Badlands National Park for the day

After a windy day on the road, visiting Crazy Horse Mountain and Mt Rushmore we pulled into Rapid City to do some shopping. By now the winds were very strong -- apparently around 50 m.p.h -- kicked up by Hurricane Ike hitting Texas. We'd spent the previous day enjoying Custer State Park with the girls working on their Junior Ranger Program equivalent (Junior Naturalist Program). Rain had rolled in early in the afternoon so we hung out in the van reading and writing. We decided to hold-off on doing Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore for the following day. Now, in the shopping parking lot we had to decide whether to stay in Rapid City or push on. The store clerk had said the winds would be stronger outside the city and we risked being "blown over" (especially with our 11' high profile). Kind of intimidating. Fortunately, we had a good internet connection and did some research (and also a Skype call to Rose's good friend, Julia, back in Seattle). The forecast was for winds to decrease later in the evening after peaking mid-afternoon. We had a quick dinner and decided to push on the nearly 2 hours to Badlands National Park campground. We arrived at 9:30pm -- very late for us to get off the road. The winds had abated but still meant keeping hands firmly on the steering wheel for the occassional wind buffet. Everyone needed to get a good rest so we called it an early night. Today we've awoken to bright blue skies but with a cool plains wind blowing. We're going to look around the park for the day then head further east this evening for a destination not yet known. Our goal is to get to Minneapolis area by mid week, so we have some big days driving ahead and want to get some miles behind us. The great American plains lie ahead of us as we leave the mountains of the west behind.