Day 11

Day 11: Thursday July 3rd, 2009

Interior, SD to Rapid City, SD

After a very poor nights sleep at the Budget Host Motel Badlands,

we packed up, enjoyed pancakes and french toast for breakfast and reentered the Badlands National Park. Tara and I choose a nice 1.5 mile hike called the Notch Trail,

which had a wooden ladder

to get people up the steepest slope and some impressive drop offs and views. We encountered a couple of white Least Chipmunks

that were as curious about us as we were of them. We completed the tour of the park by taking the Badlands Loop to Wall Drug, SD.

With hesitation, we entered Wall Drug.

Wow! It was overwhelming. We had a quick lunch at the Cactus Cantina, breezed through a couple of stores, picked up stamps for all those postcards, and left in less than 90 minutes. We made it to Rapid City before our check-in time so we went to the Black Hills Caverns, for an hour cave tour.

Tara commented that Texas caves are bigger. Isn't everything? We then drove past my old neighborhood, located my old house

that was hidden behind the now giant and droopy pine trees that my family planted,

and discovered that the community had expanded...significantly. An area known as Red Rock actually has a golf course...a golf course!...behind my old house. Can't believe it.

We checked in to our cute little red cabin on Jackson Avenue and had Pizza from Paisanos before settling in to what we hoped was a better nights sleep.

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