My overnight bus journey from Billings, Montana to Rapid City, South Dakota went well and I arrived at breakfast time. My first task was to pick up my rental car so I got a taxi to the airport. I had the best/weirdest taxi driver ever. He seemed like some kind of hippy on speed. He was very energetic and kept talking about things I needed to do while I was in the area. The airport was several miles out of town but he didn't run out of ideas. And when we got there he stopped the meter and spent literally five minutes annotating the map he'd given me with places to go. I gave him a good tip because if any driver has ever earned it, he has!

I got myself a nice red Subaru Legacy. I'm into a routine now with rental cars when I pick one up now that I'm onto my fifth car (excluding the one I had for a single day in Austin). Now I had to decide what I was going to go. I had almost three days in the area and intended to spend one day doing nothing but resting. I also had nowhere to stay because the Sturgis bike rally was in the area. I decided to hit some sights on my first day, find somewhere to stay in the evening and crash the following day.

The biggest must-see attraction in the area is, of course, Mt. Rushmore. I drove down there and, if I hadn't known there was a bike rally before, I knew it for sure now. There were bikes all over the roads and the two towns I passed through were backed with bikes. Every grocery store, bar, restaurant, gas station, hotel, campground, etc. had bikes parked at it.

When I got to Mt. Rushmore I was able to park for free because someone - either the last renters or the car company - had left the pass on the dashboard. As I approached the viewpoint for the big heads they were slightly obscured with clouds. It was actually chilly out there then and was spitting with rain occasionally. I worried that I would have to come back to see it properly. But as I got to the end of the walkway to the viewing area it was all clear.

I was expecting to be disappointed because I knew they were going to be smaller than I had originally thought before I saw a picture in a book. But actually I was very moved by it. Sure, it may not look enormous but it's still very impressive. And there is a short trail that takes you a little closer. Doing that told me my calf muscles were still aching from the long walk in Glacier National Park.

The bikers were very well behaved the whole time I was in the area - not like the biker gangs from movies at all. And at Mt. Rushmore I saw the funniest thing - a whole load of bikers standing around listening to some Native American music that I can best describe as flute-rock. It was very good and I stopped for a listen too, but it's as far from biker music as you can get and yet they were all listening intently to this beautiful music. It might have something to do with the beer stand next to the stage though.

After Mt. Rushmore I moved onto the Crazy Horse memorial. This is an epic undertaking to build a monument to the Native American hero Crazy Horse. It has been going for fifty years already and is expected to take another fifty to complete. Only the man's head is complete so far but it's going to be spectacular. It is going to be the tallest monument in the world, larger than the Washington Monument and the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

My last sightseeing stop was Wind Cave National Park where I went on a tour of some of the caves. Although I only saw a small bit of the cave network the whole thing contains 120 miles of caves and they guess that's only 5% of the whole thing. And despite all that there is only one narrow natural opening to the surface. If I went back I'd go on a longer, tougher caving tour with hard-hat and headtorch.

That took me to early evening so I set out to find a place to stay. I headed out to Newcastle, Wyoming hoping to find something way out there, and also because I still needed to get a Wyoming state souvenir. I got the souvenir but the town looked rubbish. But I had spotted a couple of motels on the way through Custer, South Dakota - right in the heart of bike territory, although Newcastle was still booked out with bikers - that had had a 'vacancy' sign up. I got back there and went to the first one and was lucky enough to take their last room. They had had a couple of cancellations and so I got a room at $80/night. The desk clerk apologised for it being so high but that was better than I had expected. She told me not to sell anyone else staying there what I had paid because they'd shelled out $130/night to book months in advance.

The next day I rested. I did my laundry, caught up on some sleep and watched TV. It was great!

On my final day I had to be back in Rapid City for 4pm so I got an early start and drove out east to get to Badlands National Park. But first I just had to make a stop on the way. Americans will understand why, the rest of you may have to do some research. Because fifty miles east of Rapid City on I-90 is the town of Wall, home to the world-famous Wall Drug! I saw about fifty signs for that fifty mile stretch. I had seen a sign for the store back in Montana north of Billings, which would have been about 450 miles away. The signs on I-90 advertised their famous free ice water and 5 cent coffee and free coffee and donut for veterans.

I parked up - this town too was full of bikes - and went into the store. It's a very cool building and the place is huge, about a whole block in area. I bought myself a sandwich to go for lunch and wanted a 5 cent coffee but, I was told, because it was to go I would have to pay 21 cents for it because they had to charge for the cup. I was still pretty happy with that.

With that piece of Americana done I drove on to Badlands National Park to mingle with the crowds of bikers as they toured around the park. Although the rock formations weren't anything new to me, having seen all kinds of things in the parks I've already been to, the combination of the rocks jutting out of the grass prairie looked great.

Just when I was leaving and chalking the park up as average I passed through a less-visited wilderness part of the park and stopped at a prairie dog town and saw loads of the little guys standing around. They made little squeaking noises as I approached and started disappearing down their holes. The signs warned me that they may carry plague so I guess they were running away to avoid infecting me - how thoughtful!

The final surprise for me was just as I was leaving the park and I saw a small herd of bison grazing off to the side. They were a bit far away but that was best for safety.

I got the car back in plenty of time and noticed there were a lot of Highway Patrol cars out on the interstate. I assumed they were there to keep an eye on the bikers but every time I saw one they had pulled over a car. For once I had not driven too many miles, only 400 or so in the two days that I did stuff, and I had done it all on one tank of gas.

I can say, without doubt, that South Dakota was far and away the very best of the Great Plains states and I didn't even have enough time to see everything. I have now visited 45 out of the 50 states on this trip. After all the excitement I had a 25 hour bus ride to Seattle to look forward to and then a flight out to Alaska.