Day 7

Sioux Falls, SD to the Badlands

mileage: 288

Highlight of the day: The Corn Palace

The corn palace, built in the late 1800s, in Mitchell, South Dakota, is the only Byzantine structure in the world decorated with corn murals. Really. The theme of the decorations changes every year. It takes 3 months (mid-June to mid-September) for volunteers to place the colored corn and grain on the outside walls, kind of a giant “paint by numbers” except it’s decorating by corn. Gertrude was the greeter at the Corn Palace, and upon hearing I was from North Carolina, told us about her sister who left South Dakota during the Dust Bowl years to settle in North Carolina as a missionary. Very friendly people here in South Dakota.

Lunch

We had buffalo burgers for lunch. Tasted kind of like chewy hamburgers. A little tough.

Learned:

South Dakota has THE BEST roadside information centers/rest stops in the entire country. Each one is a museum unto itself. At one we learned all about Lewis and Clark’s great adventure, saw a replica of their pirogue, and felt a buffalo hide. At another we learned all about the Sioux tribe and customs. At another we learned about the making of Mount Rushmore and the history of the Black Hills. And at each one, the staff was incredibly pleasant and helpful. I like South Dakota.

The Badlands

We entered the park close to sunset. We stopped at one of the first hiking areas to explore the beautiful, eery formations known as the Badlands. The sun was setting, casting pink, purple, and amber streaks across the sky. We were the only humans visible in the park. We traversed over gullies, up miniature mountains, over crags. We climbed atop a peak to watch the full moon slowly rise in the sky, shining more and more brightly the higher it rose. We sat in silence, listening to coyotes howl in the distance. Without speaking, we exchanged glances. This very moment was worth the 2600 miles we had travelled thus far…