Vacation, 2012: The End

I should mention at this point that except for the fear of not finding a motel room in Rapid City, the bikers were no problem at all.  In fact, I think they made our time in South Dakota more interesting.  

Our next stop after leaving Needles Highway was Wall Drug, which has expanded a lot since I was a kid.  If you've ever traveled in the direction of Rapid City, you have seen many signs advertising the place many miles from its location.  I suggest you read the history of Wall Drug HERE.  It's inspirational. 

We didn't spend a lot of time here, just enough to drink a five-cent cup of coffee and find a marked-down souvenir coffee cup to take home.  

 I told Cliff we didn't have to drive clear through the Badlands; all I wanted was to get deep enough in so that's all we could see.  

As we were leaving the Badlands, we came to another place I just had to see:  Prairie Homestead.

This is the real thing, not a replica

White prairie dogs were everywhere!  I don't see how the settlers here managed to have a garden with these little pests around.  
From this place, we headed toward home.  We spent Sunday night at the Thunderbird Lodge in Mitchell, South Dakota, and arrived home the next day around 4 P.M.  
Cliff and I agree that the Colorado Rockies are prettier than anything we saw up north, and they are much closer to home.  We had quite a road trip and are glad we went.  
For those of you who think we should have reserved a room, that might be fine with you.  If we were going to Glacier National Park again, we might try to find something.  But they say you need to get your room at least six months ahead:  at our ages, we don't know if we'll even be alive in six months!  Besides, we don't plan to go there again.  Now we know what it's like, and once is enough.  The only distant place I would still like to see is the Grand Canyon, but I wouldn't say it's on my bucket list.  
We have decided you can't beat Colorado as a destination, no matter how far you travel in this country.  We won't make reservations when we go.  We have never had a problem finding someplace to stay there.   
And that's the end of our vacation.