Good day, and welcome to day two. I woke up at 6am. Yes, 6am. For those of you that don't know me that well, that is unheard of. But, I woke to hazy skies, 73 degrees, and 89% humidity at 6am. Ugh, this could be another one of those roasters like Gaston's was. So I got the shuttle to take me back to the airport, and checked the weather - again. The forecast was calling for isolated T-storms to be around Billings around 4pm local time. Good thing I got up early - the race was on. Who would make it first to Billings? Myself, or Mother Nature? For you pilots reading this, don't worry, I was willing to stop in Gillette, Wyoming, or any other place necessary. So I did the pre-flight on the plane wiped the sweat off of me and climbed in. Got a VFR departure clearance from Sioux Falls on runway 21 and off I was to the west. Today the plan was to land at Custer, SD - just southwest of Mt Rushmore. Note, the operative word in that sentence is "was." I did a quick check of fuel prices and decided to save 20 cents a gallon or so on the other side of the Black Hills in Newcastle, Wyoming - besides, I already landed in South Dakota once. Most of South Dakota, is well, flat and boring. My route happened to have me at 8500 feet again paralleling I-90 for pretty much the entire way. 8500 seems to be good. Still enough oxygen in the air so I'm not tired when I land, and up above most of the heat and low level turbulence caused by the heating of the ground during the summer days. I passed Mitchell, SD (sorry, no pictures of the Corn Palace) and a few other small towns during the rather uneventful ride across 2/3 of the state. As I got further west, finally, the scenery went from flat and rather boring to having a little relief to it. Ahead lay the Badlands. I barely remember the Badlands as viewed from the ground back in 1983. Unfortunately the pictures - although much better than the ones from day one, don't really do the panorama justice. If there is a God, it looks as if the badlands were hammered out of the ground with a fluted chisel. I dropped down from 8500 feet above sea level to about 5500 feet above sea level. (Which over the Badlands is about 2500 feet above ground.) Great striations of color, and a much more interesting sight than Wisconsin, Iowa and eastern South Dakota. Thanks to a tip from a fellow pilot I met in Arkansas, (thanks Carol T!) I called up Ellsworth AFB approach and got radar vectors to Mount Rushmore. As I started to get close to Rapid City the haze that I had been looking through started to get darker. Ah, this is why they call them the Black Hills. The terrain quickly rose from 3000 feet up to 7000+ feet and the 8500 feet I had been at was quickly only a little over a 1000 feet above ground level as I flew past Mount Rushmore. Interesting to look DOWN on it. The only time I had seen it before was from the binoculars at the visitor center when I was 9 years old. It is a national monument so planes aren't allowed too close to the monument, but I was able to get a couple of ok shots with the camera. Being a bit closer to the ground than I was earlier, it got a little bit bumpy with the wind blowing over the Black Hills, so the pictures aren't quite as nice as I'd hoped they would be. Newcastle, Wyoming is just over the Black Hills and that's where my rest stop was planned. If there was to be a typical Wyoming airport I think this would have to be it. Windy, not much vegetation around, and an FBO that just looked like it belonged there. Nothing fancy, , the pumps looked old, and the pavement was definitely aged. The runway was in great condition and landing on 31 it sloped downwards so the landing was very smooth considering the 25mph winds. Luckily they were out of the west and I was landing northwest. I was met by a great guy whose name I did not catch, but he was quick to fuel my plane while I used the facilities inside. We talked for a while after I paid for the fuel, and then it was off to see more of Wyoming and then Montana. There isn't much in Wyoming. I see why it's the least populated state in the nation. But at least it's not flat! My flight path took me east and north of Gillette, and there really wasn't much else to see besides that and some interesting ridges and a reservoir near Sheridan. The bonus was that I had a tailwind of 15-17kts for most of the way after I took off from Newcastle. Of course everything has to balance out right? As I got close enough to Billings to pick up the ATIS, I got the balance I was expecting, but hoping not to get. Clouds 1900AGL broken, 4000AGL broken and light rain, and expect the ILS or visual approach to runway 10L Hmm, I'd really rather stay VFR since I didn't have a current IFR chart for the area (although I had the one that was valid 3 days ago) and no approach plates for Billings. Well, lets just see what happens shall we? As I got closer they changed the ATIS. Few clouds at 1500' and overcast at 7000. Excellent...until the rest of the report came. Showers in the vicinity from the southeast to the northeast. Of course I am coming from the east, and sure enough here came the rain. Luckily it was pretty light and I still have plenty of forward visibility to stay VFR legal. The landing was uneventful, and luckily that cold front did beat me there - although without the thunderstorms. Yesterday it was over 100 in Billings, today it was a very comfortable 73. The storms did get here, but a few hours after I landed, so another great day of flying is behind me. Tomorrow is going to be a shorter day, although I'm not even exhausted like I thought I would be at this point. Total flight time for today: 5 hours 0 minutes