South Dakota Road Trip Report

 10/1

This was my first flight since February.  I found the Birmingham airport to be deserted.  All restaurants were closed except for the Chick- Fil-A but major airports such as Chicago and Dallas were much busier.  At any rate, the flight and the connection went without a hitch and I was on the ground in Rapid City, South Dakota before 3 PM.  It was my 2nd time here overall but my first visit since 1988.  I picked up my rental car (Mitsubishi SUV) and hit the road going northwest.  First stop was Devil's Tower just across the border in Wyoming then made it to a nice lake at Keyhole State Park just before sunset.  I spent the night in Sundance, Wyoming and dinner was a decent Ribeye steak.  

10/2

I took a short detour in the morning just to cut through a small corner of Montana.  I like to take pictures of as many Welcome signs as possible but that's not always feasible if you fly into the center of a large state.  From there, it was a scenic ride on US-14 A (Spearfish Canyon Byway).  Early October is a good time to visit South Dakota.  Leaves are just beginning to change.  Mornings often dawn chilly but it warms up quickly to the 60s to near 70 by the afternoon with a good probability of sunshine.  Lunch was in the Old West town of Deadwood.  I was not overly impressed here.  It's got lots of bars and casinos but it was largely empty, which is a good thing if you are afraid of COVID.  I ended up with an overpriced and rather mediocre burger then was back on the road. 

 I got a brief sample of Needles Highway, which was AWESOME then went to the unfinished Crazy Horse Monument to check out the race course.  From there, it was on to Badlands National Park, roughly 1.5 hours away.  That was absolutely PHENOMENAL!  I'd say that it rivaled the Grand Canyon in terms of it beautiful rock formations.  I wanted to drive through it just before sunset and timed it well.  

Unfortunately, the trip back to Rapid City was a dark and lonely state highway.  I was running a bit low on fuel and wanted to get back to the Interstate because I figured it would be safer albeit a bit longer.  BAD call there.  Several deer ran out right in front of me and there was nothing I could do.  I did manage to slow down a bit but swerving to avoid one deer meant that I hit another one or maybe two.  There was damage to the front of my car but it was not disabled nor was I injured so it could have been worse.  My insurance should cover this but I'm sure it will be a pain in the ass to deal with them.  They had better not raise my rates because I did nothing wrong.  Nobody could have avoided all of those deer.  This left me shaken so I was not up for a drink on the town that night.  

10/3-

I saved the best for last.  Full Needles Hwy and of course Mt. Rushmore.  I recommend tourists to take Iron Mountain Road from the south then 244 East so you can catch several views of the monument from the road before you arrive at the actual park.  The mountain views on Needles Hwy reminded me a bit of the Blue Ridge Mountains but the rock formations were out of this world.  Mount Rushmore?  Words can't describe that.  

10/4-

Race day.  Not going to say much about this one.  Though net downhill, I'd say it was a fair course because of the 5,000+ foot elevation.  It had some tough climbs in the first 5K on the grounds of the park and altitude hills are much tougher than at sea level.  Miles 4-6 were a nice steady decline.  I ran this section pretty well and passed halfway in 57:30, on pace for a 1:55, which would have beaten expectations.  The trail leveled off after this and I went from feeling reasonably well to flat out awful in a matter of seconds.  I was still on pace for a sub-2 through the end of 8.1 miles but the last 5 miles were a death march.  I went with a run .20/walk .05 strategy, which was probably the best thing to do to finish safely.  My pace on the runs were only 10-11 minutes and my walking was more like 18 minutes so you can guess my finish time.  As I said in my previous post, if this had been 2 days later, the outcome would have been a lot better.  I took my time going back to the airport and the trip home also went without a hitch.

Still a fun trip overall but the deer and bad race did put a bit of a damper on it.  I've only got 4 more states to go.  I will not run half marathons after that unless my health improves.  The remaining states are Maryland, Minnesota, Maine then I will finish in Hawaii.