2008_07_31

The target today is the hotel at Custer SD. After the trip up to Yankton from Kansas City, we decided to avoid the interstate today and head cross-county taking Hwy 50,46,44 towards Rapid City. This was a fantastic drive across rolling high plains, with wheat and cornfields as far as you could see, and just open range, with very few visual clues of human existence. Large storms moved north of us across the prairie, leaving their veiled trails of rain behind them. Deep blue skies behind the billowing thunderheads enhance their beauty.
Country stores are truly general out here. A stop reveals not only what you expect to find in a general store, but some things that are of a surprise. There are poker machines in the back and a mini liquor store in another section.
As we travel westward, the land turns from open and raw prairie, where we passed a coyote chasing something along the side of the road, to what looked like moonscape with prairie dogs a popping up everywhere, this is the Badlands.
The final photo in this series shows the Black Hills in the background. It is easy to see how they got their name from the dark appearance that their rounded hilltops and well-forested slopes present at a distance.