Dakotas 2026 – Day 3 – Sunrises, Sunsets, and Serendipity

After hiking the Custer Skywalk yesterday to the top of the mountain that overlooks the town of Custer, I was determined to wake up this morning in time to hike to that spot again for the sunrise. Because of the two hour time change, waking up was no problem. I stretched by doing some yoga, had a cup of coffee, and headed out. 

When I got there, two people were already there – a young man and a young woman. I asked the young woman to take my photo with me doing “my pose”. Afterwards, we chatted briefly. But this was before the sun had risen and this was no time for idle chit chat. This was a special moment. So, the three of us just sat there, waiting for this object, 109 times the size of the earth and roughly 93 million miles away, to make its appearance over the eastern horizon. When that life-giving ball of fire peeked over the adjoining mountain, I had the same feeling that generations of humans have felt – a combination of awe, wonder, and serenity.

My third day in South Dakota was to be Bad Lands Day. So, I made the 2-hour drive east while listening to “River of Doubt” which chronicles Teddy Roosevelt’s crazy adventure in the Amazon jungle – talk about someone who craved danger and adventure. That trip was stranger than fiction. 

The way to see Bad Lands National Park is to drive the Badlands Loop Road starting at its most eastern point and drive back west to Wall, SD. Well, when you take the exit off of interstate 90 to enter the eastern entrance you see a sign for the “Minuteman Missile National Historic Site”. And you can see the building, sitting all alone just off of the Highway. So, I visited. Run by the National Park Service, it is worth the visit to be reminded of the huge nuclear arsenal that both we and Russia maintain, and how close we have come to nuclear war in the past. At one time, we had almost a thousand minuteman rockets armed with nuclear warheads sitting under the Great Plains, many located in South Dakota. 

The Bad Lands are huge and you can spend a lot of time there. With limited time, I spent 5 hours driving the 36 mile Loop Road and stopping to hike in some spots. To get away from the crowd, which, to be honest, was almost non-existent because we are now in the off season, I did a hike where I did not see another hiker for over 30 minutes. And that is where I enjoyed my picnic lunch – sitting among some of the most unusual rock formations I have ever seen. The Wall, as the locals call it, is a jagged 60 mile cliff line that stretches east to west in the shape of a crescent moon and separates the low plains to the south from the high plains to the north. And the loop road meanders above, below, over and through these rock formations, deposited and formed from about 75 million years ago to 25 million years ago, which is why you see layers in the rock. Because the rock is relatively soft, scientist predict that this beautiful cliff line will disappear in 500,000 years. 

After seeing more than 25 billboard signs along the Highway for Wall Drug, I had to visit this place in Wall. As told Elizabeth on the phone, it was a combination of Walmart, Buc-ee’s and South of the Border – in other words, indescribable. I think places like this exist only in America— and you gotta love it! For my 2-hour drive back, I grabbed some beef jerky and a diet Dr. Pepper to enjoy while listening to more of Teddy Roosevelt’s crazy journey down the River of Doubt. When I got back to Custer, I hiked up the mountain in time to see the sunset over the South Dakota Black Hills. Afterwards, I enjoyed what can only be described as a captivating dinner experience at Skogen Kitchen. 

As it states on its website, Skogen is a chef-driven restaurant offering innovative dinner options inspired by food from all over the world. A James Beard Foundation Award semi-finalist, the menu is eclectic. I had the endive salad paired with an Italian Pinot Grigio and the Venison Loin paired with a California Pinot Noir.  It may be the best endive salad and venison I have ever had. The wife of the couple who sat next to me, who had ordered the same thing, agreed. 

Marty and Maureen, from Saratoga Springs, NY, were on the 5th week of a 6-week RV trip exploring southern Canada and the Northern United States. Because their son-in- law is from this area, they had been to Custer and to this restaurant before.  The husband, a self-described cyclist and foodie, told me that they put Custer on their itinerary so that they could eat at this restaurant again. So, my choice of Skogen Kitchen to have my splurge South Dakota meal was adequately affirmed. 

Here is the serendipity part of the conversation with Marty and Maureen. Because I need to head up to North Dakota on Thursday and I feel like I have seen the highlights of this area, I decided to call an audible and cancel my last night here and stay instead in Spearfish, located on the Wyoming state line north of here. So, on my way there tomorrow, I plan to go the Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming to do some hiking. Well, that is where Marty and Maureen just came from! And they told me about a unique shop in Hulett, Wyoming that I have to visit. So, I am also adding Bob’s Fine Art and Rogue Gallery to my itinerary tomorrow.

I am going to end this post with a huge shout out to my friend Rolf, who is currently on the 74th day of a 120 day hiking pilgrimage with his wife Ronda, starting in his home in Switzerland and ending in Santiago Compostela in Northern Spain. Tomorrow they arrive in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, their last stop in France, before hiking over the Pyrenees into the Basque region of Spain. I am doing this shout out because Rolf has chronicled this 120 day journey with a blog post each day. And he has done so with honesty, humor and grace. People have told me that they enjoy my travel writings because they feel like they are traveling along beside me. That is high praise. And Rolf has done the same thing. It takes stamina, creativity and dedication to write a post every day after you have spent 15 miles a day hiking, sometimes over difficult terrain. Heck, it takes stamina and dedication to write my posts. So, thank you Rolf for taking those of us who are following you and Ronda along for your epic adventure.