South Dakota Trip

 

South Dakota is one of the state located in the mid west of United States. It is located on the East side of Montana. It is well known for Mount Rushmore with 4 most influential president carved on the mountain. There are also 2 national parks located within South Dakota and these are Badlands National Park and Wind Cave National Park. These national parks may not be as famous as Yellowstone National Park in the neighbouring state, but it still attracts tourists across the country.

To get to South Dakota, the drive time is quite long. We decided to take 2 days to drive to there. On day 1, we first drove to Spokane and had brunch as Yards Bruncheon. It was a great brunch after a long drive. After the brunch. we continue to drive East and stayed at Butte for a night.

On day 2, we left the hotel early at 5AM in the morning. Before we started the long drive, we got some drinks from City Brew Coffee. Then we drove 8 hours to get to Devil's Tower. Devil's Tower was an interesting place and we learnt a lot about the native tribes. Afterwards, we drove 2 more hours to finally get to Rapid City. While we were on the way, it was pouring heavy rain like crazy. Many cars actually pulled over to the side to wait for the rain to stop.

On day 3, we woke up early to go to Badlands National Park to see the sun rise. It was a beautiful and amazing national park. We then went for a hike at Notch Trail. We really had a great time there. After we drove back to Rapid City, we went to Longhorn Steakhouse for a good steak dinner.

On day 4, we first went to the famous Mount Rushmore. It was a great place to learn the history of United States. Afterwards, we went to Custer State Park and had a good hike at Sylvan Lake. Later in the afternoon, we went to Wind Cave National Park and did the Natural Entrance tour. It was an amazing experience.

On day 5, we went to Badlands National Park again to see the sunrise. I was just beautiful. Then we went back to Wind Cave National Park for the Candlelight Tour. This tour is even better than before because we walked in the dark with just candlelight.

On day 6, we left the hotel early and drove to Jackson. After 4 hours of drive, we first got to Casper and had brunch at Egginton's. Then after 4 more hours of drive, we finally got to Jackson. After settling down at the hotel, we went into the town and had an amazing ice cream at Gourmet Moo's Ice Cream.

On day 7, we went to Grand Teton National Park. We had a hike around Jenny's Lake and ran into the moose on the trail. In the beginning, we only saw a big black furry animal and we were worried that it was a bear!

On day 8, we woke up very early and drove 12 hours all the way back to Portland. It was a tiring drive, but we were glad to be home.

This was the longest drive we have ever done and our first time driving so far East. It was a great experience we learnt a lot about history!

Gourmet Moo's Ice Cream

 

Gourmet Moo's Ice Cream is famous ice cream shop located at Jackson. Although it is located at the corner of the street, but it was one of the most popular ice cream shop in town. It offer variety of ice cream flavors, including beer flavor as well. The smell of waffle cone can be smelled from blocks away.

We got to Gourmet Moo's Ice cream in the afternoon about 5PM. Luckily there was no long line at the shop. As we walked in, there was a big menu of different ice cream flavor. It was difficult for us to figure out what we wanted to have. We saw the beer flavor at the corner and asked if it is any good. The server said she never tried because she was still underage and cannot have alcohol yet. It seemed like the ice cream is made with real alcohol. We asked for a sample and it did taste like alcohol but sweet. The taste was like a cocktail taste.

We got the most popular huckleberry flavor with almond honey ice cream. The huckleberry is like a specialty in Montana. Most ice cream shops serve ice cream with huckleberry flavor. The huckleberry ice cream at Moo's Ice Cream was quite good. It actually did have big chunks of huckleberry in there. We really enjoyed it. As we left the shop, the line started to form outside of the shop when people are done with dinner.

We recommend to try Gourmet Moo's Ice cream when visiting Jackson. Even if the line up is long, it is still worth it to try the ice cream.

Wind Cave Natural Entrance Tour

 

Natural Entrance Tour is one of the most recommended tour for most people at Wind Cave National Park. The tour itself is about 45 minutes long. The ranger takes a group of 40 people through the underground cave and walk through the paved path to see all the special rock formations in the cave.

We made reservation for Natural Entrance Tour on recreation.gov, but tickets can be purchased on the day of at the visitor center as well. The ticket for Natural Entrance tour is blue colour. The meet up place is under the hut just right outside of the visitor center.

The ranger first took us to the Natural Entrance. Natural Entrance is a hole above the ground that connects to the cave beneath the ground. Natural Entrance is fairly small though and no one can fit in there. The Natural Entrance is a sacred place for the native people and thus we have to be respectful to their traditions. The native people believe that Natural Entrance is the gateway between our world and the spirit world.

To enter the cave, there is a separate entrance on the side. We first took the stairs to go all the way down into the cave. On the way down, there were light on the side so we did not have to bring any flashlight. Some part of the cave was a bit low and tall people would need to lower their head.

Inside the cave, we could see some strange cave structures. One of the most famous thing to see here is the box work. It is called box work just because it looks like boxes and most of these box work in the world can only be found at Wind Cave National Park.

Towards the end of the tour, we got into this big room and we were allowed to walk around freely in there. The ranger also turned off all the light source just to give people a feel of complete darkness. It was pretty interesting.

At the end of the tour, we took the elevator back up. The elevator could only take 10 people at the time, so it was a long process to get everyone back up.

Natural Entrance tour at Wind Cave National Park was definitely an interesting tour. Even for people who are afraid of darkness, they would be able to enjoy Natural Entrance tour as well since there are light sources along the path all the time.

Sylvan Lake

 

Sylvan Lake is one of the most popular lake in Custer State Park within South Dakota. Sylvan Lake has beautiful scenery with clear blue water and grey rock surrounding it. The trail around the lake was also easy for people to hike on and the cold lake water can help to cool off the summer heat.

We got to Sylvan Lake around 10:30AM in the morning. Before getting there, we had to enter Custer State Park first. The entrance fee for Custer State Park was $20, which is a lot even though it is valid for 7 days. When we got to Sylvan Lake, we were glad that there were still several parking spaces available. However, as we parked the car, it started to rain heavily. We had to wait in the car for 30 minutes for the rain to stop.

When it stopped raining, we stepped outside and the air was so refreshing. When we got to the lake side, we saw many people fishing along the lake shore. We went on to the lake side trail and followed it towards the rock. When we got to the end of the lake shore, there was a small dam, but it looks like it had not been used for a long time.

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Then we went through a narrow slot canyon. There was a large boulder right above us and stuck between the canyon wall. It was quite cool.

As we continue on the trail. we started walking on top of the rock. Since it was running just 30 minutes ago, the rock was a little slippery. We had to pay extra attention to avoid slipping and fall. The view from the top of the rock was simply amazing. The lake and the rock formed a perfect picture.

Sylvan Lake was definitely one of our favourite lake we have visited so far. Unfortunately, it was a bit cloudy when we went. We would definitely love to visit Sylvan Lake again in the future.

Mount Rushmore

 

Mount Rushmore is located an hour away from Rapid City in South Dakota. It is well known for the carving of 4 famous presidents on the rock surface of the mountain. These 4 presidents are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Mount Rushmore attracts thousands of visitors from all the states each year, and thus it has a huge parking structure there.

We got to Mount Rushmore quite early around 8AM in the morning and there was still plenty of parking spaces. When we got off the car and went to the payment machine to get our parking ticket paid, the credit card was not working for the machine. The machine just couldn't process past the credit card authentication check. It was quite frustrating. Luckily we had cash on us and paid $10 for it.

After getting the parking ticket paid, we walked up the stairs and finally saw Mount Rushmore. It was an amazing sculpture work done by the people more than 50 years ago. We could not imagine how difficult this work must have been back in the days.

The hallway leading towards the auditorium in front of Mount Rushmore have many flags on both sides. These flags are the flags of all 50 states of United States and also flags of all the territories. Under the flag, it also listed the date of when the state or territory became part of United States.

We then went on the Presidential Trail. The trail led to us right beneath Mount Rushmore. The trail also has information boards that talk about the background of the 4 presidents on Mount Rushmore. We learnt a lot from this short hike. At the end of the trail, there was this sculpture center showing what the original plan was for carving the mountain. The original plan was much larger that includes full body size sculpture and also showing the important dates of each president on the rock. Unfortunately some part of the mountain was too fragile and part of the plan had to be scrapped.

As we went back to the auditorium, we went downstairs to go to the memorial hall. Inside the memorial hall, it showed how people carved the mountain back in the days. About 90% of the work was done by using dynamite. The entire mountain carving work took over 14 years. It was a crazy task.

The visit to Mount Rushmore was definitely memorable. We definitely learnt a lot about the history. We initially thought we could walk all the way up the mountain but that was not the case, which was a little disappointing.

Wind Cave Candlelight Tour

 

Wind Cave National Park offers various cave adventures. One of the most memorable tour is the Candlelight Tour. Unlike other cave tours at Wind Cave National Park, the Candlelight tour takes you through the cave with just a metal bucket with a candle like light in it. There are no other light sources around you. This tour gives people a chance to experience what it was like to explore the caves back in the 19th century. However, there are only 2 Candlelight tours a day. 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. Each tour can only take 10 tourists, thus it is usually difficult to book.

We got to Wind Cave National Park early this morning around 9AM for the Garden of Eden cave tour. Then we found out that there were spots available for Candlelight tour at 10:30AM, thus we decided to cancel the Garden of Eden tour and go to the Candlelight tour.

At 10:30AM, we got to the meet up place downstairs. The ranger came 5 minutes early to make sure everyone is wear closed toe shoes with long pants and sleeves. There was a woman who had to go change her shoes. Then the ranger took us around to go through the history of the Wind Cave by introducing the important people.

We then proceeded outside to the cabin beside the elevator. The ranger gave each of us a metal bucket with candlelight in it. The candlelight in the bucket was not a real candle. It was more like a light bulb that shines like a candle. Then we were asked to put on the gloves because we will need to hold onto the walls later.

Then we took the elevator to the lower level. In the beginning, we were still walking on the concrete path. Then we went through the gate into the darkness. The gate was left open to indicate that we were still in the dark cave.

Then path in the cave was not difficult to walk on. We were able to walk quite fast. Sometimes we do have to hold onto the cave wall to avoid falling. While walking through the cave, the ranger was also telling us various stories of Wind Cave back in the 19th century.

As we got to this large open room, the ranger asked everyone to turn off the light. It was pitch dark and it was so quiet. We could not see anything and could not hear anything. Then the ranger started telling stories about how a girl got lost in the cave and had to wait in the cave for 48 hours for the rescue. Of course we weren't afraid of darkness at this time because we had rangers with us. Imagine that we were alone in the cave, then we might have gone crazy.

On the way back, we had to walk a bit faster because we were behind the schedule. The ranger told us that if we didn't close the gate within 10 minutes of the supposed returning time, then a rescue team will be sent down to search for us.

Overall, we loved this 2 hour long Candlelight tour. It was an amazing experience we have not had before. We highly recommend the Candlelight tour when visiting Wind Cave. Make sure to arrive early and book the tour since it has limited spot!

Notch Trail

 

Notch Trail is the most popular trail in Badlands National Park. The trail itself is quite short, only 1.5 miles roundtrip. However, 50% of the trail is hiking on rugged rocky surface. Thus having a pair of sturdy hiking shoes is very important. Other than that, the trail involves climbing on steep wooden ladders. It is not suitable for people who are scared of height.

We got to Notch Trail around 7AM in the morning. We were worried that the ground might be very muddy due to the thunderstorm last night, but it was surprisingly firm. We were the only 2 people on the trail and we enjoyed it quite a lot.

The trail itself was not too easy to follow because the trail goes around the rocks sometimes. There are markers along the trail, but sometimes the markers are hard to spot.

After about 20 minutes, we got to the wooden ladder. The ladder does not look that hard as we go up. We do have to make sure we have firm footing on the ladder. The wooden ladder was very slippery due to the rain last night. As we got up to the ladder, we were now at the top of the rocky hill.

The remaining part of the trail goes on top of the rock. Sometimes there were steep drop off on the left side so people do have to pay extra attention. Due to the rugged surface, we walked a bit slower than usual to ensure we don't slip or twist our ankles.

As we got to the end of the trail, the view was simply amazing. We could see the backside of Badlands National Park. It was a magnificent view. Since it was still early in the morning, the sun ray shone on the rocky hill on the far side and the shadow casted on over the grassland on the other side. It was so cool.

As we head back, we saw a family with small children heading over. We were surprised that the kids were able to go up the ladder. Heading back down the ladder was more difficult than going up. We had to make sure our feet were firm on the ladder before going down 1 more step. We could imagine that if there were a lot of people on the trail, everyone would be stuck here waiting for people going up and down.

We would definitely do Notch Trail again. The trail was totally different than any other hiking trail that we have done before. We really loved it and highly recommend doing this trail.

Devil's Tower

 

Devil's Tower is an unique rock formation in Mid West US. Devil's Tower is located on the East side of Wyoming, near the border of South Dakota. Devil's Tower is also known as Bear Lodge among the Native people. This is because of the tales of how this rock tower was formed. It was said that there were 7 sisters and 1 brother in a family. One day, the brother fell on his knee and started to grow hair and became a bear. The 7 sisters ran to the tree and the tree helped the sisters by soaring into the sky where the bear could not reach. The sisters then became the 7 brightest star in the sky, which known as the Plough in the Ursa constellation. This was a rather interesting tale.

We got to Devil's Tower around 2PM in the afternoon. When we got to the entrance, there was a really long line. We were a bit worried about parking space. Luckily when we got to the top, there were still plenty of parking spaces available.

As we walked towards Devil's Tower hiking trail, there were many panels along the side showing the history of this place. This place is still sacred to the native people. Thus we could still see many clothes tied on the pine tree as a form of worship to this sacred place.

As we climbed higher, the breeze of wind at this place made us feel really comfortable. It was not hot at all. On the back side of Devil's Tower, we saw few people doing rock climbing near the top. They were almost at the top. It was quite cool.

We then walked further down the trail and we actually saw a dear resting at the top of the hill! This was a pleasant surprise. It looked like it was just chilling. It was just lying there and starring at the people walking at the bottom of the hill.

We really enjoyed the visit to Devil's Tower. It has taught us a lot about the rock formation and learnt about the native people in this area. We would definitely visit this place again.

Badlands National Park

 

Badlands National Park is one of the 2 national parks located in South Dakota. It may not be as famous as other national parks such as Yellowstone or Grand Teton, the unique landscape at Badlands National Park has attracted many tourists.  Badlands National Park is just about an hour East of Rapid City, thus people can simply visit Badlands National Park while they visit Mount Rushmore.

The scenic route to visit Badlands National Park is to drive through Route 240. There are 2 entrances. People can drive from East to West, or from West to East. We wanted to visit Badlands National Park during sunrise, thus we went to the East entrance first to see the sunrise.

We got to Big Badlands Overlook first around 5:30AM in the morning. It was just few minutes before the sunrise and there were only 4 other people there. Due to the severe thunderstorm from previous night, the ground was very muddy. We had to stay on the board walk. The sunrise at Big Badlands Overlook was simply amazing. The soft sun light shone among the rugged landscape was extraordinary. We have never seen such beautiful scenery before.

Our next stop was to drive South along Route 240 and get to Notch Trail. This area had a very large parking lot. Other than Notch Trail, there was also Door Trail and Window Trail. These trails allow people to step onto the rugged surface and have a closer look to the land formation.

As we drove down Route 240, we were really amazed by the landscape at Badlands National Park.  The road at Badlands National Park was also recently paved. The colour of the road was pitch black and created a very nice contrast to the grey rugged hill on the side.

The Badlands National Park visitor center was beside Cedar Pass Lodge. Cedar Pass Lodge was also the only lodge inside Badlands National Park.  The Badlands National Park visitor center was quite interesting. There was actually a fossil lab inside the visitor center. Tourists can go into the lab and check out the work done by the technicians.

As we drove towards West, there were more overlooks. We pulled over at every single overlook. The Fossil Exhibit Trail was a very short board walk trail.  It showed the type of fossils that could be found at Badlands National Park.

At Panorama Point, we could see very far to the South. We could also see the grass land on the far side. This is also the best overlook for people to do stargazing. We also came here at night and we could see the Milkyway on the South side very clearly.

We then got to Yellow Mounds Overlook. This was an interesting overlook because it has different colour than other places. The colour of the hill is yellow instead of grey. This is due to different age of fossil is in this type of hills and presents in different colour.

The last overlook we got to is Pinnacles Overlook. This overlook has some walking path for people to walk further into the land formation. This is one of the best overlook for viewing the sunset because this overlook faces towards West. At this overlook, we also saw several mountain goats on the far side of the cliff.

Badlands National Park has really impressed us. It was a much better experience than what we were expecting. The landscape here was simply beautiful and unimaginable. We would definitely come here again and enjoy the breeze of wind here.

Eggington's

 

Eggington's is a restaurant that provides breakfast and brunch service. As the name of the restaurant suggests, it offers various dishes that involves the making with eggs. Eggington's is located at the heart of downtown Casper in the state of Wyoming. It is ranked as one of the best brunch place in Casper. 

We got to Eggington's around 10AM in the morning. When we got there, there was a line of people waiting outside. We were a little worried that we might have to wait for a while to get a table. As we parked the car and went into the restaurant, we were relieved to hear that we only have to wait for 20 minutes.

We first ordered 2 cups of latte since we were really tired from the long drive this morning. The latte came with foam on top. The latte didn't have sugar in it but it was not bitter either. We liked the taste.

We ordered a Denver Omelette and a Veggie Frittata. We had choice to choose various side such as fresh fruit, potatoes, and hash brown. The food was served rather quickly in 10 minutes. The Denver Omelette had ham, onion, and green pepper in it. The omelette at Eggington's was not as fancy as other brunch restaurant, but it was like a home made omelette and taste really good. We really loved it. The Frittata was not bad either. It was like omellete but over baked. The texture of Frittata was different than omelette, but we prefer the omelette.

We really recommend Eggington's if people do drive through Casper on a road trip. We would definitely go there again if we go through Casper in the future. 

Longhorn Steakhouse

 

Longhorn Steakhouse is a restaurant that specializes in various steaks. It was founded in Atlanta and currently headquartered in Orlando. There were many steakhouse restaurants located in Rapid CIty, South Dakota. However, Longhorn Steakhouse was the one that still opens in the afternoon after the lunch peak house.

We got to Longhorn Steakhouse around 3:00PM in the afternoon. As we walked in, there were about 10 tables occupied and it was not busy at all. The waitress serving us was very nice and telling us all the special menus that they offer. We ordered a New York Strip and Flo's Filet with grilled shrimp. The steak comes with the choice of salad and soup as well. We got the side salad and lobster chowder soup.

Before the food is served, the bread was served first. The bread was quite warm and very soft. It was a full loaf of whole grain bread. We liked it a lot. The salad and lobster chowder soup were good too. These were not out of ordinary but we enjoyed it.

The steak was finally served after 10 minutes. The New York Strip was grilled perfectly. All the juicy taste was still locked inside the steak. The steak was extremely tender. The only down side was that it was quite salty. Not sure if it was just us.

The Flo's Filet was grilled perfectly as well. It was a piece of thick steak but it was cooked very well because we didn't like to see blood dripping out. However, it was a bit salty as well. The shrimp was surprisingly tasty. It was charred perfectly with smoky flavor.

Overall, the steak at Longhorn Steakhouse was good, but the taste was too salty for us. We didn't even bother to use any sauce for the steak. We would probably try a different steakhouse next time instead of going back to Longhorn Steakhouse.