Day 2: Sioux Falls, SD to Rapid City, SD

Today we headed west on highway 90 across South Dakota. The first stop was the Porter Sculpture Park. This park is just in the middle of some farm fields. When we arrived we were greeted by the artist and what I think was his father. The artist gave us a quick overview of his work and sent us on our way. The park highlight is a huge bull head. Apparently his next project is going to be a huge horse. The work is bizarre and somewhat disturbing, but interesting none the less. He's even got hand painted signs describing the work.

Bull head sculpture at Porter Sculpture Park

Next we visited the Mitchell, SD Corn Palace. There wasn't much to see, as they had already started taking down the 2007 display and constructing the 2008 one. It's an interesting concept I guess - putting corn on a building - but I don't really get it.

Corn Palace

The third stop today was a rest area along hwy 90 that overlooks the Missouri river. This was the 4th time that we crossed the river since we left home yesterday morning.

Next we got to feed (wild) prairie dogs at this little tourist stop just outside the Badlands National Park. You paid the guy who owns the land $.50 and got a small bag of peanuts to feed the prairie dogs. They weren't too interested but I did get one little guy to take 2 peanuts out of my hand. The place also features a huge concrete prairie dog....

Feeding the Prairie Dog

Badlands National Park was next. We went to the Painted Desert two years ago so the landscape here was familiar. There was a neat sunset that we got to watch, but overall nothing too special, just more of the same. However we did get to see a bunch of wild prairie dogs running around a field. We also saw rabbits and deer in the park.

Badlands National Park

After the Badlands we checked out Wall Drug. I knew after 300 miles of bad billboards that they place would stink, and of course it did. Really not much point to stop here except to say that you did - but Tom got a free bumper sticker so he was happy.

We ended the day in Rapid City, SD. We'll be checking out Mount Rushmore tomorrow!

See more pictures from today by clicking here.