Little House on the Prairie

One Last Picture of Badlands



Cute Prairie Dog

The Little Sod House on the Prairie

Saturday, June 18

We got on the road early for us with the goal of making it into Minnesota.

We drove back through some of the fascinating Badlands and couldn't help taking some more pictures. The bird songs were so pretty and we wondered if they might be Meadow Larks.

We stopped to take pictures and walk through an original sod house. It was so interesting and the house was much better furnished than I would have thought. There was a framed picture and letter in the visitor center from Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote Little House on the Prairie. What a hard life this must have been, but the house was cozy.

Then back on 90 east through the vast grasslands. We drove by a sign for "Dances with Wolves" movie props. Some of the movie was filmed right in this area.

We stopped at Murdo, a small frontier town whose roads turned to gravel at the village border. We called Blake to wish him Happy Birthday and hear the plans for the day. We sure hated to be missing his party.

The hills became dotted with pines as we crossed the wide Missouri River. Flooding was very visible as trees on both sides of the shore were close to under water. The land gradually changed with more creeks and rivers and familiar looking terrain as we moved east.

We passed a Cabela's at Mitchell and saw their sculpture of Pheasants taking flight as a coyote chased them. It was beautifully done.

We drove about an hour into Minnesota to a KOA in Jackson. We thought it would be fun to see what this Jackson looked like. Our camp was placed between a Super 8 Motel and a John Deere Tractor store, but it was in a grove of trees with farm fields at the back and turned out to be quite pretty. We were lucky to get their last spot. Kids were everywhere. They were swimming in the pool, playing games, and on a hayride with a guy pulling a wagon behind a tractor up and down the camp roads. Then the Karaoke started down at the pavilion which was not far enough from us. It was cute at first, but the later it got and the more beer they drank, and the braver they got, the worse it got. People were just belting out the tunes in keys I've never heard. Then we heard the race cars. Jackson has a speedway and they were practicing right near here. The cars were roaring by and could be heard between and sometimes on top of the singing. Is this in honor of us missing race weekend at home? Is this to help us settle back in to civilization? It certainly was a memorable last night in a campground. And then they announced, "Here at the Jackson KOA, we're gonna party all night or till someone makes us quit!" Yeehaa! It was too hot to shut the windows. I was so afraid I was going to have to tackle Bob if they didn't quit and he might start out the door in a blind rage! Where are the trains when you need them?