June 26, 2017 Last Day in Wall, SD

Tomorrow we leave Wall, SD, headed for Southern Hills RV Campground near Hermosa. We were going to just stay at the coach and work on getting the blog finished (if we had Internet access), but instead we went back to Wall Drug to have a 5 cent cup of coffee and FREE Ice Water as these are the marketing ideas that started its success and has been continued. We added a donut, which are homemade there as well.

Along the sidewalk there are still the hitchin' posts to tie your horse while you shop.

 The Wall Drug Café

 

 The FREE Ice Water that Wall Drug is famous for...

 

And 5 cent coffee (in-house)... Its actually 59 cents for take-out.

One of the dining rooms

 

Mary getting ready to have her donut, 5 cent coffee and Free water at Wall Drug.   

And Bill too.

All along the walls of the restaurant are signs of brands like this one which also identify who the brand belonged to.  This one belonged to the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe (cattle or horses).

 

And by Exit 110 into Wall, when the Interstate Cleanup required removing all the billboards At one point, after Wall had become so popular with their sign, others followed suit and eventually with the intent to clean up the Interstate System, billboards were forbidden on the Interstate. Hence  Wall Drug put out this giant 80-foot dinosaur to let motorists see it and know their exit was coming up, which stands to this day. Eventually billboards were allowed again, and Wall Drug's sign came back up, but the dinosaur also remained, and like the Mile Marker 0 in Key West, it serves as a photo opportunity spot.

 

 Bill also wanted to re-take the photo with Mary flirting with the cow poke, which came out sort of blurred, but there was an old and handicapped guy just sitting on that bench and given his condition we didn't want to bother him by asking him to move. We waited about 10 minutes and he gave no sign of intending to move, so we opted to let her flirt with other wooden caricatures, instead. Personally Bill thinks that she should just have called the cops on the cowboy's girlfriend below (to get rid of her) as she obviously stole the boots, as they still have the price tag on them.  Oh... and Bill convinced Mary to get on that silly Jackalope for a photo, after having waited for all the other little kids to have their turn. :-)

 

Then we drove over to the  National Grassland Visitor Center in Wall...

 

Tomorrow we leave for Southern Hills RV Campground, so the next post may be in a few days, as the day after tomorrow we will just be shopping (in Rapid City) and then Thursday will be the first outing day.

See you with the next post. Happy trails... 

June 25 2017 - Badlands (Trip 3)

The thing about the Badlands is that no matter how many times one goes there, on what days or what the temperature or weather is like, it is never the same. It's like playing golf. There are too many variables... the lie is different, the wind is blowing from a different direction, at a different force, the grass is wetter or drier, etc. Likewise the terrain seems different in the Badlands (or any other such place we suspect). This is the third day we have gone there and we were taking pictures like it was our first day, because it all seemed brand new.

The only difference about this day's activity was the hiking trail. All the previous trails were 'Easy', whereas this one was 'Moderate-Hard' including uneven ground, ascents up to 144' and a log ladder about 100' high (which we both passed on when we got there.)

So here are a few more photos....

The Wall Drug Signs along I-90...

Our Arrow Campground...

  And our campsite (with some neighbors)

Another Mountain Blue Bird.

 

TODAY'S HIKING:

The Notch Trail. Ranked #5 on Trip Advisor is a short 1.5 miles (RT) but is rated

Average-Difficult Level due to steep inclines, narrow ledges with drop offs, and a log

ladder rising about 100 feet high. From the top one can see the White River Valley...

but the log ladder stopped us and we never got to the top.

 

 

 Still, Bill just had to go rock climbing ... because all the other kids were doing so.

 

 

These American Cliff Swallows were found on our hike, flying in a flash into these nests with tiny openings on the side of these hills, tucking in their wings at the last minute. These  tidy well constructed nests are made of mud that they collect with their beaks.

 

Tomorrow we will probably just hang around the coach, get ready to leave on Tuesday and finish these blogs, as we don't always have Internet access.