Best natural scenery / historic sites in South Dakota as we drive through in Aug/Sep? (Brookings: house, buy)
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Aren't we all overdue for some kind of vacation???!!!
My wife and I have five days to drive from Devils Tower WY to Chicago, a distance of about 1,000 miles. We are comfortable putting in 500-600 miles a day, so we have a couple of extra days to take our time, do some sightseeing, and stop to experience the states we're passing through.
We are road trippers and we like natural beauty, history, and new experiences. We love driving to and through the USA states. I've been to all 50 states, and I'm traveling with my wife so that she will have too. We both were children traveling with parents the last time we saw Mount Rushmore.
What sites of natural scenery or history would you recommend we see in South Dakota? I'd like to see some of the best that South Dakota has in the short time that we have. We'd love to see some bison! Perhaps we go to the Triple U Buffalo Ranch outside Fort Pierre. I'm the planner between us, and I'm thinking that we may want to see perhaps Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, and the new Dignity statue.
After you do Devil's tower, Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park and all that area has to offer, please bop North a bit to do Lemmon, SD. The Petrified Wood park and museum there are so fun! You can also stop by John Lopez's sculpture studio, which is something. From Lemmon take a short slide into the very corner of ND and visit Medora and Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Then drop down again to the Badlands. I know that loop North will seem out of your way a bit, but you won't regret it. (You could also go up from Devil's Tower, then loop back down to the Black Hills area destinations afterwards.) You just can't see all that SD offers if you stick to the 90 corridor. If you want to stay with one route going east from the Black Hills, try taking 14 or 18 across. The Little House sites in DeSmet are fun, and I like the Agricultural Museum in Brookings, too.
corn palace in Mitchell. As mentioned Badlands drive through, rest stop east side of Missouri river on 90. has free museum on lewis and clark.
if 62 or over buy national parks pass if you havent already. Look for Tee Pee style rest stops. (hard to miss)
Iron Mountain Road from the south you will see Mt Rushmore going through the tunnels and pigtail bridges. if your can see badlands in evening after a rain the colors are breathtaking! The grain silos at Faulkton are a great surprise. Northeast South Dakota have lakes and small town American!
Man, if you can make it to Lemmon, you will find treasures around ever corner, then take the quick trip up the Enchanted Highway, this was my late wife's favorite trip, in fact just before she entered the hospital for her last week on earth I took her up the Highway, she was thrilled to see it one last time. The huge statues built by a local area rancher are just wonderful, 3 story pheasants, huge deer, the family that stand over 30 feet tall, as the Highway begins there is the worlds largest moving sculptors. A quick trip to the memorial for Huge Glass that mountain man who was attacked by a grizzly bear and left for dead by the members of his Corps of Discovery before the White Man had settled in this area and Shadehill dam with the cliffs where you can still see carvings from members of General Custer's 7th Cavalry as they made their way from Fort Lincoln near Mandan ND to Deadwood and the gold fields to open the area up for the prospectors who settled the Black Hills. If you drift a bit back West check out the Burning Coal Vein that has been burning for centuries, the fumes caused a new form of juniper which normally grows flat against the ground, here it grows up like a pine tree to get away from the sulfur smoke of that coal as it burns underground, the ground collapsing behind the fire filling in the vacated space once filled with coal. As a matter of fact, you could go North from Belle Frosch through the lovely little town of Bowman, North on US85 to Amidon where you can take a gravel road a few miles West and be at the Burning Coal Vein, when finished drive up to New England ND, hang a right and drive to Regent ND where you can pick up the Enchanted Highway, take it up to I 94 and head East to Glenn Ullin ND, then South to Lake Tshaida, cross the Heart Butte Dam, then follow Highway 49 South to SD73/US12, drive 8 miles to Lemmon, there take in the sights of the town, from there you can either drive Hwy 12 East to Mobridge and the great sights in that area along the Missouri River and drive back South to the Corn Palace in Mitchell then on to the East to Minnesota and onward.
Please note that while some roads on dangerousRoads.org are truly dangerous, I’ve found that most that I’ve driven are not.
For those who are headed that way, I've driven on Needles Highway, mainly in off season when it was not thick with tourists etc, and it never struck me as particularly dangerous.
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