun showing up for their ice water. Those signs worked and they have never been lonely for customers since. It has grown today into this huge tourist attraction with all sorts of things to do and see.
"Free Ice Water. It brought us Husteads a long way and it taught me my greastest lesson, and that's that there's absolutely no place on God's earth that's Godforsaken. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need!"
The Badlands
My mom is deathly scared of heights. I love this picture! It appears as though she is standing on the edge, but she is actually very far away from the edge. She played along with me and I got this great photo! LOL!
We were actually out on a ledge. It was soooo windy! I was afraid we might get blown off! Too scary for me!
"The White River Badlands in southwest South Dakota are the best places in the world to study and understand the effects of erosion. It is there that geology and life of the past connect themselves with the present. For approximately 30 million years, layers of mud, sands and gravels were laid down. In those layers are fossils of many different prehistoric animals preserved for modern study. About one to four million years ago erosion began to outpace the deposits, leaving colorful spires resembling castles."
"This area was once a portion of a giant salt water sea. Upheaval and volcanic activity pushed the sea floor up. As the water drained away, it left behind broad, marshy plains. About 25 million years ago three-toed horses, sabre-toothed cats and other prehistoric animals roamed the area. When they died, many were buried by river sediments or just sank into the marshlands. Periodically white volcanic ash covered the soil, hot winds blew across the plateaus and the terrain continued evolving."
Bighorn SheepAll of the animals were losing their winter coat so they looked pretty dingy. This guy has a collar on too.
It is amazing that this sort of scenery is not too far away from the green gorgeous pictures taken in previous posts around Mt. Rushmore! Our planet is pretty cool!
More flower pictures from Dave
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