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Visit South Dakota
Pictures and Information

South Dakota is a huge state. It takes approximately six hours to drive from East to West. But what a drive it is. Lot's of wide open spaces, scenic views, and landscape that is picture perfect.

Your first impression of South Dakota may be that there is nothing here... but look a little harder and you will see that this is a very scenic state with lots of fun things to do. Not only visiting the small towns in the Black Hills, but the central section of South Dakota, with the Francis Case Lake, is just beautiful.

Do you like the colors gold and green? That is the most prominent colors in the state, especially during the summer.

The fields are like gold because of the wheat, and hayfields. I just can't seem to take enough pictures. Here's an example below. On one side is an Alfalfa field and on the other side a hay field. Look how far you can see too. Generally, the view is 10 miles.

Green and gold fields

Southern South Dakota Towns

Most of the towns in southern South Dakota are small towns and they have small populations, and virtually no crime, because everyone knows each other and respects their property. We moved to the Southern South Dakota town called Tripp, and all of the towns listed in the navigation, we have recently visited and explored. See the map of these SD towns.

More Pictures of Southern South Dakota

Summer Pictures
-Hay wheels stacked in a field.... haywheels stacked in a field... see another view
-Haywheels on the side of the road... haywheels on the side of the road
-Rolled Hay Bales on a truckbed

-No wasted space in SD, even the grass on the side of the highway gets rolled
-A view in southern South Dakota... South Dakota view
-A South Dakota farm... South Dakota Farm... a silo in the sunset
-South Dakota farmfield... farmfield view
-Tractor tracks in a field... tractor tracks
-A cow farm.... cows on a farm... cows near a creek
-After the harvest... after the harvest... corn and hay field
-A sign for Telecopier Permits... Telecopier Permit sign... Harvester sign
-Here's pretty much what South Dakota looks like
-South Dakota sunset... summer sunset... more colorful clouds... popcorn clouds... closer view
-Storm coming... storm coming
-The Missouri River separates South Dakota from Nebraska... Missouri River
-A South Dakota train passes under Interstate 90.... SD train

The Fall Season in SD

September So what's it like in the Fall in South Dakota? The first thing I noticed is that the cows are a lot happier with the cool weather. They don't hide under the trees anymore, and most herds you will find closer to the roads. On the way back from Mitchell on Highway 37 we even saw a herd of Buffalo! In the middle of September, about 200 Monarch butterflies migrated through our yard, and they stayed about a week.

October 20 we found a lot of lady bugs in our yard, mostly on the back of the house facing the sun. It's a good thing I took the time to caulk the windows in Sept., or there would have been a problem. I suspect that lady bugs don't migrate, and what you have in your yard hides and stays there, because whenever it get warm they come out again. Here's some that got caught in our rain water bucket, they seem to be that Asian variety because they are all different.

The fields around us are now different shades of brown, and some farmers have planted cover crops, and those fields are green. The cornfields are all dried up and they are just starting to harvest the dried corn. I also noticed that the grainery on the other side of Tripp, SD has been running 24-7 for 2 months now. The harvest is coming in, I guess, and I need to study up on how a grainery works. Fall farm

Even by the end of October, all of our leaves are still green and on the trees, very few have turned yellow. The trees seem to turn colors one by one, instead of all at once like they do in New England.

There hasn't been any cold weather yet. A couple of nights it dropped to the 40's, but by the next day it warmed up again. It rained a straight week in early October.

Fall Pictures
-Cows near a creek - a silo in the sunset - fall sunset - the field in back of our house turned golden

November has been dry, no rain at all, it got down to the 20's a couple of nights. brrrr. Still waiting for snow.
December we got 4 inches of snow on Christmas Eve.

South Dakota websites

South Dakota Magazine


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Photography © Vlad and Carol in Tripp, SD
Questions about this website? Email us at: ckononov@aol.com