By Gabriele Girardi, special to the Tribune

KEYSTONE, S.D. &8212; Do you ever hear people saying that in South Dakota there&8217;s just cows, nothing else? Well don&8217;t trust what they say. It is not true.

I went to South Dakota the week of June 10. Before I left Albert Lea I was conditioned by this stereotype, so I left ready to have a vacation spent in the nature, camping in the wild miles from the first sign of civilization. I didn&8217;t know yet this vacation would have been far from that.

I am an exchange student from Italy. I left Albert Lea in a GMC Jimmy with three other exchange students Lucas from Brazil, Cristophe from Belgium, Federico from Italy, and our regional coordinator, Mark Graham, who teaches at Albert Lea High School and lives in Austin.

We stopped at Hy-Vee in Albert Lea for the last purchases before the great trip to the West.

Done with shopping, we finally left my beloved Albert Lea for the unknown, at least for me. Right after a couple of hours of driving I noticed how well experienced Mark was. He always knew where we were, even in some spot in the boondocks on Interstate 90 he told us we are about 23 miles from Sioux Falls, S.D. Amazing!

Our first stop was to be Madison, S.D., in Lake County. We arrived there on South Dakota Highway 19. Madison is a small nice college town one county north of Sioux Falls.

We found almost immediately nice camping on Lake Herman right in the core of the lake&8217;s state park. We had a bath in the lake and later wieners followed by s&8217;mores cooked on a campfire. The time came to choose were to sleep. We decided we would sleep under the stars because it was too hot to sleep in the pop-up.

The morning after we left late, around 11 a.m. We saw the fantastic view of the Missouri River that appears when you get on the top of a hill.

Finally after driving for many hours we arrived to Cactus Flat, a small town just at the beginning of the road through the Badlands National Park. We choose a camp for the night, and we parked the car, grateful for being able to stretch our legs once more.

The weather at that point started to deteriorate so we turned on the radio that brought us bad news. The forecast gave a severe weather alert, with golf-ball-sized hail or a heavy downpour. The camping manager kindly offered us for $3 more a small cabin with three double beds, an alternative to the pop-up camper that offered us a dry night on real beds.

After we set up everything for the night we decided it was time to go visit Wall Drug, an Old West shop that for nearly 500 miles on Interstate 90 advertises its famous free ice water. Wall Drug, located in Wall&8217;s downtown, is a small tourism center that benefits from the flow of people coming from east to visit Badlands, Mount Rushmore and, yearly, Sturgis, hometown of the famous motorcycle rally.

I really expected something better from Wall Drug, but it is really busy and full of gift shops selling junk for a high price. We decided finally, after drinking the so-much advertised &8220;Free Ice Water&8221; that it was time to head back to the camping, and after a quick dip in the pool we went to the cabin, spending our afternoon talking and killing mosquitoes.

The next morning early &8212; for our standards &8212; we left the camping to go visit the Badlands.

Badlands National Park is unique in its genre. All the &8220;mountains&8221; that you see getting closer to the entrance of the park are in fact huge masses of sand pressed together. You must know that while the Earth&8217;s crust was remodeling a long time ago, Badlands was part of the ocean.

Badlands were called this way for the obvious hostile look and the fact that trying to venture into this part after or while it is raining is really difficult because of flash floods or mud pits.

After a brief visit to the ranger station we took off for Rapid City, S.D., and Mount Rushmore. We drove for an hour on the Badland&8217;s road, enjoying the beautiful views of this fantastic national park, a treasure of the American soil.

We arrived in Rapid City, and we found one of the best camps I ever saw in my life. This camp is in the middle of a pine wood. It is really clean and quiet, has a pool and a hot tub, plus free pancakes in the morning. We enjoyed our stay in this fabulous place, without mosquitoes, and cooked marshmallows and wieners on the fire.

The next day we finally had to visit Mount Rushmore. My first idea of that place was of a tourist-clogged place, full of gift shops and different stores that sold stuff from Mount Rushmore Zippo lighters to Mount Rushmore toilet paper.

Later I fortunately had to change my mind. When we arrived at the parking lot I didn&8217;t saw as many cars as I had expected. Then when we went inside the view changed so much. The place has a great dignity, which gives honor to four great American presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Staying below those four huge faces makes you feel their presence there. I found it amazing, a magic place I will remember for a long time.

This is the report of my trip, I found it really interesting, and I believe everyone should go once to visit Mount Rushmore and South Dakota, a beautiful land with more than only cows.