rapid city, south dakota

***My friend Ashley pointed out that the only people who could post comments on Schleiferkin were people with Google mail accounts or blogs. I didn't know that, I'm a technology 'special needs' person, so Dave helped me change it so anyone can comment!! Sorry about that, it must've been frustrating, and I had no idea.***

This morning we woke up early so we could go see the pictographs at Pictograph Cave State Park outside of Billings. We were really excited because neither of us had ever seen anything like this and it seemed quint-essentially Montana-esque.

It was gorgeous, and they had great descriptions of everything---BUT---you could not actually see any pictographs. I guess the state park service tried to restore them with a sand blaster at one point. And also there was damage due to moisture leaking through the cave. So--that picture above that we took is about it. Weird! Weird that they'd make a whole State Park when you can't see anything!

And, for you curious types, here is the picture du'jour of my burgeoning belly. Please ignore my travel hair, we have a regular plug in our car, and my plan was to straight iron in the car to save time, but our plug is not compatible with the straight iron for whatever reason.

And Dave is really happy and excited at this park, I swear! Sometimes our timing is off!

The weather got really intense at a couple of points, but it cleaned our windshield!

I was so proud of myself for finding a shortcut to Rapid City, SD which promised to save us an hour or so because it was direct. However, it was just one lane. We managed to get behind the Patriot of Thunder RV. Seems like everytime we actually passed it, we would stop for a potty break or whatever and then be behind them again. This happened about 6 times. So--that was slower.

One of those stops was in the Cheyenne Indian Reservation at the 'Convenient Center.' It was not very convenient for us because there were dogs everywhere just walking around and our dogs went ballistic. We went to the gas station at the edge of the reservation instead, which had indian chanting music and lots of gift shops. It was quite the experience...and extremely impoverished like Mexico at the same time.

So--my shortcut was going OK until at one point, we saw 'Work Zone' signs. No big deal, right? They're filling a couple pot holes or whatever, and we're back up and running. NO. Actually no. First it was no pavement--with tightly compacted dirt, for like 10 miles. We kept thinking it would go back to the way it was--a regular highway. Then it was no dirt--just gravel--for like 5 miles. Then, it was one-lane only with a personal escort from the construction crew for a really really long time. We were very afraid it would turn to no through-access. That would've sucked! It did get better and then back to normal. Whew!

So--no shortcut. Lots of intermittent rain showers. We still managed to get here in 6 hours, which felt totally managable.

Tomorrow we're off to Sioux Falls with stops at Mount Rushmore and The Badlands on the way. That should be really exciting. Stay tuned! I can't believe we're 3 days in to our trip and we arrive Friday evening!!

Miss you! Email us at schleiferkin@gmail.com.