Day 2 - Trek to the Hills

Friday morning ,it was decided that we would take off up route 16A from Keystone to meet highway 44 East out of Rapid City. Do you know where we were headed? Yeah, off to the Badlands and a trip to Wounded Knee. Took off through the hills down to PineRidge over to Hot Springs up to Custer State Park ,then back to Keystone. We went 249 miles around the hills to see what we could see. I needed to get over to the Wounded Knee Memorial because of a movie I have. It came out in 1992 and is called "Thunderheart". Had to checkout the arch to the entrance of the cemetery to see if it was the same. By the way, it was. Hot Springs was a very nice little town to see from the road. A place I had visited as a teenager and will put it on my list to get back to for a longer stay in the future. Magnificent old architecture. ;) Custer State Park, what a scenic,restful drive...if you aren't behind the steering wheel that is!We paid an entrance fee that would have lasted us for a week if we would have been in the area that long. The roads get kind'a curvey here and there. We found some stately creatures of interest during our brief venture. Had we been there starting Sept. 29th - October 1st we could have witnessed the annual Custer State Park Buffalo Round-Up. After traveling the Needles Highway back to Keystone we headed to a local eating establishment "The Ruby House". Discovered it had been relocated from one side of street to the other when their previous building burnt down. We found the food very good and the coffee had just the right flavor for me...one of the few places that I can say the coffee was "Good". Although, I only bought coffee once a day when we had our large meal of the day. After "The Ruby House" we headed back to Super 8 to lax out for the rest of the day. Checked e-mail and did some internet searches thanks to Hubby's new lap top computer. One more full day in the hills. Check in to see where it took us....

Trek to the Hills

On the road...Time to get out of Iowa for a change of pace. Turning 50, decided it would be great to wake-up in a place to which I have grown fond. The Black Hills of South Dakota - an awesome area to hangout for a few days. Thursday morning September 20th before 7:00 A.M. we tucked in Hubby's Voisin 3/5 airplane. Since there isn't going to be any flying accomplished for at least 6 days we needed to make the wing tips less desirable to the mouse population. They have become ardent fans of the new apartment complex since the plane has been hangared here at home. Passing road side water holes, ponds, and lakes through Iowa,southern Minnesota, and middle South Dakota brought to view all the different types of waterfowl still taking refuge for food and rest. In northern Iowa along Interstate 35 we saw one of the big birds of flight not regularly seen. However, we did know what was rising off the pond, winging its way upward... a banded Trumpeter Swan. It was exciting for me to see. Another sight becoming more frequent are the big Wind Generator farms being created to provide the country with more energy. We saw trucks hauling sections of the generators everyday we were on our trip. A total of 2,926 miles. What could this mean for our migrating bird populations? Getting back to the end of our day on Thursday the 20th, we reached our destination at the Super 8,Keystone,SouthDakota. Albeit a tourist destination but a very peaceful place. It is at the end of their peak summer season - still found it to be bustling during business hours. Will be sharing more of what we experienced in our few days in the hills. Stay tuned...