The Badlands trip with Zie

the wandering chick

...Zie's trip to South Dakota

Several years back, my sister and I took her granddaughter, Madison, Mackenzie's older sister, on a trip to Duluth. She was a little older than Zie is now.

But now it was Zie's turn to take a trip. We decided on South Dakota. Zie is 12; she'll be a teen before the year is out.

Our travel days were long for a 12-year-old, coming from the east side of Minnesota. But not once did she say, "Are we there yet?" On the three days we spent being tourists, we crammed in as much as we could see: Mt Rushmore, Deadwood, Bear Country USA, the Badlands and a few sights in between.

Mt. Rushmore was her favorite.

The pictures on this page are a good representation of our trip from start to finish.

with Mooooo-kie and Chick

A lunch break on the way to South Dakota

Sometimes sleep is the best thing to get you through a long day's drive.

Acting silly gets you through, too.

We stayed in a cozy cabin in the Badlands KOA on the White River.

Mookie asked Zie, "Would you eat this piece of avocado for a dollar?" Zie was only tempted, not being a lover of avocados. But it never touched her tongue. That's okay. Mookie never said she'd give her the dollar. She just asked if she'd eat it. Very tricky, Mookie.

A clever way to pick up a hot dog when you don't have the right utensil nearby.

Guess who got the top bunk!

Just a swingin'...on the porch

Photo by Zie

Before Deadwood's short story re-enactment, all the kids and young adults in the audience stood and raised their right hand to make a pledge. Zie participated through most of it, but stopped short when the pledge included washing the dishes at home for almost the rest of her life! She's no dummy!

Photo by Zie

A short-story re-enactment about the rough and tough shoot-'em-out old days in Deadwood

Ice cream and root beer floats! Yum!

On Thursday, we first visited Bear Country USA. We lucked out on all the animals we saw...lots and lots of them. Above and below are elk.

We left home on a Tuesday morning around 9:30. We hit a couple of pretty severe t-storms on our way, so the trip took longer than it was supposed to.

On Wednesday morning, we stopped in at Wall Drug before heading for the western town of Deadwood. Deadwood was a really fun western town. We visited the shops, then saw that a re-enactment was about to happen on the street. So we found a good spot on the curb to sit and watch it.

Bobcat

Arctic wolf

Reindeer

Ram

Opossum, photo by Zie

Badger, photo by Zie

Skunk, photo by Zie

We saw lots of bears and enjoyed watching the cubs play. Zie took most of these bear shots.

Bear Country USA has a wonderful gift shop where all three of us managed to find something we couldn't live without.

Back to warm temps and...ice cream!! Zie learned too late that you can ask for two different flavors when you order a double. Sorry we didn't tell you ahead of time, Zie.

We learned some amazing statistics on the size of the Mt. Rushmore faces. Each face is about 60 feet top to bottom. The noses are more than 20 feet long, and the mouths are about 18 feet wide.

After Bear Country, we headed to Mt. Rushmore. It rained on us, and the temperature dropped. So, we went into the gift shop and bought sweatshirts. By the time we got out, guess what!

Great selfie!??? Chick's eye went missing!!

The faces that make up Mt Rushmore were chosen by the architect Gutzon Borglum. He chose these four men because he felt they did most, at that time, for our country.

The faces are George Washington, our first president;

Thomas Jefferson was the 3rd president of the U.S. and most known for writing the Declaration of Independence;

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was our 26th president and is most known for an enormous amount of good he did for the country. He negotiated better working conditions for blue-collar workers, but mostly he is the one responsible for establishing our national parks and forests. He set aside almost 200 million acres to be used as national parks and wildlife refuges to be enjoyed by the common people.

Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president. He is best known for abolishing slavery. He also led the nation through the Civil War.

From Mt. Rushmore we drove toward our temporary home by way of the Needles Highway, so named for this rock formation above: the eye of a needle.

Prairie Dog Town. We thought feeding the prairie dogs would be easy, but we finally realized they were not so interested in the peanuts we bought because they were too full...too many people feeding them all day.

On Friday, our last day, we did the Badlands. And we did them well. We stopped and walked almost every overlook and saw views like we'd never seen before. And Zie probably climbed more rocks than she'd ever done before!

This climb at Saddlepass was steeper than it looked. But Zie made it to the top!

She had no choice but to slide down on her butt. The loose gravel was slippery, and the trail was steep!

We stopped for lunch at the beautiful and well-known South Dakota rest stop off the I-90 in near Chamberlain. She's called Dignity and stands 50-feet tall. She honors the Lakota and Dakota people of the land.

Bye, bye, South Dakota. We enjoyed your beautiful sights.

To see the trip to Duluth with Madison, click here.

To see the trip to Door County, Wisconsin with Madi, click here.

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