Vacation in South Dakota

In October, Wendy and I went to South Dakota for vacation. Highlights: the Corn Palace, Wall Drug Store, Deadwood, Devil's Tower, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and the Badlands.
It's been about 30 years since I've been in Wall Drug. Back then it was a one room gift store with things like rubber tipped arrows and buffalo burgers. Well, the buffalo burgers are still there but the rubber tipped arrows are gone. And Wall Drug is more like a mini-mall. We enjoyed it. I bought some books on American Indians and a biography of Buffalo Bill. And we got our free bumper sticker.
Deadwood was interesting. It had a lot of small Casinos (they claim there are 80 casinos). One of the most interesting casinos was the Midnight Star, which is owned by Kevin Kostner. In the upstairs bar, some of Kevin Kostner's movie costumes were displayed. And of course, there were many places in South Dakota which advertised various items and places related to the movie "Dances with Wolves."
I had one of the best steaks I've ever had at Big Al's.
The Badlands was beautiful in an eerie, desolate way. I will post more photos.
We looked into flying out there but it was very expensive. So, we drove. Before going out there, we bought a portable DVD player. I brought some DVDs from home and borrowed some from the neighbors. I had over 75 hours of movies I could have watched. I would drive for a couple of hours. Watch a movie. And then drive some more. It really broke up the drive. And the portable DVD player worked flawlessly.
I love living in Madison, but it was interesting to go out to South Dakota where there is less people and less traffic.
Driving our minivan across the open prairie gave us a very small glimpse of what it must have been like for our pioneer ancestors as they journeyed West.