Rapid City, SD

I have been lazy in getting caught up on my updates. There will be a flurry of activity, so my apologies to both people reading the blog... As we mentioned in previous updates, the fires in the Northwest and Canada forced us to change our schedule to avoid Glacier and explore the Dakotas instead. We had several friends give us suggestions for sights in the Rapid City area and we were not disappointed. We wanted to visit this area to see Mount Rushmore, but ended up getting distracted by all of the other sights and didn't get to Mt. Rushmore until day 4 of our stay. We started off visiting Wind Cave National Park. We descended several hundred feet to these amazing caves for our tour. I was very impressed with it and amazed that they estimate by air movement that they have only discovered 5-10% of the caves, but have mapped 150 miles of connecting caves. This is worth the visit. Our next stop was the Minuteman Missile site, Walls Drug and the Badlands National Park. The missile sites were educational and I enjoyed it from the geek perspective. Walls Drug is a crazy tourist trap and has an interesting history. Wiki it if interested. It is a clear reminder of the opportunities that exist in this country is you are willing to pursue them. The Badlands are one of my favorite national parks. I was not prepared for what we saw and experienced. The pictures do not represent it well. Go see it. Our stay in Rapid City wrapped up with a visit to Jewel Cave National Monument, which Danelle liked better than Wind Cave, Mt. Rushmore, Sturgis, Devil's Tower and the needle highway through Custer State Park. All in all, this is one of the highlights from the last year. We need more time and plan to return to this area.