South Dakota - " Under God the People Rule" - Part I

I apologize for not blogging the other night, we just got back pretty late from Nebraska and Rapid City. I know, excuses are excuses, but after driving 500+ odd miles, it wears you out just a bit. Any who, lets get to the stories, pictures and action.

Sunday started out as usual, only this time in Murdo, South Dakota. Murdo is home to the Pioneer Auto Museum and The Rusty Spur Saloon, and other than that, not much. The day started off as just a sightseeing trip in western South Dakota, and ended up to be much more, well kinda.

Our first stop for the morning was the worlds famous Badlands National Park. If you have never seen, heard of or been to the Badlands, you should see them for yourself because they are nothing short of spectacular. We happened to see them on one of their only cloudy days of the year, as much of the morning was overcast and reasonably chilly, enough so that most of the team was wearing jeans, jackets and sweatshirts. We took many photos and also a reasonable amount of video of the park itself, and the fellow members of the class. After stopping at every possible pull off location, God only knows why, we had a brief stop for lunch at a local eatery and I had my first experience with buffalo. No, not the hot sauce, rather, a buffalo burger. Apparently, they are much more lean and healthy for you than its cousin, the hamburger. Now, I'm not going to tell you it was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten, because it wasn't. It didn't really have a distinct taste, in fact, it just tasted like a regular hamburger with none of the grease. Sorry to disappoint.

After the Badlands we headed west on I-90 en route to Rapid City. Our plans were to visit the popular tourist attractions and then move back east somewhat to position ourselves for tomorrows chasing chances in eastern South Dakota and Nebraska. Have I already talked about the part where the plans you make never actually pan out? Well, the skies south of us in central Nebraska had cleared out and daytime heating took place, setting up a chance for storms to explode over Colorado and Western Nebraska. We noticed these taking place when we were just outside of Rapid City, and our plans took a turn south and we again found ourselves crossing into the northern Nebraska border in an attempt to intercept some unorganized cells. Of course, with our luck two things went terribly wrong. While driving south, our magnet for van 2, my van thus far, got blown off the side by either a strong gust of wind, or from the gust off of a semi. Either way, we lost it, possibly for good. The second problem was that we failed to take in to account the colder air to the north which was pressing down. Although storms were firing strong in the warm sector, the moment the came into contact with the colder air, they then fizzled and died. This of course makes for terrible chasing, and in other words, basically a 4 hour detour.

So after snapping a few somewhat mediocre photos and videos, we headed back our same route, one, to look for our magnet, and two, to stop in Rapid City for a bite to eat. Unfortunately, our magnet was not to be found and upon entering Rapid City, we were met with quite a bit of rain, just in time to run into our restaurant, which was full so we then ran to another one a couple of blocks away and had an all you can eat pizza bar, which wasn't so hot, but food is food. We ended up leaving quite late and decided to book the same hotel in Murdo, about two and a half to three hours from where we were. After arrival, we were very tired for the most part, and we wanted to be well rested for the next day, which would be looking like the best day possibly all trip for chasing storms on the Great Plains.