South Dakota Day 14/15... Bear Butte and the Journey Home

Friday August 23

     One thing about a roadtrip around South Dakota, the Central/Mountain Time Zone line bisects the state at the Missouri River.  So, trying to keep track of sunrise and sunset times can be interesting.  Sometimes you just get lucky with your timing.

      The goal for the day was Rapid City for the next morning’s flight home.  As Hwy 12 took me west, the weather guessers were talking about some possible storms late in the afternoon.  If I was lucky, I could make it to Bear Butte State Park before the rain.   
      For long stretches, I had the highway to myself.  There were times I stopped in the road and turned around for a photos, stopped right in the road to take a few through the window and once I even got out of the car and stood in the middle of the highway for a photo.  Lovin’ it…

     Hwy 20W would eventually bring me to Hwy 73S...

         Over the years, I’ve driven all kinds of rental cars.  This was the first time one of them suggested I need a break.  In the middle of the dashboard, a picture of a coffee cup appeared and the words, "Do you need a break?" I felt fine, but stopped in Faith for coffee and gas anyway.
     From Faith, it was an easy drive west through the town of Newell...

  Then south on Hwy 79 towards Bear Butte State Park. The weather guessers were still talking heavy weather and the sky to the west didn't exactly look inviting.

  The round trip to the summit of Bear Butte is a little under three miles.  It's a steady, but not too steep climb to the top.  The question was, could I make it back before the rain.  In the park, there's one person who runs the museum and another who looks after the hikers.  He looked at the sky and said I probably had a good chance.  It looks like the clouds were moving away from the park.  He would also come out to the parking lot with binoculars from time to time and watch the hikers heading up and down the mountain.  
      From the hike up...

      Fairly quickly, you lose sight of the western horizon and don't get it back until you're close to the top.  

    The view from the top!

     Heading down...

     Sadly, I never did see any of the park's buffalo herd.  But, I didn't get wet, so no real complaints.  It was time to leave the park and headed to Rapid City.  To get there, I had to pass through Sturgis.  Imagine if you can, living in a city of 6,600.  For one week every August, one of the biggest motorcycle rallies in the world descends on your town.  There were a lot of temporary venues still standing and it had a bit of a ghost town feel driving through.
     After checking in at the motel, I drove back into downtown Rapid City, ditched the car and went looking for something I had read about recently.  More on that later...
      Dinner was in a converted firehouse, turned brewery.  Dinner was quite good and the Blue Eyed Blonde Ale delicious.  

      Two blocks from the brewery is where you'll find Art Alley.  All you need is a permit, and you can paint a mural on the walls.  

     One more thing you'll find as you walk around downtown Rapid City, life size sculptures of the presidents.  There's just something funny about President Washington being outside a Starbucks.

   President Reagan...

  And their latest addition, President Obama...

Saturday,  August 24

     Not a bad sunrise, especially shot through the screened window of the motel....

   

      Not a bad way to end a trip.

David 9/19

PS:  Once I was home, I started the research through Truecar.com.  I sent out a lot of inquiries and fielded a whole lot of calls and emails from dealerships.  I even investigated Carmax and Carvana.  In the end I replaced my old CR-V with a new one.  It's the basic version without a lot of bells and whistles.  While I wasn't happy to have to replace my old one, she did have 292K miles.  The transmission was getting a little twitchy and eighteen years on a set of shock absorbers makes for a bumpy ride.  Add to that, my mechanic told me I was starting to burn oil.  So, the time was coming anyway.
PPS: Next up for the road is a drive up to see Mom in late October, early November.  The original idea was to drive up the coast to Jersey, then loop back to Mom.  It all depends on what Hurricane Dorian does as it heads northward.  Time will tell. 

   

   

   

   

 

                                                                                                                 

                                                   

                                                             

South Dakota Day 13, A Haunted Trail

Thursday August 22

   Getting out of Sisseton involved taking the detour around downtown again.  You know you're in a rural spot when the detour involves dirt roads.

     Sisseton was added to the itinerary for one reason, it's the closest place with a motel to Sica Hollow State Park.(pr; shee-chah) It comes from the Sioux for evil.  There's a trail through the park they consider haunted.  Considering their legends of the area, it's not too surprising.
    The hollow was considered a peaceful place until a stranger named Hand came through.  He taught the children how to attack and kill.  The elders sought the help from a Medicine Man, and asked what would need to be done to return peace.  The Medicine Man appealed to the Great Spirit for help.
    The answer came in the form of a spirit named Thunderer.  His presence brought wild storms that drove Hand mad.  Vines pinned his arms and legs and Hand drowned in the rising flood waters.  The flood would eventually drown everyone except one young girl named Fawn.  But, peace came back to the hollow.
    The haunting come in the form of mysterious whistling and groaning sounds that are said to come from the ground.  Add in the occasionally red tint of the spring fed streams and the swamp gas that's said to glow in the dark and it's easy to see how the area got its reputation.  A few mysterious disappearances only cemented it.
    The Sioux shared their stories with the settlers and they were even spooked by them.  The legends eventually grew into alleged sightings of a Bigfoot type creature.  In the 1970's several people disappeared.  Hunting parties were organized, but they were never found.
    The approach to the park is over wide open farm land.  Then suddenly you're in deep forest.  Once you hit the trees, you'd expect to see a few homes here and there. I saw no homes, no cars and nothing large than a squirrel until I came out the other side.
     As for the trail itself, the website only mentioned how to get there.  It never mentioned the trail's length.  I was in and out of the park in about an hour.

   

   
   Getting back out to Hwy 10 was an adventure.  While the drive to the park from the east was clearly marked, the drive out south was completely different.  I found myself back on farm roads in a reservation that wasn't on the map.  When in doubt, choose the largest road and follow it in the right direction until you find a bigger road.  As long as I kept the morning sun to my left, I knew I'd eventually find the highway.

    Pulling out the map, up ahead was the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge.   Way ahead of schedule for the day,  I stopped in.  Or at least I tried...

    It tuned out this is just one of the scenic drives through the refuge.  Eventually, I'd find the entrance and head in.

    At the kiosk map I didn't see many trails, just a few short ones from one place to another.  But, they do have a fire tower...
                                   

     The refuge's ranger seemed surprised when to have a visitor.  With certain roads closed for repair, and very little bird migration, it's their quiet time.  The only other vehicles I saw were from the park service, or road construction trucks.

     Lunch was a family style restaurant in Aberdeen called Millstone.  And yes, the lasagna special was quite good.

    From Aberdeen, it was west on Hwy 12.  There was no way I was going to pass up a stop in Bowdle.  Clocking in at one hundred-fifty feet, they have the tallest water tower in the state.  It's such a part of the town's identity, they hold an annual Tower Days Festival at the end of June every year.

     One town west is Selby.  It was created in 1899 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific  Railroad and named after a railroad official. The last census had the population as 642, mainly due to the town being the county seat of Walworth County and the home of the largest fertilizer plant in the mid-west.    Unlike so many communities, the railroad still serves Selby, hauling out fertilizer and grain.
    My home for the night was the Selby Motel, located right on Hwy 83.  It's a clean, well kept independent motel, currently under new management.  The changeover occurred after I had booked a room and all those reservations had been lost.  No problem, there were plenty of rooms available.
    With plenty of time on my hands,  I decided to just take my camera and walk around downtown.

     Being the county seat, there's the inevitable county jail and police station.  Overshadowed by grain elevators, and right on main street, sits the Shelby Opera House.  It was built here in 1908.  Six years later, they showed their first movie.  In the 50's and 60's, one night a week it was turned into an indoor roller rink.  You can rent out the opera house for a private function for only $55 and a $100 cleaning fee.  It's an extra $25 if you want to use their kitchen.

     With little or nothing happening downtown, I wandered into the Cloverleaf Bar and Grill, formerly the Berens Hotel Lounge.  The hotel is long closed, but this turned out to be the place where the locals go.  The food was pretty good, and the usual bar and grill fare.  The beer list was all national brand domestics.  The only one I didn't recognize was something called Grain Belt.  It's been brewed in mid-west since 1893.   The brewery has been bought and sold numerous times and moved almost as often.  Yet, somehow I had never seen it before.  I liked it, and had two more while chatting with a three of the regulars.  They're all retired and either rent out their land or have it managed by other family members.  I kept trying to get them to tell stories of Shelby.  They just wanted to hear mine.

    With the day waning, people trickled in and out.  I said my good-byes and worked my way back to the motel.  There's an open field behind the back parking lot, perfect for a buggy sunset.