South Dakota Pt. 3: Custer State Park and Deadwood

Back to our trip to South Dakota. As we got closer to our destination, we finally began to see buffalo and other wildlife. Surprisingly, there wasn't much of that to see along the way. In Iowa, we're used to seeing cows, pigs, sheep, and horses all around, but in SD, we saw very little evidence of a farming lifestyle.


When we got to Custer State Park, we were impressed by the roaming buffalo that would stand right next to the car and often in the road right in front of the car as well. Ken and I got a kick out of having to stop while a couple of buffalo slowly...and I do emphasize slowly...made their way across the road.While the buffalo didn't really care if we were there or not, we did have a slightly nasty encounter with a roaming donkey that charged up to the passenger side of the car when I leaned out to get a picture. As he started running toward us, I yelled, "Drive!" to Ken and we safely got away. Here is our getaway shot from the frightening encounter. Ken responded to the situation by saying, "What an ass!"

We also made a stop in Deadwood, SD, the place where Wild Bill Hicok was shot and is buried. While there, I picked up a black hills gold necklace as a momento from the trip, and we ventured to Mt. Moriah cemetery to see the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. Of course, while walking down through the streets of Deadwood, we saw the Historic Saloon No. 10 where Wild Bill was shot -- as the sign so eloquently states.

We also drove through the surrounding old mining towns of Lead and Spearfish as we explored the area around Mt. Rushmore. Coming next, the visit to "the Heads," aka Mt. Rushmore.

Dark Days at HCC

I'm going to break from our honeymoon South Dakota updates for a moment to share what's been happening around here in terms of my job. In short, things at my work (Hawkeye) have been distressing lately. The problem is that the college is experiencing the recession pretty hard now and because of the reduced funding they will receive from the State this year, have decided to take some drastic measures and reduce the number of faculty and staff. My job seems to be ok for this next year (though I'm still waiting for my contract which should come within the month), but for many of my friends and colleages, the news is not good.

Last week, the college cut 43 teachers -- 1/3 of our teaching staff. This includes 33 Regular Part Time teachers (like an adjunct but they teach 4 guarenteed classes a semester and get partial benefits) and 10 full-time faculty. By contract, the college has to fire all of its RPTs before it can start letting faculty go, and when that happens it usually means the new hires are the first to go. This would have included me, but for some reason, it did not this time (or at least I believe this for now). I think it has to do with who teaches where and how many other teachers there are in that department. I am the only full-time dev. writing teacher, so I think I'm safe for next year...but who really knows? Sadly, several of my friends that I started with this academic year are now faced with no jobs.

There is such a dark feeling around the campus now, and everyone is going to be affected by this. If you didn't lose your job, you feel bad for those who did. If you lost your job, you're wondering what you're going to do now. The sad thing is that the college will still need these teachers, so the question becomes: who will they hire? UNI in Cedar Falls let go of all their adjuncts too, so they may be competing with some of our RPTs for classes. Additionally sad is the fact that the college may try to rehire the fired RPTs as adjuncts and pay them significanlty lower amounts and give them no benefits. Rotten huh? No word on whether they will really do this or not, but that's one of the rumors.

Ken and I have had many discussions lately about what we would do if I lost my job, if not now, in the future. It's very scary to think about this happening to so many people. When it happens to those you work with everyday, it certainly becomes more real and it hurts to see those you care about frightened about the future.

South Dakota Pt. 2: Corn Palace, Wall Drug, and the Badlands

The next day of our trip found us making our way through South Dakota and enjoying all the prairie scenery (what else was there to look at?). On the way, we stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, which, to be honest, was not that great. As we pulled away, we were left wondering why we stopped. The reason: what else was there to do? We checked it out, and I vaguely remembered being there as a 5-year-old with my family. Of course, we had to get a picture.

On we drove to a small town called Reliance where my great grandmother on my mother's side and her sister homesteaded in 1910 and where my great grandfather is buried. We passed through and saw Great Grandpa's gravesite and then a 1-room schoolhouse which we believe is where my grandfather attended school when he lived there. It was really thought-provoking for me to be there, to look around, and to imagine how Great-Grandma and her sister could have left home in Iowa to homestead by themselves on the prairie.

We continued on to a roadside restaurant near Chamberlain where we had our first taste of buffalo when Ken ordered a buffalo burger. Being less adventurous, I stuck with the salad bar, but took a bite of the sandwich. I must confess it was not bad at all and far less greasy than a regular "cow" burger. Then on we went until we stopped at the (in)famous Wall Drug. We barely made it there before they closed, so a quick potty break and a fast look around was all we got from Wall Drug. We decided to stop again on our way home.

Moving on, we finally made it to the Badlands and what a sight! After driving for miles and miles with nothing but open prairie around us, it was such a shock to our systems to see the wonder that is the badlands. They're sort of hard to describe, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

More to come of our visit in a future blog...