This trip was intended to shake things up and so far it has been successful. The first day out we left behind a bag containing the iron I spoke about in an earlier post and all of our charging cords for laptop, pad and phones.  We discovered this 400 miles later at our next stop.  The motel, a Super 8 agreed to send it to us by next day delivery.  As it was, we happened to call the post office to see if it had arrived.  It had!  In this town you pick up the mail and it was going to be open for one hour before closing for the holiday weeekend.  We got lucky and thank Jackie, the person that mailed it to us.

We set up for our first night of camping in the Badlands after a beautiful drive into the park. It was very hot.  We were  looking forward to seeing the night sky.  We saw incredible lightning in the distance and before too long we felt drops.  Ok, we secured everything and prepared for sleeping.  OMG - the storm hit us with incredible winds, pulling stakes outof the ground.  We ended up standing while supporting the side of the tent while holding on to the poles.  It felt like the tent poles were getting bent and that the whole thing could go flying.  we hung on like that for 2 hours.  People around us were struggling. Some threw everything in their cars and left, but we were 30 miles from anywhere.  Then it stopped.  The storm had moved out but then the wind came back from another direction.  At least this time the direction of it was with the tent, not against it.  

This morning we went to the Ranger Station and found out that there would be more thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow. We decided it would be crazy to stay in an area where we were so exposed.  This was an entirely open area with no trees and no where to go.  We took off for Rapid City and checked into another Super 8.  We went to Mount Rushmore and found the change in terrain amazing. It is located in the Black Hills, low mountains, very beautiful and good practice for driving later in our trip. Mt. Rushmore was very impressive.  We barely made it back to town until it started pouring.  it was a deluge.  I am so thankful that we hadn't stayed atthe campgrounds.  Beginning Tuesday we should have great weather as we go to Yellowstone.  This truly is an adventure!