Sioux Falls to Hill City, South   Dakota, continued

October 11, 2006

 

 All day I drove and wondered at the vastness of the Great Plains and the beautiful sky. I thought of the Plains Indians that lived there and of the settlers that crossed this country in their covered wagons. The movie “Dances With Wolves” came to mind, as this is where that story took place. I envisioned herds of millions of bison roaming this seemingly endless grassland.

 

I imagined what it must have been like when the Lewis and Clark expedition travelled through here. I passed by many pretty gullies or ravines; places where streams had cut out recesses in the prairie, and formed sheltered, grassy places populated with aspen trees. I remember reading about how people settled in these fertile spots.

Missouri RiverI had many big WOW moments that day in addition to the dozens of times I said WOW about the changing patterns in the sky.

  


I turned off of the interstate toward my next stop at Hill City, South Dakota and began to climb up into high, craggy forested mountains. These were the Black Hills, home of  the Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, and Arapahoe, among others, and the scene of many famous and infamous battles as the Native Americans made their last stand for freedom.




I arrived in Hill City around 5:00 and checked in to the cutest little cabin I could imagine, with a fireplace, kitchen, living room, and bedroom. http://www.pinerestcabins.com/. I was glad to get out of the car and to take a break in a quiet mountain retreat.

I found an organic grocery nearby, where I bought groceries for a few simple but delicious meals that I could cook for myself over the next two days. I had dinner by the fire, got caught up on some email and a couple of phone calls, and then went to bed and slept soundly.