SOUTH DAKOTA: RAPID CITY

As the name implies, Rapid City was built on the banks of a swiftly flowing river. Like all of South Dakota, the original Lakota inhabitants were pushed out when gold was discovered in the nearby Black Hills.With a population of just over 70,000, Rapid City is about the same size as the city where I live in Southern California, but where my town is just a village by California standards, Rapid City is the second largest city in South Dakota.

Rapid City feels much more like the farming community of 4,500 people that I grew up in than the city I live in now.

I never would have pegged Rapid City as an artsy place. Heck, I would never have linked anywhere in South Dakota with art. Our recent visit showed me that I was wrong about a lot of things regarding South Dakota.

Our first encounter with Rapid City's art was this beautiful bronze statue of a Native American woman braiding her granddaughter's hair:

QUIRKY SOUTH DAKOTA: CUSTER AND WALL DRUG

South Dakota has personality, no question about that, and it's not just its natural features that make it unique. We spent some time in three of its cities (burroughs? villages? Somehow "cities" doesn't seem quite right.)

1. CUSTER
Located just south of the Crazy Horse Monument, Custer is the oldest town founded by European-Americans in the region. It gets its name from--who else?--General George Custer, who led a cavalry unit that discovered gold there in 1874. A couple of years later, a bigger strike was found in Deadwood Gulch, and this settlement was all but abandoned. Today it has a population of just over 2,000, and its claim to fame is the painted buffaloes (their term, not mine) that adorn many of its corners, appear in front of businesses, and can even be found guarding homes. Each is painted by a different American artist:

SOUTH DAKOTA: BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK

When I think of the word "Badlands," I think of South Dakota, but I was surprised to learn that it is a common noun as well as a proper noun.  "Badlands" are defined as dry, colorful, sedimentary rock-dominated terrains that have been sculpted by wind and water. They have steep slopes, canyons, ravines, hoodoos, and little vegetation. They are difficult to navigate by foot (but easy by hoof for mountain sheep). In addition to Badlands National Park in South Dakota, there are badlands in North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Outside the United States, there are badlands in Canada, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Argentina, and Taiwan.  Who knew?

South Dakota's Badlands National Park covers 244,000 acres, or about 380 square miles. About 64,000 acres of the park is protected wilderness area, and it is one of the sites of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America. (The black-footed ferret was declared extinct in 1979, but a small population was discovered in 1981, captured, and bred in captivity from 1987 to 1981 before being released into the wild. Why do I care so much? Because we had a pet ferret--though not a black-footed one--as a pet when we were newlyweds. Nasty-smelling critter.)

Back to our trip.  When we entered the Badlands, it looked like this:

But all of the sudden deep gouges opened up in the rolling prairie to reveal this:

SOUTH DAKOTA: CUSTER STATE PARK

Custer State Park, named for General George Custer and the first and largest state park in South Dakota, is 71,000 acres of beautiful, pastoral scenery.

The roads are narrow and require slow driving . . .

. . . which is good, because you're never sure what you might encounter, be it a tiny tunnel in a rock . . .

. . . or a wild animal:

SOUTH DAKOTA: NEEDLES HIGHWAY AND HARNEY PEAK

I have a son who likes to do this:

Temple Crag, Eastern Sierras, California

. . . so when I saw this:

 . . . all I could think of was how much fun he would have on this formation known as the Cathedral Spires. We didn't see any climbers, so after we got home I checked online to see if trad climbing is allowed here.  This site and this one say it's one of the best granite climbs in the entire United States.

Looking at my photos again, I did find some photos of climbers on one of the information signs:

Sam, some day you need to go to South Dakota.

SOUTH DAKOTA: REPTILE GARDENS, MOUNT RUSHMORE, AND CRAZY HORSE MONUMENT

We took a short trip to South Dakota in October because--well--just because. South Dakota was one of the unchecked states on my husband's Fifty States List. Honestly, I wasn't all that excited to go to South Dakota. The whole state has only 850,000 people, 3,000,000 fewer people than Los Angeles.

Besides, unlike my husband, I had been to South Dakota before. My family had driven through in 1975 and visited the three sites covered by this post. This time, Bob and I flew to Rapid City and rented a car. Our first stop was just 15 minutes from the airport.

1. REPTILE GARDENS

Unfortunately, we arrived in South Dakota a couple of days after the earliest snowfall in the state's history. Sadly, the "Gardens" part of Reptile Gardens had been drastically affected. There was substantial frost damage:

But other parts of the garden still looked pretty good: