The Other Side of South Dakota

A couple weeks ago, I shared some scenes from South Dakota with you, pictures that I'd taken while driving through eastern South Dakota. Well last weekend, we spent Saturday morning driving through western South Dakota, and I thought I'd share some scenes from that part of the state with you today.

 

Last blog post, I left you in Fairview, MT where we had just loaded Safflower seed. It had started snowing by the time we were loaded and it was still frigidly cold, so even though it was late evening, and we only had 600 miles to go by Monday, we decided to go ahead and drive south a ways.

 

We went as far as Bowman, ND and stopped there for the night. We got up really early and headed south. Our destination for the day was Rapid City, SD, only about 3 hours away.

 

Highway 85 goes south out of Bowman and drops down into South Dakota. We're very familiar with the route, as this is back in our old stomping grounds when we lived in Montana. As the crow flies, we were probably only 30 miles from the ranch, if that.  

They'd had snow out there, which on the plains makes it very easy to see just about everything.

With snow on the prairies, if its not something white, it stands out, often dramatically.

I have always enjoyed this drive. And since Malcolm was behind the wheel, I spent the time enjoying the scenery and playing with the camera.

 

Bear Butte on the horizon

I love the sky in this one

one of my favorites, for obvious reasons

 Around mid-morning, we reached Rapid City. We had to stop at Kenworth and buy a part. Then we played at the mall. Malcolm went to Cabelas. We had some good food from a favorite restaurant. And then in the evening, we went to the movies. We hadn't been to the theatre to see a movie in at least 8 years. We watched Skyfall, and had a great time.

When we left the theater, it was 4 degrees and the wind was blowing. The girls didn't much appreciate being taken out of their warm truck to potty. But afterwards, we made it up to them by letting them snuggle in the bed with us for a while to warm up. And then we tucked them into their bed and we all got a long, much needed rest.

Sunday, it was still bitter cold. We drove south into Nebraska and on into Colorado. We stopped in Sterling and met up with another married trucking couple we know from Iowa. We hadn't seen them in probably a year, though we stay in touch. Our paths just never seem to cross lately. So we enjoyed a good long dinner with them and a long night of conversation. And then the next morning we delivered in Akron, Co, reloaded in Otis, and headed east across Kansas and beyond for a Tuesday morning delivery in central Indiana.

That was last Monday. We had a good strong week, the first after several slow ones. In fact, we drove through the night every night until Thursday, when we made the mistake of parking.

But that's another story.