Black Hills to Pierre, Correctionville, Centerville and Manchester plus where to buy a Barn Square

We camped in the Black Hills Wednesday night. During the night we had an enormous storm that about blew us away. The rain was gone in the morning but the wind was still blowing so hard that Duke couldn't even get the stove going to make coffee. We packed up and headed down the road to Jewell Cave National Monument.

When we got in line to buy tickets we found out that the power in the cave was out and they weren't offering any regular tours. We were able to go down the road and go into the historic entrance and take a lantern tour. The regular tour would have gone down into the cave by elevator but on the lantern tour we carried lanterns and climbed down into the cave. We had to scrunch down and scoot side ways and climb up and down wood ladders. The whole thing was very fun and very interesting.

From Jewell Cave we headed to Mount Rushmore and then east towards Pierre South Dakota to spend the night.

On the way to Pierre we drove through Buffalo Gap national Grassland and part of Badlands National Park. I liked seeing the prairie landscape, buffalo, prairie dogs and birds.

 

 

We also stopped at Wall Drug. Both Duke and I had been there as kids. It used to be that you couldn't travel any where without seeing Wall Drug signs. It is an a real tourist stop created almost completely through advertising. Duke said we were stopping because of their free water 🙂

 

In Pierre we toured the Capitol. This past weekend was the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the capital building. The building is beautiful with a stained glass dome.

Another fun stop was the Corn palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. It was interesting to watch the workers creating the corn decorations on the outside of the building

 

We spent Friday night with Duke's sister and her family near Correctionville Iowa. She has started a business. We got to see some of the barn blocks she is making in progress.

On Saturday we headed to Centerville Iowa which is near Rathbun Lake. We had dinner with my friend Becky and her husband. I first met Becky when I was a freshman at Iowa State in the fall of 1970. Even though I hadn't seen her in several years we had a great time catching up. We had a wonderful dinner at the beautiful new Honey Creek Resort at Lake Rathbun.

For lunch we just happened to stop at the coffee shop in Madison County Iowa where part of the Clint Eastwood movie bridges of Madison County was filmed.

From Centerville we headed to Manchester Iowa. We stopped in the Amana Colonies and had lunch with a friend of Duke's and his family. Duke and John were room mates their freshman year at UNI.

We got to Manchester in time to visit with Duke's Dad and have a nice father's day dinner. We were also celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary.

If you would like to see all of my pictures from this trip they are available on Flickr here.