Arrival at the Wild Horse Sanctuary

We said goodbye to the Badlands and to Steve and Jan today. We’ll miss them, but we’re on to new adventures. We are hoping that Jan will feel better soon—she stayed home sick today. Our next stop after the Cedar Pass Lodge for goodbyes was at a propane dealer in Wall that Steve had recommended. The folks were very friendly and topped off our tanks for a very reasonable price.

We left Wall and headed west to Rapid City and stopped for groceries and lunch. While we were in the store, the blue sky turned very threatening, and we saw severe thunderstorm warnings. We hoped to evade the storm by heading south, but the storm seemed faster than we were. We had to stop for diesel, and about that time the sky opened up. I got thoroughly drenched and had an umbrella torn to tatters.

Ken drove on south through very heavy rain and wind, but fortunately no hail. When we got to our destination, the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary south of Hot Springs, SD, we were greeted with “You can have a campsite, but we don’t have any power.” It turned out that a tornado had just passed through, with 100 mph winds, and besides power, they had lost a roof and a shed.

Luckily it wasn’t raining when we set up, and the sky cleared. We took a walk to look around. Our tour will be tomorrow, but this evening we got to see some of the mares with foals in the pens and some White King Peacocks. We saw some Western Meadowlarks and Curlycup Gumweed—just like the ones we saw in the Badlands—but otherwise the terrain is very different here.

The Little Horse on the Prairie....

IRAM--Institute of Range and American Mustang

Look closely and you'll see the roof gone from the white building, blown off by the tornado

The water and power came back on by the time we finished dinner. We don’t have any cell or Internet connection, so we’ll have to post our blog when we leave on Thursday.