Day Three- Monday, June 20 Destination Badlands, Wall Drug and Mount Rushmore

Waking up on Day Three was an adventure in itself. I love camping, although I have to say if there is one thing I don't really care for (aside from bugs), it would be the fact that you have to leave the warmth of your sleeping bag, and tent (or in this case covered wagon) and walk sometimes quite a distance to the bathroom. So on this particular morning I had begun waking up around 5am as the wind and thunder were making it harder to sleep. I laid there for a bit thinking, maybe I can just fall back to sleep and not worry about having to go down a hill, and across the prairie a little bit to the restrooms. Then at 6am Zach woke me up. He also had been hearing the thunder and had decided to make the trek to the bathrooms, but wanted me to know where he was going. At this point I needed to get up too, but unfortunately it was now not just windy and thundery (is that even a word?) it was also pouring! When you need to go, you need to go, so we grabbed umbrellas and headed out door of the covered wagon with a huge bang as it almost flew off the hinges. We were no sooner out the door then we realized the umbrellas were not going to do us any good and we were soaked! By the time we got back to the covered wagon from our journey we no longer needed showers at all. As I stood there dripping wet I began to think about Pa, and getting caught in a blizzard on the prairie. I realize this was rain, but if snow was falling and whipping around the prairie I could understand how someone could get disoriented and loose their way back home in such a storm.
The plan had been to cook up some pancakes (flapjacks) and bacon on the prairie as that would have been a somewhat common meal for the Ingalls family, but with the rain we decided to pack up the van and head out for the Badlands. It took a few hours to drive across the state to the Badlands National Park. It was a cold, wet day and while we did have moments of clearing as we entered the Badlands we decided to mainly just drive through, instead of doing any hiking. The last time I had been in the Badlands though was during a tornado when my father had just come up to the gate, found no one there and just drove on through, so I figured we were doing much better if this time we were only dealing with rain and wind!
The Badlands are breathtakingly beautiful, as we rounded each corner of the windy road it was hard to not stop and take another dozen pictures. The various colors of the stone against the grey sky were stunning. Luckily, as we drove through the rain began to slow down and by the end we were able to take pictures from the windows without trying to keep the cameras dry. One of our favorite places in the Badlands was Robert's Prairie Dog Town. In this area the prairie grass just has mound after mound of prairie dog homes in in. We watched for several minutes, and even with the rain were able to capture these cute creatures.
Leaving the Badlands we headed to Wall Drug. This tourist trap, is something you just have to stop at! We didn't stay very long, simply walked through 5 gift stores, but it would be easy to spend hours wandering through the stores inside this building. After picking up a few things we hit the road again hoping to make it to Mount Rushmore before dinner.
Mount Rushmore is up a windy road with needle like trees on either side. The drive up itself is beautiful. As you round the corner and see it for the first time you can't help but think about how much work went in to creating this sculpture in the store surface. We had purchased a National Parks pass at the Badlands gate, which did not cover the parking fee at Mount Rushmore. We were both shocked that they will also only accept cash for the parking area. Luckily, we had planned ahead, but I can only imagine how many people don't have cash when they get to the gate. We spent a couple of hours at Mount Rushmore, taking photos and walking the mile long Presidential path. The path had quite a few stone steps and we ended up hot and tired by the time we finished hiking it. It was still chilly out, with a forecast for more thunderstorms so after leaving Mount Rushmore we headed to the Custer Crazy Horse Campground to stay in a cabin for the evening. While I'm glad were were in a cabin, which I'm sure kept us warmer then a tent in 40* and wind would have, I wish we had camped at Custer State Park, which we would head to the next morning.
The sights of the day were beautiful, from God made to man made. Falling asleep in the cabin after a full day of driving and sight seeing we prayed that the weather and temps would improve and for another fun filled day to follow.