Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There (South Dakota)

Welcome to my Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There Blog.

Today I’m exploring part of the pretty state of South Dakota.

Highlights:

Prairie country. We passed an 80 ft tall fake dinosaur, which has been the most colourful thing on the road so far, but other than that, there is just long stretches of road and prairie – but it’s fun to imagine Laura Ingall's Wilder and her family crossing it in their covered wagon! 

Mount Rushmore. We arrived at the monument just after 3pm so it wasn't too sunny and there were very few tourists around. I have to say that although the sculptures were impressive, they were nowhere as big as I was expecting – years of drooling over photos doesn’t really give you an idea of their actual size. We walked some of the way around the very pristine paths that went right to the edge of the rock face with the Presidents above. In case you're wondering the 4 presidents in the sculpture are: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt & Thomas Jefferson.

The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. The Palace is pretty cool, all the mosaic pictures made from different coloured corn cobs and bits of corn. The first Corn Palace was made in 1892.

De Smet. Home town (one of them) of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the 'Little House' series (in case you've been living under a rock & unfamiliar with the series of books and the 1970's TV series.) De Smet was a lovely little town and we decided to do the Laura Ingalls Wilder tour. Our guide was called Bev and she was very knowledgeable and entertaining – we especially liked the way she said 'creek', which came out as 'crick'! First we went to the Surveyors Cottage where Bev told us about the family’s travels and then we checked out the old schoolhouse. Lastly we drove across town to the house that Pa built in the late 1870's and heard about the family once the girls had grown to adulthood. We were really glad we did the tour and even the kids enjoyed it – my daughter, of course, dead keen to buy the set of Laura's books (which we did).

Finding a town with my name. Okay, I know it’s cheesy, but we loved finding towns with our names and getting photos with the signs. So far we’ve found a Fredonia, Tracy and Joshua Tree National park sign. My poor Kate was so disappointed we haven’t found one for her.

There were many other spots in South Dakota that we didn’t have time to see—and they’re on my to-see list next time we visit the U.S.A.

Tracey