One thing that was rapid when we were at Rapid City: the heat! It didn't take long for us to be uncomfortably sweaty in the morning, with temperatures rising quickly to the mid 30s Celsius (around 95 degrees Fahrenheit).
Storybook Island: A Fun and Free Park for Families
One of the most adorable places we visited in Rapid City was Storybook Island, a free admission theme park that's perfect for children and families (well, and adults too!), which is open from May to September each year. It has rides and attractions from various cartoons and fairy tales, including Humpty Dumpty, Pinocchio, Yogi Bear, The Wizard of Oz, Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat, the Gingerbread Man, and so much more! There's also a train that drives through the park, and music from the different kids' movies and cartoons playing, adding to the fun fairytale atmosphere. The park was created in 1959, by a man named Merle Gunderson, and the Rapid City Rotary Clubs. Merle wanted to create a fun place for families, and make it accessible to everyone. We loved seeing it all, despite the temperatures rising so quickly!
The City of Presidents
Rapid City seems to like its statues, as besides dinosaurs and storybook creatures, downtown has also earned it the moniker of the City of Presidents, because there is a bronze statue of every single US President there. We saw quite a few we recognized as we drove along, and as we were taking a photo of President Obama's statue, we saw a family braving the heat, map in hand, doing a self-guided walking tour to see every single president. There's even a mobile tour to get the digital map and receive audio narrations to accompany the tour.
Sheila En Pointe
We hadn't been able to find Sheila's specific brand of dog food in Wyoming, but we fortunately found it in Rapid City, along with the salmon oil we use for her joints. Because it was getting so hot, we got her to try on some little booties to cover her paws when walking on the hot pavement. While the dog shoes seemed functional, with velcro to stop them from slipping, there wasn't a distinct bend in them to stay on her paws. We couldn't help laughing because Sheila didn't know how to react with them on--at first, she had her paw off the ground, pointed as if she were a ballerina en pointe! So we tried the bigger size but she started stomping on them as if they were clown shoes, which led to them sliding off! We will have to keep looking to see what booties will work for her, as summer is now well and truly here.
The City of Cheeseburgers
Did you know that Rapid City folks are the biggest fans of McDonald's Quarter Pounder with cheese? Apparently, they eat the most compared to any other city in the nation, per capita. To commemorate this achievement, McDonalds has a 23,000 pound (shouldn't it be a quarter of one hundred thousand pounds?) monument of the Quarter Pounder with cheese burger, which was erected in 2020 on the burger's 50th anniversary. It was stinking hot and there wasn't a ton of parking, so we pretty much just pulled up next to the monument, rolled down the window, and took a photo!
South Dakota Space & Air Museum
If you love air and spacecraft, the South Dakota Air & Space Museum is a great (and free!) place to visit. Next to the Ellsworth Air Force Base, there are trainer, cargo and utility aircraft, fighter and bomber planes and missiles, ranging from WWII, the Cold War, to Gulf Wars. These include bombers like the B-29, B-36, B-52, and B-1, and intercontinental ballistic missiles like the Titan I and Minuteman.
The indoor galleries were closed when we were there, which apparently have more interesting exhibits and artifacts, but there are more than enough aircraft outside to keep enthusiasts fascinated and occupied. These are huge vessels, and it definitely puts the scale of flight in perspective seeing these up close.
Whoa! Wall Drug
At some point along the highway, we were inundated with billboards advertising Wall Drug. And it was Every. Single. Billboard. The design team must have had a lot of fun, because every advertisement was different. One would say, "Free Ice Water" Another would proclaim, "A South Dakota Must See!" And yet another would state that it was in the "Next 2 Exits"! We're sure that after being bombarded with signs, a lot of folks would have curiosity get the best of them and check it out. We couldn't help laughing because as soon as we got off at the exit, there wasn't a billboard telling us whether to turn left or right! We suppose if you've already exited the highway, it's because you've already committed to going to Wall Drug.
Wall Drug is a quintessential American road stop, and even though it is kitschy and totally random, we loved it because it is the height of road stop Americana. Wall Drug started in the 1930s as a small-town pharmacy offering free ice water to travelers, evolving into an enormous, sprawling attraction, with over 2 million visitors a year. And it aims to appeal to every single one of these visitors, with everything from a Western art gallery, a giant jackalope, a T-Rex dinosaur, a cafe, restaurant, soda fountain, chapel, multiple photo galleries of the family that still operates it to this day, and enough souvenirs to get lost in. And yes, there is still a pharmacy in there. Want to buy a cowboy hat? Lasso? Buffalo burger? Donut? Mexican falsa blanket? Shot glass? Poster? Sticky tape? It's all here, at Wall Drug.
It's extremely easy to lose family and friends in the massive sprawl that is Wall Drug (we had to call each other to be reunited), but the only thing we got from there was the free ice water! Just like what Wall Drug started offering before it became what it is today.
Entering Badlands
In the late afternoon, we entered Badlands National Park, which is known for its fossils, prairie grasslands, canyons, rock formations, and diverse number of wildlife living there, including bison, bighorn sheep, and even the endangered black-footed ferret.
Not far from the entrance is Roberts Prairie Dog Town, where we saw so, so many prairie dogs running around! There's food to purchase to feed them (right by the massive statue of a prairie dog), and they were clearly very used to seeing people, with some darting across the parking lot. We still crack up when they make a high-pitched shriek when standing up, at the same time as they arch their back and throw their top limbs back. It's hilariously comical and adorable.
We saw that there are also 30-60 minute flights over Badlands National Park available, which definitely would have been fun to experience, to get a different view of the entire park! Because it was so, so hot though, we had decided to check into the Badlands Hotel and Campground, so we could hook up to the city water and hopefully get a bit of a reprieve. It was still in the mid-30s (Celsius) in the evening when we arrived! The one massive downside is that we also checked in because the website stated there was a pool onsite, but the pool was under maintenance when we were there. Ugh... they really should have mentioned this on the website so we knew ahead of booking. Otherwise the RV section was fine, nothing fancy but does the job.
But it was good to plug in to city water (which did still run warm when we first turned it on, it was that hot), and start to feel the cooler weather as the sun set. Sheila needed to cool down too, rolling around in the grass (something she didn't use to do much in San Francisco!) ahead of going back in the RV to sleep.