A Thousand Mile Tour

Day 24 –

Sunday, Sept 15 – Rollin’ From Des Moines to Rapid City

We left about 6am! It was fun to get going when it was still dark. It wasn’t long though before I was napping. Joe didn’t get his coffee until we got to Sioux Falls, SD. It was raining and cold in the morning. Our next stop was Cabela’s in Mitchell, SD. Joe signed up to be a member of the NRA! He even got a $25 gift card to boot! 

Guns and more guns and lots of ammo

Inside Cabela's

Next on our agenda was to visit the World's only Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. We have been there once before. It has quite a history. It is a multipurpose facility that was built in 1892. They redesign the facade every year using all parts of a corn stock. 

We stopped and had lunch at doo-wah Ditty’s diner in Kimball,SD; a little town with the population of 707.

Like every other state, South Dakota is beautiful. It mostly very flat.

Crossing the Missouri River

S. Dakota beauty

We stopped for the night in Rapid City. We were only 30 miles from Mt. Rushmore, but since we have been there twice before, so we didn't visit it.

Beautiful afternoon in Rapid City

We went to Chapel in the Hills. It is a replica of a chapel in Norway. There was a one room cabin museum full of unique antiques. The small chapel had beautiful woodwork. The weather was beautiful, sunny and calm. 

The cabin museum

"For me and my household we will serve the Lord"

This was a nice area behind the chapel

From there we walked around the old town area. Unfortunately, the shops were closed, but we got to see the statues of the US presidents on the street corners. There was also an alley covered with graffiti, which was unique. It looked like it was set aside for that purpose.

The first time that we have seen this

The graffitied alley

Thomas Jefferson

Rapid City

   We had light dinner of a chopped salad mix from the market. We ate in our clean cheap hotel room at the Grand Gateway Hotel, while we planned our next leg of travel to Tacoma, WA.

Day 25 –

Monday, Sept 16 - Rapid City to Bozeman

Our next 2 day trek

We started our day getting great coffee and scones from Sturgis Coffee Company. It is an attractive, rustic coffee house and store.

Great sign at the door

We had another day of perfect weather! The scenery was amazing; green rolling hills with some bigger hills and spuratic trees and clear blue sky!

 We stopped at the Geographic Center of The Nation in Belle Fourche, SD. Who knew? We didn't until today. The actual spot is 20 miles north of there out in the middle of someone’s field, so the city made this nice monument in town for people to visit. There are flags for the 50 states and on each flag pole is a book with the names of the people that have been killed in the-line-of-duty since 9-11-01.

Joe standing in the middle of the United States

Funny sign

 Shortly after leaving the nice small town of Belle Fourche, we drove through Custer National Forest and Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Both had hills with pine trees, but still very open.

 Our next stop was at Little Bighorn Battleground National Monument about an hour east of Billings, MT. We got out of the car and it was warm! We walked up to the monument and around the area and watched a film about the battle.

Grave sites on Last Stand Hill

7th Calvary Memorial on Last Stand Hill

National Cemetery

We stopped in Billings, MT for lunch. We ate delicious wraps at Rocket Gourmet Wraps and Soda. We skipped the soda though. We ate outside at a sidewalk table because the weather was so nice. We continued east on I 90 to Bozeman.

When we entered into beautiful Bozeman is was sprinkling. 

There was a short hike we wanted to take and decided that we better do it that night, because rain was forecast for tomorrow. The drive to the hike, Palisade Falls, was further then we expected, but we are so glad that we didn’t turn around. When we got there it was 6 o’clock, 60 degrees, partly cloudy, and calm aka Breathtakingly Beautiful! It was only about .6 miles to the falls, which was good because it was getting dark. The hike was easy and so pretty all the way. I took so many pictures.

Nearby beauty on the way to the trailhead

The trail

Palisade Falls

Beautiful Sunset

When we were done, we met Stephen and Allison Fanning for ColdStone ice cream. They moved to Bozeman from Sapulpa,OK for Stephen to attend Montana Bible College. We had a great time talking with them and getting to know them better. We look forward to watching how the Lord uses them.

We stayed a comfortable night at a Ramada Inn. No frills.