May 5, 2022
Happy Cinco de Mayo! Our first day off. Today we decided to venture to the Big City. Rapid City is about an hour drive north of Fort Welikit. It is the largest city that is even remotely close. We were looking for a few items so we decided to check out the city. The drive was easy and very nice. Some beautiful scenery. We passed the Crazy Horse Memorial. You could see it from the road. Can’t wait to see more. We also passed the entrance to Mount Rushmore. About 10 miles north of here is a town called Hill City. They have a local grocery store and it is very nice also. No one has a deli where you can get fresh sliced luncheon meats and cheeses. I miss Publix. No Boars Head meats and cheeses. The only American Cheese is the prepackaged processed stuff. YUCK!
A major event to end the summer season is the Governor’s Buffalo Roundup. I am so looking forward to seeing that in person. To coincide with that, there are buffaloes scattered around town. Each are painted by local artists and high school students. At the roundup they are auctioned off. I have two favorites so far. One is the patriotic which I have a picture of and the other is a motorcycle themed one. I will get a picture of it soon.
We got to Rapid City and made our stops. There is a large grocery chain with 2 stores there, Safeway. On the next trip we will check them out. We did find a Target and there is a couple of Wally Worlds. And if you remember from Iowa, we found another Perkins. We really like that restaurant. So we had lunch there. As we were leaving, Nancy started talking to a couple who had come in and had overheard part of their conversation. They were in a Penske rental with a trailer moving across the country. They are moving from Spokane, WA to Greensboro, NC. What are the odds??
As we were driving around, we noticed that the majority of the car dealers had shelter erected with the cars under them. It is apparently to protect them from the frequent hail storms they have here. The hail tends to be quite large as well.
Rapid City has a small quaint downtown area. One day we will park and walk around. It is known for having statues of presidents on downtown corners. We saw a few. It was really cool.
We have also made a list of places we wanted to check out on our next trip. One looks very promising. Dakota Butchers. It’s a real butcher shop. Can’t wait.
