Sioux Falls, SD to Badlands National Park

We drove 287 miles to end up in a beautiful hell of 113 degrees (that's Fahrenheit for my Canadian friends).  

After departing Sioux Falls, we visited the Dignity Statue in Chamberlin, SD.  The statue is at a rest stop of all places (just off of I-90), where there also happens to be a Lewis and Clark Museum. The statue is a beautiful tribute to the Lakota people. It was quite busy when we stop and a kind couple held everyone back so I could get a shot - in exchange for me taking their photo. Thank you kind couple.

Dignity

In true tourist nature, we stopped at The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD which is the event center for pretty much all of Mitchell. The corncob medium of the palace's artwork illustrates the ingenuity and resourcefulness of a community. The little village across the street (made especially for tourists) has a gourmet cotton candy shop. It took almost all of my willpower to bypass, but I did.

We stopped at Minuteman Missile National Historic Site for a quick break. All of the tours were sold out, so we headed on...to the Prairie Homestead Historic Site with a traditional sod house where settlers would have lived. (Yes, that is our Subaru behind the sign.) The storm clouds started rolling in and we decided to - yet again - move on to the Badlands. 

My Lee Filter took a fatal tumble at our first stop in the Badlands, but my camera and lens were unscathed. A huge relief, but I still proverbially kicking myself over my avoidable mishap. After getting to our campsite and setting up our tent in 113 degree weather, we were both exhausted, tired, and cranky. Then mom made a friend so she could borrow her stake mallet, and she proceeded to use all 12 stakes on our 2 person tent. Thank you so much, Meredith: you were too kind. After some dinner, mom caught up with her friend Becky. The two of them would talk all day, everyday on the phone if you'd let them. After sweating through my sunset shots, we called it a night - only to sweat more. 

• Day 4 Stats:  287 miles, 0 (new) states, 2 NPS stops.
• Running Stats: 1,269 miles, 6 states, 4 NPS stops.