6th July - Badlands to Sioux Falls, SD

Badlands, SD. 

We woke up in a still hot Betsey and decided to skip breakfast as we were melting and just wanted to hit the road. We drove past crazy tourists outside their car with buffalo behind them, taking photos of buffalo in front of them. Why? Good question. I’m surprised one guy didn’t get skewered on a bison horn. So we passed the prairie dogs again and the buffalo but we didn’t see any more turkey L. 

We did the loop on our way back the freeway. The Badlands were pretty amazing and the colours in the hills were stunning. Being unable to walk much, we opted out of doing any walks, but the fossil one looked cool. There were lots of people climbing all over a couple of sections. Some looked so awkward that I thought they might join me in the sprained ankle department. The loop was 24 miles long and there were heaps and heaps of people there. It was quite windy, but we braved the switchbacks, stopping here and there for some great photos. Some of the tops of the hill things even had grass plateaus! 

Then we were back on the I-90, continuing on to Sioux Falls. We missed the place where the Minuteman Missile Museum was, which was a bit disappointing, but it’s not my fault it wasn’t well signposted. And maybe we were a bit silly because we thought they were silos above the ground, but they are actually underground. By the time we realised we were already 25 miles down the road. Ooops! They are leftover from the Cold War and were some of those classic movie style missiles that required two people to simultaneously turn a key and then press a red button. Then some city (probably in the USSR) would’ve been obliterated. 

It was a long and epic drive. We passed places with funny names like Winner. A pretty flat and boring drive – lucky we have plenty of good music to listen to! Next stop was a McDonalds in a small town called Chamberlain. We checked our email and confirmed with Nicholas when we would be arriving in Sioux Falls. It was the worst Maccas internet ever and kept breaking up. Epic fail. 

Then we went to the Corn Palace at Mitchell. It was a bit of an effort to actually find it, as again, it wasn’t very well signposted once we got off the freeway. It was pretty corny and a little bit husky. And ear we were. (haha, enough puns already?!) It looked pretty cool! They use 275, 000 ears of corn to present a theme or idea. Every year they create a new design, using 13 different shades or colours of corn – which are grown carefully to maintain their colour. Apparently they even have green ears of corn! It was designed to show how agriculturally strong South Dakota is. Totally random and weird, but kind of cool! We bought some cute postcards and Will got me a lollipop that is in the shape of a piece of corn and apparently tastes like buttery corn or popcorn, which intrigued me!

Corn Palace! 

We followed Nicholas’ awesome, detailed instructions on how to reach their house and then we were there in their beautiful leafy suburb in Sioux Falls, only five minutes after our ETA. Their daughter Natalie made me a million cups of ‘tea’ to go with my cupcake (served in the teacup) and generous shakes of frosting. She is such a cutie! Meanwhile Mal and I caught up while the boys wreaked havoc on several beers (yes, Will is back on the wagon, after one night off – I couldn’t do it!!!). 

The little steak is antelope. 

After Natalie went to bed, we had dinner, which was awesome. We had delicious barbecued shrimp for appetizer (we told Nicholas to ‘put another shrimp on the barbie’ in our best Aussie accents – his imitation is pretty good!). And then a wicked surprised. ANTELOPE STEAKS!!! Which Nicholas caught himself and butchered. I got to see a picture of the antelope not long after it was shot – which was fine and didn’t make me queasy at all. Though it was a pretty pronghorn. We also had onions, mushrooms and a green pepper stuffed with crab and cheese and normal beef steaks. The antelope was delicious, very tender and only a tiny little bit gamey. Yum-o! The pepper was a bit hot, but I must be getting tough because I didn’t notice til the very end. Could’ve been the bacon wrapped around it disguised the heat hehe.

After dinner I introduced Mal to Angry Birds on her iPad and we showed them some photos of Australia, while eating Vianne’s orange brownies and some chocolate buds. The boys went down to admire Nicholas’ guns and hunting trophies (the skull and antlers of the antelope we ate) while the ladies were more civilised and chatted upstairs. Though I was shown a picture of a turkey that Nicholas had shot and put in the freezer – after getting it ready for roasting!!. We also saw a couple of flashing fireflies outside – too cool!

A good night sleep in an awesome comfy bed with the best pillows we’ve had on this trip (our Walmart ones are pretty good though!).