Day 4

Day 4 started out great, we were only 470 miles from Rapid City and the weather prediction was hot and sunny.  We got started early, rode up to Sioux City, Iowa  past Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Praire and had breakfast.  While we were there Betsy got a call from a friend that broke down on the way, so she wanted to stop at the Harley dealership (of course it was a Harley) to see how he was making out.  We had a nice tour of Sioux City but never saw her buddy becase he was in Sioux Falls, SD.  We were burning daylight but didn't really care because we were going to pick up another hour today once we got into Mountain Time of South Dakota.  The flat praire along the western border of Iowa was interesting, but nothing compared to the grasslands of South Dakota.  We rode for hours and hours through the grasslands where Dances with Wolves was filmed.  It's beautful country, but it's also huge and the weather is fierce.  It was as hot as a furnace today but the winds were strong and we had learned how to stay hydrayted by now, so we really had a nice ride into Rapid City today.  As we got closer to Rapid City, we got a glimse here and there of the Badlands, then the Black Hills loomed in the distance.  I was so beat up from the wind and the heat by then I was robotically following the commands my GPS gave me to get through the city to meet our landlord Mike.  We got to his house, unpacked and I was out like a light a short time later.