The Ranch
Hitting The Wall
- Black Hills Underground
Custer Capers
- Wild Life
- More Rushes
- Corny
Our first stop was the Badlands "Ranch"/RV Resort/B&B. We were
hosted by "Jake," as real a cowboy as I've ever met; he's pushin 65
and still running the place! How'd we find his spread in Interior, SD??? (pop. 67)...
Guess!
So we stayed in a little bitty cabin with no phone (e-mail withdrawl). TV out here is about 2.5
channels, I don't think the entire state of SD even GETS NBC... naturally
during the NBA playoffs....
Out here, "Chicken-Fried Steak," in the land of cattle, is "what's for dinner." So we hit the only place open for 20 miles - The A&M Cafe. When we opened our order back at the cabin, the "steak" must have been more than a square foot!
The high point here was an INCREDIBLE trail ride
to the rim of the White River valley with about a 30 mile view of the
Badlands right to the horizon. And I didn't fall off this time! Katie
"galloped" and can't wait to tell her friends...
The weather was "chance of Thundershowers" throughout our stay, and the Badlands never showed me their most spectacular colors for lack of sunshine to light them up. But the "wide open spaces" still got to me - Jake's "spread" was small..... only a 1000 acres! The next door neighbor's place was 220,000!
One interesting term from Jake - He called the mix of volcanic ash, sand, pebbles and stone that make up the soil here "Gumbo" when it was wet. It was amazingly slippery and stuck to everything. Rangers were closing the back roads while our dauntless Dodge Caravan carried the Campbells further west....
A shot for the scrapbook. Like most folks out here, Jake was part Native American and offered these Teepees at a few campsites. I regretted not "having a fire" inside one...
Links:
Badlands National Park
Jake's Place (Thumbs Up!)
MNRealty.com Main Page