Vagabonds No Longer - Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Vagabonds No Longer - Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Happy First Day of Summer!

Tom was up and out again around 6am. I followed but not shortly. I "make the bed" on my way out of it; straighten out the sleeping bags, tucking in the pillows, getting them ready for when we "crash" in the afternoon. ;o)

We decided that since we missed breakfast out last Sunday we would do it today. Using the free Urbanspoon application (thank you, Diana and Lori) we found the Cactus Cafe and Lounge in Wall. The food was good, plentiful and inexpensive. I don't think this is a part of the Wall Drug Store business. It doesn't seem to be this same kind of thing.

The town of Wall, I expect, is best known for the Wall Drug Store started in 1931 just a little off the highway by the Husteads. They were going to give it 5 years to grow and then decide what to do. In 1936 the business wasn't going anywhere. Mrs. Hustead came up with a plan. Mr. Hustead put signs on the highway advertising a free glass of ice water to anyone who came by. This was enough to entice many people into the shop. Now the business has grown by leaps and bounds and is a destination rather than a stop over. It is kid friendly with a "Back Yard" in which to play, a 6 foot jackalope, panning for gold and lots of other stuff. There are numerous dining rooms and, of course, souvenier shops. There is free parking, 5 cent coffee, free coffee and a donut to Viet Nam Vets and a free glass of ice water for all who stop by. You can check it out here,  http://www.walldrug.com/default.aspx  . No, I'm not being paid to write this. :o)

We went south from Wall on Rt 240 and used the Pinnacles Entrance to the Badlands National Park. We took the Bandlands State Scenic Byway, otherwise called the Loop Road through the Badlands. This place reminded us of the Painted Dessert. It's history is similiar and just as beautiful even on a rain plagued day. It wasn't raining when we rode most of the way to the Visitor Center at the other end of the road.

We have come to like the Visitor Centers. There is so much information there about the history of the particular park we are in. It provides answers to a lot of questions and starts one thinking about more questions. They also play a 20-minute DVD about the park. It is a nice rest and very informative.

When we left the Visitor Center it was raining. It had really just started. We had to decide whether to try for the geocache in a nearby ghost town or call it a day. We decided to take the ride and see if the rain would stop.

It did stop and we rode through the prairie to find the ghost town named Scenic. The building facades were made to look like saloons and stores. I was sure that they were ever real businesses. But the cache was in a stone building that definately was a real jail. Chalk another one up for South Dakotah.

Then we decided to take the Sage creek Rim Road back to our original starting place in the Park. We were supposed to see bison and a prairie dog town, both of which we did. There was a very big herd of bison a bit of a distance away from the road but soon there were two huge bison very near the road lying down, chewing their cud, not caring about the traffic on the road. If we hadn't had enough pictures of bison we would have surely stopped, too.

The prairie dog town looked like a dud at first but then you had to watch the grass carefully. Then you saw it. One tan ball popped up and just that fast it wasn't there any longer. There it was again! It disappeared! There's one over there! No, wait. There it is! It was fun to find them.

But the two amazing things about the Sage Creek Rim Road were the unpaved, gravel road and the fact that it divided the prairie on left from the Badlands on right. The wind tickled and swayed the grasses on the left and moved through the pinnacles, spires and canyons on the right. We stopped for a picture of the expansiveness of these stone forms. I hope the pictures turn out.

We have taken 155 pictures today. I hope at least some of them are good. ;o)

Back to the RV Park where at least some of the evening's guests have already gathered. This is the fullest any RV Park has been at night and the emptiest in the morning. Last night a car pulled in at 10pm and took a spot near us. I heard "camping" noises. They weren't the noises heard in an RV Park but ones that I associate with tenting/camping in the state parks in PA. The last trip to the bathrooms told me I was right. The daddy was putting up the tent while the two early elementary boys were dancing around having a hard time waiting until they could go into the tent. Somewhere there was a mother who was trying to quiet a crying baby. And the rain didn't help any. They, too, were gone by the time we came back from breakfast this morning.

We "crashed" for a while and had dinner. We made some preparations to be one of those people who leave here tomorrow morning. "The Man" tells us we have five and a quarter hours driving time to accomplish about 300 miles. While accomplishing those statistics we will have crossed from Mountain Daylight Time to Central Daylight Time and we will be in Tea, SD. We will have come down off the mountains and will be on our way Home, vagabonds no longer. ;o)