Yeah you saw the title, I'm not kidding, but your going to have to read on a little to find out the details. The day started of just like any other. I woke up, converted my bed into a table and then decided to go take a shower. We had stayed at a KOA in Sioux Falls, and KOA's were well known for there amenities. Kim was the one who had the idea to take a shower so it helped me get out of bed. I wish I could say I had some gut feeling about the day telling me that something was going to happen but the truth is I had no idea. Anyway we left the KOA nearing toward 10. We were planning to make it to the west border of South Dakota today. When we were about to enter Jackson County our music bleeped out and a weather warning came through the speakers. It said something along the lines as "Tornado Watch has been issued for the following counties, blah blah, Jackson County, blah blah blah. Be aware of large hail and thunder storms." I immediately checked what county we were in and realized that we were entering Jackson County. I definitely didn't need my phone or the weather channel to tell me that we were entering a storm.
There were giant black storm clouds straight ahead. No spiraling clouds but it wasn't out of the picture. We needed to get some gas, so we navigated to the closest one on our route. By the time we got there rain was hammering on top of the RV, so much so that there was water dripping in through the vents. It almost sounded like hail which wasn't the best thought for me. I got out of the car and ran under the shelter of the gas station. In the few seconds I was outside I got basically drenched. Lighting was striking just miles away. The details of the bolts flashed as they struck down to the earth. Thunder cackled above us almost as if it was laughing. The tank was full so we decided to face the storm. Visibility was non existent. We immediately pulled off the road, followed by dozens of other vehicles. The rain would hit the Rv from one direction and then hit it from the opposite side a few minutes later. The rain turned to hail which turned to quarter sized pebbles.
The weather channel beeped on again. "Warning, severe thunderstorms and large hail on the I-90 between mile markers 68-74." It felt kind of like a movie when I looked out the front windshield and saw mile marker 71 directly in front of the car. We checked the weather radar and realize that we were on the very outskirts of the storm. Within a few minutes the visibility cleared up and we got back on the road. About right when we exited the 74th mile marker the rain stopped and blue skies began to peek out from under the clouds.
"Wouldn't wanna be any closer to a tornado then that!" Ben exclaimed as we drove away from the storm. We finished the drive to the Badlands National Park, and because we had a Annual National Park Pass we didn't have to pay to get in! The Badlands used to be a flat prairie, but of the course of 500,000 years the large amounts of storms that had passed through, the prairie had began to wash away down the nearby river creating large cliffs. As the cliffs had begun to form hundreds of fossils had been discovered. In the visitor center they had many different displays and pictures of the fossils they had recently discovered. There were 2 people working on a couple fossils, they were cleaning them up by getting all the dirt and rocks of the fossil. Even though some of the prairie had gone away to form these massive cliffs there was still a ton of prairie left. We asked a park ranger where one of the prairie dog habitats were and he told us that it was just up the road. So after stopping at a trail head and hiking half a mile up the rock we headed down the road to find the prairie dogs.
I didn't notice the squeaking until we got closer. Tons of little prairie dogs were just hanging out on two paws down in a stretch of prairie. They were a little to far to see there details but they looked like guinea pigs, and sure sounded like them too. On the drive out of the Badlands we saw a bunch more of them, these ones were much closer and I saw them more in detail. Mt. Rushmore was about an hour or so farther west of Badlands. So that was the next stop on the map. Kim and I worked on getting an Rv park in between Mt. Rushmore and Devils Tower. We had a couple leads and one of the parks said we could just come in and park and there would be an envelope waiting for us. Mt Rushmore was about what I expected from the pictures I had seen. 4 of the presidents sculpted into the cliff. What was the most interesting about the mountain was the history about it. Just how many difficulties the team that created it faced. How they didn't really get enough funding for it, how a crack had developed in Washington's face. And yet they still created one of the most well known monuments around. The Rv park was only about half a hour away, we stopped at a Safeway to get water and then drove the last 20 minutes up to the park. Sure enough a packet was waiting for us and we went and found a spot. Tomorrow we are headed up to Devils Tower! Check out our road map for more locations on the trip!
Click HERE for the map!