Crossing South Dakota

Today was a day of history, gentle surprises and more agriculture.

I thought it was snowing when I first looked out the window this morning. Then I realized it was a cloud of some kind of seeds, like dandelion. The wind was steady and strong all day. I learned later that this is frequent for the Dakotas.

We took the full Laura Ingalls Wilder tour complete with a very animated and pleasant guide. She was a charter member of the local historical society. We learned a great deal. The tour included visits to the Ingalls' original De Smet house, the final house in town built by Charles, the cemetery and the homestead.

Charles and Caroline began their married life in Wisconsin and then sold their house and moved all the way to Kansas. A couple of years later, the Wisconsin house deal fell through and the government was about to evict them from the Kansas land because they were on “Indian” territory-back to Wisconsin. Charles then decided to try farming at Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The “dry years” forced him to work for the railroad. When Laura was twelve, Charles got a free rent deal on an abandoned surveyors house (their first in De Smet) with a pantry full of food. They went and staked a claim on the homestead. The first winter was so bad they had to build a house in town for the winter. After this, they farmed for a while. Charles then built another house (we visited this one) in De Smet and they lived there until their death. An illness blinded Mary and the other children moved away. Only Laura had a child and she, in turn, had no children. I tell you this brief story to consider why in the world did these people do this? Their life was significantly marred by hardship, illness death, and loss of family. Eventually their entire family (Charles and Caroline and progeny) died leaving no one. If Laura hadn’t been prodded to write her books by her daughter Rose, no one would be aware the Ingalls lived. Was this a success or a failure?

Following the Ingalls escapade we headed for US 90 and on to Rapid City. The first surprise was filling up with $1.99 gas—maybe you’ve seen these prices too. Moving we noted, from our highway slice of life, a major shift from grain to grazing. A lot of hay, grass and also, the number of farmsteads continually seen from the road dropped from about twenty to just a couple. Sometimes, we would drive for miles and not see any, just bales and cows. With no barns apparent, all of the big-baled hay was stored in large stacks in the fields. We could see them in all directions and all the way to the horizon. Looked like quite a bit of waste (I assume they know better though) and I wonder how they manage them when the snow builds up.

The change in scenery was continually changing, sometimes in surprising ways. It continued to get flatter. The most remarkable effect was the utility poles and towers. They appeared to march to the horizon becoming ever smaller until they were no longer distinguishable as poles and towers. A real feast of perspective experience.

The land also continued to become flatter. We all know the land is never entirely flat but the variations become softer and less pronounced. An interesting note is the variations were, more often than not, depressions. That is, the farmland was much like a table top with few hills and many small valleys.

As the land appeared to grow flatter, we were surprised to see a sign proclaiming a scenic overlook rest stop. I wondered how there could possibly be a scenic overlook in all of this planar land surrounding us. Well I was surprised because as we drove in we saw an immense valley that looked like it was gently gouged out of the soil and rock. It was a beautiful panoramic sight with a river at the bottom and three large bridges that looked pretty small from where we stood.

I thought the valley was just a larger version of the small depressions we had been driving through for hours—an anomaly. But no. As we climbed out of the valley some ten miles later, it became apparent that the mountains had begun to express their presence with gentle but ever growing foothills.

As the foothills became more pronounced, we noticed another interesting addition. Rock outcroppings became visible in the lush grass fields and hills. The interesting thing is that the rock was very smooth like it had slowly boiled out of the ground and then became frozen and then gently eroded. Again a beautiful sight.

Well this brought us to Wall, South Dakota, the home of the Badlands. We’ll spend the night here and go exploring the Badlands tomorrow.