Day 4--to Hill City, SD

I opened my eyes this morning to a beautiful red-orange sunrise streaking across a cloudless sky. I closed my eyes for a few more winks, then was awakened suddenly by a distant, ominous rumble that couldn’t possibly have been thunder. I sat up and craned my neck to peer out of the trailer’s tiny west-facing windows, and saw dark, swollen clouds rolling in. Keith and I scrambled to throw some gear into the van before a gentle summer rain soaked the ground for a few minutes. The clouds dispersed as quickly as they had gathered.

We spent most of the day in the car. It seems like a rather modest goal to drive 350 miles in a day. But, as we’ve learned, what looks like a 5- or 6-hour drive on Google maps turns out to be an all-day endeavor when you figure in time spent repacking and loading the car and making pit-stops for food and gas, as well as the drag of the trailer.

 

From De Smet, we headed west and then south so we could hit Mitchell and see the Corn Palace -- a basketball arena and expo hall decorated entirely with corn; the designs change annually. Keith has been out this way twice with his hunting buddies, and, to his deep disappointment, not one of them has ever wanted to stop by the Corn Palace with him. So, today, he was thrilled to cross that off his Bucket List.

 

We got on I-90 in Mitchell and spent the rest of the afternoon plodding across the very wide state of South Dakota. As the hours went by, the terrain slowly changed from wide-open prairie to something much more rugged, rocky and wooded.

 

Hill City is tucked into the Black Hills, about 25 miles southwest of Rapid City and about 10 miles west of Mount Rushmore. Of course, as usual, we pulled into town later than we planned, and instead of setting up camp, we made a beeline for dinner. Hill City’s main street is quaint and colorful, lined with shops and bakeries and cowboy-themed cafes. It wasn’t hard for us to find a good prospect -- The Desperado, which, as it turns out, is owned by a gentleman named Dan Dickey, a native Hoosier (and IU alum), who lived for many years in Minneapolis before coming out here. We enjoyed chatting with him. And his restaurant was charming and comfortable.

 

While waiting for a table there, we took a few minutes to browse through a shop a few doors down, where Natalie spotted a boy wearing a Camp Tecumseh t-shirt. Turns out, the family is from Lafayette, and they’re on the return leg of a trip out to the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. The three kids all went to Camp T. the week before Natalie was there this summer.

 

So, here we are, at the Palmer Gulch KOA, nestled between Hill City and Mount Rushmore. I’m not sure what to think of the place, yet. It’s a small city, itself, and we don’t have much privacy. But, we’ve got what we need for now: a place to shower and sleep.