Well, we did not make it to the campground before dark, but it wasn't a big deal because we are now such experienced "tent setter-uppers" that we can do it in the dark! We stayed at a KOA in Interior, SD, which was right outside of the Badlands and pretty much in the middle of NOWHERE! When we pulled up to our site, we could hear a staticky noise through the car. The noise was being created by millions of cicadas. Outside, the noise was deafening. I actually did okay with it and was able to tune it out, but it drove Joel CRAZY...it sounded kind of like a really loud, non-stop, static hiss. We woke up about 4am to a crazy tstorm crashing around us. I have never seen such frequent lightning strikes in a storm, and I'm sure it was pretty, but I didn't really have the best viewing spot. Our campground boasted having "the only shade trees on the prairie," which was true. It was hard to forget the fact that we were laying under the only tall trees in miles as the lightening crashed down. We ended up sitting in the car for about an hour, before heading back to the tent as the storm moved on. We visited the Badlands National Park, which was really cool to see. It is an area where these mountains and crazy striated rock formations rise up out of the prairie floor. It looked like we were visiting another planet! We also went to see "Wall Drug," upon recommendation from the Yaden's and the thousands of highway signs advertizing it along route 90. Basically it is a gigantic drug store that takes up an entire block of a town and sells every single souvenir imaginable, plus books, clothes, homemade donuts, fudge, and ice cream, and pharmacy items. It has room upon room of stuff, it's walls are covered in a collage of old pictures and mounted animals, and is basically a giant tourist trap. The picture of me riding the jackalope is from there! It's just one of those places that you can't drive past without stopping at. After Wall Drug, we headed back to the campsite to swim. The sky was a crazy purplish color, and it DID NOT look very happy. We heard from other campers that there was a serious storm on the way and that we had a tornado watch until later that night. I was kind of excited because I thought I might actually get to see a tornado on the prairie, but also kind of nervous when the owner of the KOA told another camper about how they have a basement to go in for safety. Well, it all ended up being for nothing because the storm never came! On a different note, I got some text messages yesterday about a tragic event that happened in Yellowstone a few days ago. Apparently a grizzly bear rampaged through a busy campground in the middle of the night, attacking two people and killing a third. The attack was unprovoked and all of the campers had their food stored properly. It was just a bear that went mad...so sad and scary for those poor campers! I am glad we got out of there when we did because I probably would have been a little scared to sleep after hearing about this! As we packed up our site this morning, I couldn't help but smile, knowing that we are done camping!!! I really enjoyed it, but enough is enough! The sadness I had the other day for the trip's end has been replaced with an excitement to get home. I miss Winslow!! We have one last stop planned, visiting my cousin Corinne in Indy, and we plan on rolling in to Joel's parents early in the morning of the 1st. Probably only one more post after this one...
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