Actually, it was bears, jackolopes, and praire dogs...oh, my!
One of our goals on this trip was to see animals for Lorie. Well, we have seen many animals as we have been driving, however, Lorie says that the dead ones don't count. "Roadkill is not a zoo," she stated. So, today we intentionally visited a place for animals.
We visited Bear Country, USA, outside of Rapid City, SD. For those of you who were in Orange County in the 1970s, think Lion Country Safari. Bear Country was started in 1972. It is a three mile drive through eight different areas. The areas are: elk, reindeer, timber wolves, artic wolves, mountian lions, bison, big horn sheep, and bears. You drive through in your car at a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour (we actually moved much slower). It is unbeleivable. We had three elk cross right in front of us. We saw timber wolves staring from the grass. One bison was up close where we could see it very well. It was a white bison - I had never seen a white bison before. There was four other bison down the hill. One was a baby. One of the others was rolling in the dirt - it was great to see that!
The highlight of the experience though was the bear section. There were over twenty bears - both black bears and grizzlies, just wandering around. We saw one swimming and get out of the pond and shake himself dry. We saw others walking around, sleeping on branches, scratching backs against trees, walking across the road in front of our cars - it was just fantastic. We had so much fun. We wished we could have driven through again.
After the drive, we walked through Babyland, where some of the baby animals are kept so they can grow before being put into the areas. We also ate lunch at the Grizzly Cafe.
We then continued down the road. We had decided to stay in Murdo because it was a good halfway point. We weren't quite sure what we were going to do in South Dakota, so staying at Murdo gave us a choice between contining east or changing direction and going north.
We stopped at Wall Drug because it is the thing to do when you are in Wall. We especially enjoyed the "backyard" with its huge "creatures". Lorie had her picture taken on a fourteen foot tall jackolope, hugging two different six foot rabbits, and posing in front of a huge t-rex that roared and gnashed its teeth. We convinced Elizabeth to have her picture taken with a six-foot white rabbit that we named "Harvey". She went along with us, but she let us know that she thought we were weird. I believe her actual word was "deranged". :)
We said when we began this trip that we were going to stop at anything that looked interesting and we have been doing that. It is has been so much fun. Today we saw "Praire Homestead" on our map and we saw signs for it. We decided that sounded good, so we stopped. It was about three miles off the interstate. When we pulled up, we were the only people there. It looked like an old general store building from the front and there were all kinds of old farm implements out front. As we walked up on the porch, there was a figure in a rocking chair and it began "speaking" to us. It about scared Elizabeth out of her pants. The figure looked like the figures in the Knotts' Berry Farm ghost town. It was a supposed to be a version of the man who had homesteaded on this property. We continued inside and purchased tickets that let us walk through the homestead. It was so much fun.
First of all, the area was heavily populated with prairie dogs. We purchased a bag of peanuts for fifty cents so we could feed them. They acted just as they do on nature movies. They would pop up, look around, and squeak. When we tossed the peanuts, they ran, grabbed the peanut, sat up, shelled it, and then nibbled the peanut. It was hilarous to watch.
We then continued up the hill to the little house that was their homestead. You could just walk right in, and look at and touch anything you wanted to. We were saying, "Never in California." Near the house was the root cellar. You could climb down the steps and go into it. The dirt overhead was falling in and it was unbelieveable that we were allowed to go into it. We saw the outhouse and other outbuildings, including the barn where there are still chickens, goats, and geese. (and, of course, more praire dogs) I said this before, but I will say it again: We had so much fun.
When we got into Murdo, we checked into our hotel. We went to a local restaurant - a sign at the entrance said "Seat yourself. Choose any empty table or booth and please be patient." We think sometimes they must get tour buses in. The food was okay, but the highlight was dessert. We each had our own tonight - Lorie and I had brownie sundaes and Elizabeth had strawberry shortcake.
After dinner, we drove around looking for an ATM machine. Neither of the two banks in town had an outside ATM machine. We figured that the gas station truck stop on the edge of town would have one and decided to check when we purchased gas the next morning.
The last thing we did before returning the hotel room was go to the car wash and wash the car. It was filthy and we wanted to get some of the dirt off. Lorie and I used the power sprayer and soaper and Elizabeth laughed and took pictures. She says it was a great comedy show. I was happy the car was clean.
I was hoping to post about this day when we returned to the hotel, but, while we did have high speed internet, it wasn't really working, and I was too tired to play with it. So, dear readers, you are getting this post a couple of days late.
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