The hardest part about featuring South Dakota is choosing just a few of the many photos we have taken there. This is one of my favorites - Ramona in Ramona, SD. It is a little burg of less than 200 people about 35 miles southwest of Brookings.
We were on our way to North Dakota when I learned there is a Ramona, SD, so this was more of a passing through rather than going to South Dakota.
Visiting the Badlands of South Dakota on our first trip to the state.
Doing all the touristy things - like Wall Drug in Wall, SD. Besides the 'free ice water' the think I remember most about this stop was NOT buying the silver and gold bracelet I saw there. I think I've kicked myself ever since, but passed on it because I figured I would find one I liked better in Deadwood. (I didn't.)
Deadwood in 1992 was still comparatively small. We went through there a couple years ago and hardly recognized it, it had grown so much. Mount Moriah Cemetery high above Deadwood was a must see for Bud, pictured here in front of the grave of James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok. Martha Jane Canary, "Calamity Jane" is buried near Wild Bill.
We also toured Custer State Park, Crazy Horse Monument and the Black Hills on this trip stopping in Mitchell on the way home to see the famous Corn Palace.
During a weekend trip we visited Yankton where this replica of the first capitol building of the Dakota Territory can be seen in Riverside Park.
From Yankton we followed the Missouri River west to near Greenwood where this picture of me at the Yankton Sioux Treaty Memorial was taken.
(I wish I knew why the colors in this photo have stayed so bright while so many of my older photos have faded.)
In Sioux Falls we found our way to the cascades on the Big Sioux River in Falls Park. For some reason Bud and I both fell in love with this area. Falls Park was relatively unimproved then.
Unlike it is now with multiple paths, viewing points and a new visitor center from the top of which this photo was taken about ten years later.
Another photo from the early 2000's showing some of the pieces of petrified wood incorporated into the building of the Pettigrew Home and Museum, a Queen Anne style home built in 1889.
Taken from down the street - a view of the spires of The Cathedral of Saint Joseph completed in 1919.
After an overnight stay in Sioux Falls, the next day we drove to Dell Rapids and then over to Garretson to see Devils Gulch where Jesse James supposedly jumped this gap, now spanned by a bridge, to escape the Northfield, MN posse chasing him after his failed bank robbery attempt in that town.
We opted to take a pontoon boat ride up nearby Split Rock River where these Herefords had come for a drink. You can see the pink Proterozoic quartzite common to this area and known as Sioux Quartzite.
The boat ride was a little longer than we had bargained for and the man giving the tour tried to keep us all entertained with some corny jokes, but I enjoyed the peacefulness of the river and spotting views like all these swallow nests built in the cracks and crannies of the rocks.
Other very meaningful stops in South Dakota have included this one at Wounded Knee Massacre Monument and cemetery on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation......
.....and climbing to the top of Bear Butte near Sturgis where I took one of my favorite photos of Bud. The peak climbs more than 1250 feet above the surrounding plains and from the point where we paused for pictures we still had a way to go, but it was so worth it. You can see why it is a sacred spot for Native Americans.
Of all South Dakota's outstanding scenery, if I had to choose one location, it would be the 22 mile drive through Spearfish Canyon between Spearfish and Lead.
Strangely enough we have never been to the one monument South Dakota is noted for, Mount Rushmore. Maybe we sub-consciously skipped that one so we would have reason to go back again?
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