Fall 2013 Dakotas and Nebraska Trip Summary

What a wonderful trip we had!  We'd originally thought we'd go to the Pacific Northwest for our fall trip, and it is still very much on our "gotta visit" list.  But we'd been driving so much after trips to the southwest US in July and to North Carolina and Ohio in August that we decided on this trip instead. It turns out to have been a good decision as the PacNW got quite a bit of rain during the time we were enjoying glorious weather with only one partial day of rain!  We really did get lucky.  Most days, the skies were bright and sunny and temperatures were moderate.  This allowed us to do plenty of hiking, cycling, and sight-seeing.

Here's a map of our trip route.  We left the Kansas City area on September 12 and returned on September 30.  The numbered pins show the order of our travel, beginning and ending in the Kansas City area.

Here are our blog posts, in order, from the trip for easy reference [note that we spent one night in Watertown, SD on the first night of our trip (pin B on map), but it did not get a blog post]:

• North Dakota, a new state for both of us (C)
• Long loop hike in Teddy Roosevelt National Park (D)
• Maah Daah Hey trail ride and more (D)
• Heading south to South Dakota Black Hills (E)
• Harney Peak (South Dakota) ascent (E)
• What a Rush:  My first visit to Mount Rushmore (E)
• Magnificent Michelson Trail rides (E)
• Hiking the Centennial Trail in South Dakota Black Hills (E)
• Brief stops at Wall Drug and Badlands National Park, South Dakota (F, G)
• (Won't you be my) Valentine, Nebraska? (H)
• Cycling and eating go hand in hand in Lincoln, Nebraska (I)

We were very fortunate to get out of the Black Hills area of South Dakota when we did.  Just over a week after we left Hill City, where we spent eight days and nine nights, this happened:

Hill City is only about 40 miles south of Deadwood, so looks to have been in the area that got some of the highest snow totals.  Tragically, thousands of head of cattle perished in this freak early October storm, unusual even for this area.  It is hard to believe we were riding bicycles in shorts and short sleeves on the Michelson Trail just over a week earlier.  

A final bit of good fortune is that on this trip we were able to visit several national parks/monuments before the government shutdown closed the gates in early October.  If our trip had been just a couple of weeks later, we wouldn't have been able to enjoy and experience these wonderful places.  However, I know many others were not so fortunate.  Keeping politics out of the blog is my intent, so I'll just say that I hope this standoff is resolved ASAP.