Maine or Bust, part 1!

Took off from Colorado for Maine and the East Coast on Sunday, Sep 8th, reluctantly peeling ourselves away from 2 month old Grandson, Jonah, and his parents too, of course, for our long-planned trek to the East Coast.  First stop, after a 400+ mile drive mostly North the first day, was Rapid City, South Dakota. But, before arriving there, we toured, if you can call it that, the "lovely" outback of Eastern Wyoming.  Highlight, or rather low-light, there was a slight misstep in a forgettable dusty Wyoming town which left us at the dead-end of a Motel parking lot, and with no choice but to back up the old 5th wheeler about100 yards to get turned around and back on our way.  Don't ask how I got it into this predicament in the first place; but suffice to say that you don't make any traffic move while towing a 34 foot "apartment on wheels" behind your pickup without thoroughly considering the consequences, most especially "escape routes" with said "apartment" once you turn off a road.  In this case I did not do so; and I am also, despite nearly 3 years experience towing the "apartment", not that great of a "backer".  But we managed to creep our way back through a crowded motel parking lot without scraping a single fender with either trailer or truck; and (not so) very quickly were back on the road.

The KOA in Rapid City was a nice surprise, very conveniently located and reasonably quiet.  That first day in camp we watched a severe thunderstorm developing to the West and heading pretty much our way amidst reports of golf ball sized hail, strong winds and heavy rains. By the way, the "Weather Channel" app, a free one, on IPhone, is great for travelers like us.  Anyhow, and thankfully, while the heavy rains did temporarily make our gravel and dirt RV site a mud-hole, the hail missed us, and we did not get blown over by the strong winds. And it got much better from there on during our 3 night, 2 day stay in Rapid City.

First stop our next full day in the Rapid City area was the "world famous" Wall Drug Store 50 miles East down the freeway.  After visiting this two block long "mini-mall" enclosed within a rustic rough-timbered country building, my overall impression was that it was a "world famous tourist trap";  I likely won't go back anytime soon.  But nearby, just south of Wall, were the South Dakota Badlands, a National Park; and it exceeded my expectations in every way, a stunning display of rocky outcrops and canyons that you can drive right through.

Next day was spent just to the South and West of Rapid City in Custer State Park and at Mt. Rushmore.  The State Park was billed as containing one of the largest herds of wild buffalo anywhere as I recall, something like 1300 of the hairy beasts; we saw exactly 2! But it was only a small disappointment, as the drive into, through and out of the park was simply spectacular, narrow, serpentine roads up through the timbered hills, with views along the way of nearby hills, including Mt. Rushmore monument.  Rushmore followed, and was just as impressive up close as it was from the highway into and out of Custer State Park; all in all our Dakota visit (to South Dakota at least) was very enjoyable.