South Dakota may not be a place to whale watch or view volcanoes, but is a special place for our family. It is where my great Grandparents homesteaded back in the early 1900’s. It’s where my Grandma, with her 13 brothers and sisters were raised. It is where her brother, sister in-law and their daughter and sons still operate a successful ranch. We are grateful for our heritage and it was exciting to get back to our roots and see a bit of the place where it all began here in the United States!
Memory #1 – Some unexpected Faith
As we made our way down from North Dakota, I simply fired up Google Maps, searched for the Badlands of South Dakota and hit go! I wasn’t real concerned about how we got there, so I didn’t look at the path.
This is not abnormal for me. To ignore the path in favor of focusing on the destination… And as so many have figured out, many times the path is more rewarding the arriving where you thought you wanted to be… Hopefully, somewhere along this trip I will finally get grasp of that fact…
Anyway, as we were driving south through the grasslands of South Dakota, I noticed something on the map display in Zeke, our beast of a truck. We were headed right toward Faith, South Dakota. Faith is the largest town near where my family homesteaded and where they still operate today. Faith is not a big town. At all. So it was a pretty unexpected blessing to have a chance to show the kids where it all began!
Memory #2 – The Badlands
We had a pretty cool experience up in North Dakota checking out the “Little Badlands” so we had some pretty high expectations of the Badlands of South Dakota. After a bit of a drive from Bismark, we finally arrived at Badlands Interior Campground. This was a pretty nice campground, a little cramped for us, but still nice. The best part was the view of the south side of the Badlands right from our campsite.
The next day, we did a driving tour of the Badlands. It really is a beautiful place. We decided to wait until dusk to make the drive and were rewarded with some pretty amazing colors. Especially from the Yellow Mounds. While the name leaves something to be desired from a marketing perspective, the views were great!
Like I had said about the “Little Badlands”, the beauty here is so much more subtle than Bryce Canyon and the like, but it is no less beautiful. Sometimes it is more rewarding to take a minute, step back and look deeper at something to find it’s beauty than to have it so prominent that you almost take it for granted.
Memory #3 – Pierre, South Dakota
We made our way over from the Badlands toward Chamberlain where we would stay a few nights. Along the way was Pierre. We didn’t want to make the drive back from Chamberlain to see the Capitol Building, so we decided to take a chance that we could somehow park, WITH OUR TRAILER, close enough to the Capitol that we could get a picture. Kari believed we could, I was doubtful and not super excited about getting stuck in downtown Pierre with a 40 foot trailer in tow,
Amazingly, as we drove right past the front of the building, a 60 foot section of parking area appeared. Just enough to get our rig into. AND, it was right on the corner, so we had room to pass the spot and then back into it. While I was still not impressed, we had possible. And possible, became reality.
The grounds of the Capitol were beautiful and the building itself was as well. All said, this couldn’t have gone much better. After we clicked a few pictures, we were back on the road to Chamberlain.
Memory #4 – South Dakota Hall of Fame
As I mentioned earlier, our family homesteaded in Faith, South Dakota in the early 1900’s. One of the neat things about it all is that my Great Grandma, Isabel Jordan, was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame back in 1985 as an Unsung Hero and Good Heart.
She came up to Faith, South Dakota area with her parents back in the late 1800’s. Eventually, she married my Great Grandpa and the settled a bit of land. Apparently, they immediately began having kids. Lots of kids! My Grandma told me a story of the curtain that was drawn through the middle of their home at night, separating the brothers from the sisters. She also worked the garden and canned anything that could be canned to make sure there was food to eat during the harsh winters.
They also hosted church in their home until the town had the means to build a church building.
This was a great stop along our adventure. Hopefully it is one that the kids never forget. We believe that it is so important to remember your roots and to be grateful to those who came before us. They led such a hard life, but persevered. If only we all had such a dedication to God, family and community.
Memory #5 – Sioux Falls
We left Chamberlain, South Dakota to make our way over to Sioux Falls in preparation for our journey into Nebraska. Along the way, we came across a huge metal sculpture of what looked like a bull or something. I asked Kari to quickly take a picture as we flew by at 70 mph, so she quickly grabbed her phone and pivoted to take the photo as we were passing the sculpture quickly. As she rotated, a huge gust of wind came and sucked her camera right out the window.
We had to drive to the next exit, quickly came back and attempted to find her phone, hoping that somehow it flew off into the grass and was still in working order. Sadly, that was not the case. So many memories were stored and lost on that phone – we never want to see that metal sculpture again!
About a half hour later, we arrived in Sioux Falls KOA. We got setup and did some swimming. The next day, we went to church downtown and then headed over to Sioux Falls Park to see the actual falls.
The Wrap
We braved the heat. The bugs. Survived an unfortunate incident with a smartphone. In return, we got to see the beautiful Badlands, find out more about our family history and see some beautiful waterfalls. South Dakota is a diverse place. Mountains, grassland, Badlands, the Missouri River and waterfalls. It was a great place to visit and we had a great time there! But now we were off to Nebraska!