June 3rd - Pierre, South Dakota

The day dawned cold, about 50 degrees, with intermittent rain showers, but we persevered and drove to the next exit for Chamberlain to start our walk. It looked like an all-day rain, so I left the camera in the car. After we signed up, Monika put the walk instructions into a plastic bag for protection—there’s nothing worse than being halfway thru a walk and having your instructions disintegrate. Actually, I suppose there are many, many things that are worse than that, of course, but it is highly irritating.

The Chamberlain walk starts out with a long leg along the Missouri River, which is dammed into a rather large and long lake at this point. The hills across the valley stood out in craggy relief due to having mostly a covering of grass together with some thin forests in the protected bottomlands. We passed thru a small park with a quote from the Lewis’s journal about his frustration in trying to shoot an antelope—they were too wary and fleet of hoof for him to get close enough for a shot. We also passed thru a park right at the edge of the river that looked like a great place to camp if the weather were better.

The long leg upstream ended with a figure-8 loop thru the St. Joseph Indian School that we found very interesting. A Priest and brothers from a German monastery founded the school in 1927 to provide education for Native-American children in such a way as to preserve the Lakota language and culture. It seemed very forward-looking for that time, and I had to wonder why German monks had to come over and do this rather than folks from the U.S. Maybe the U.S. missionaries were too busy converting Hawaiians and accumulating all the land in the Hawaiian Islands.

The Akta Lakota Museum is located on the school grounds and the instructions recommend that you go in for a visit. We did and spent a very enjoyable hour absorbing all the exhibits there, but no photographs were allowed and that was a pity. I had a chance to examine the construction of a real, antique birch bark canoe up close and found out that there was an inner longitudinal layer of thin wood slats under the birch bark, which was really just a waterproof covering. The museum also was playing a very good film that focused on the ancient Lakota culture from the viewpoint of a young boy. The film showed shaping of a bow and arrows using stone tools and the erection and use of the tipi lodge. Other exhibits in a ring around the central core documented the history of the Lakota up to the present. I found especially poignant the quote from Sitting Bull that essentially challenged anyone to show that he had done anything bad except try to protect his people. It sounded like a heartfelt complaint of someone who, from his point of view, was just a patriot for his people.

From the museum the walk kind of wriggled its way back along streets just up from the riverbank. This part of the route ran directly down the main street of Chamberlain and we thought it was a nice town. There are shops dedicated to Native American crafts and crafts made in South Dakota that we would have stopped to visit under better conditions. Despite warming up and drying off in the museum, we were wet and cold-soaked by this point and just wanted to finish the walk. All in all, we thought this was a very low-key, pretty walk along the Missouri River thru a nice little town, and it might even be beautiful if the sun were shining.

Stopping back at the hotel to check out—I resisted the impulse to take yet another shower or jump back into the Jacuzzi—we drove north and west along the scenic byway marked on our State of South Dakota map. For the most part this byway follows the course of the Missouri River and we had spectacular views of the river all along the way. The landscape was cut into small valleys and hills by centuries of erosion and trees were small and located only in the shelter of the valleys. But most of these hills were covered with grass and sage (I think), so the landscape still seemed verdant while at the same time being rather stark and severe. Altho crops were being attempted on some farms, cattle grazing was the dominant land use—I must say that even the cattle looked miserable in the cold rain, but maybe my imagination was just running away by that point!

It was still raining when we arrived in Pierre and we opted for another night in a motel rather than setting up our tent in the rain. If there’s anything I dislike more than packing a cold, wet tent in a driving rain, it’s unpacking a cold, wet tent in a driving rain. Monika had found yet another coupon for a cheap hotel in Pierre, so after lunch we reserved a motel room at a Super-8, a name that always reminds me of movie camera film, which just goes to show how old I am! But when we looked at those nice, comfy, warm beds we immediately opted for the good old stand-by of NAP.

After we finally roused ourselves later that afternoon, we looked out of the window and saw that the sun was shining and decided we were fresh enough to do another Volksmarch. The walk started at the Chamber of Commerce/Visitor Center and the girl at the desk knew immediately about the Volksmarch folder, which was rather refreshing after the blank looks we usually get when asking for the start box. Pierre has two walks, a capital walk and a Lewis and Clark walk. Since we had just done a Lewis and Clark walk that morning, we opted for the capital walk.

The capital walk is a loop that starts out north along the Missouri and then goes up the hill through some nice residential areas of Pierre. This part of the route ended at Governor’s Park that included a very large gulch or valley. The route had a rather steep descent at that point that included several switchbacks down the hill—considerately, the directions offered an alternative if the weather is too inclement to safely make the steep descent. The paved path continued to wind along the bottom of a rather scenic gulch to the state capitol.

The capitol grounds in Pierre contain a small lake beside the capitol building and several monuments along the shore of the lake. After traversing the capitol grounds, the route cuts east and then back south to the Missouri River, where the last stretch is another nice walk along the riverbank on a bike trail. Just where the trail begins on the north side of town was a little park that apparently offered free camping for a limited number of RVs or tents. Of course, the camping was limited to 3 days in a 30 day period, but that would be plenty to do the walks in Pierre and see the city for those who camp. Since Merlin was a champion camper and the cheapest person I’ve ever met, I nominate this park for the first annual Merlin Memorial Cheapskate Award.

Both checkpoints for this walk were at gas stations with convenience marts, but with the novel addition of gambling casinos. We had a snack at the Chekkers gas station, and Monika remarked on the dazed look of the customers walking out of the dimly lit casino area. The first gas station had marked the casino as “No one under 21 admitted” but the second casino had no such sign. I simply noticed that the guy ahead of us in line at the counter, who looked like a shambling wreck with greasy, dirty and uncombed hair, bushy scraggly and unkempt beard, and absolutely filthy ragged clothes. I was thinking about giving him some money when he bought two sticky buns from the junk food counter and headed right back into the dark, dingy casino room. We felt that the Pierre capital walk was once again a very nice walk in a pleasant but small capital city. All in all, we thought this Pierre walk was very pretty and offered great views of the Missouri River, but I hope you are not offended by the destitute citizens of South Dakota gambling away their two mites in dingy back rooms.

We completed the leg back to the Chamber of Commerce/Visitor Center—they gave us free Christmas tree ornaments that we thought were quite nice. So we returned to our hotel room for yet another hot shower. We really enjoyed the simple sybaritic delights of a warm bed, hot water and our own bathroom for each of our nights in hotels. We didn’t watch much television, but we would occasionally tune in the weather channel where it is available to give us an idea what we would be facing the next day and that was quite useful.