Holy smoke signals Batman! Once again we’ve packed so much into one day I’m afraid it would take four blogs to cover it all.
Last night we crash landed in a tiny town in WY with surprisingly nice bathrooms. Then we were up with the dawn and zooming through Big Horn National Forest on our way to Mt Rushmore.
Unfortunately we did not spot any big horn sheep or llamas today, and we’ve seen so many antelope we can’t really count them in our exotic animal spotting game. We did see some deer , however, both alive and dead. Which made me wonder about the difference in damage to your car of you hit a deer going 70 vs 50. The difference to the deer seemed to be only a slightly less mangled body.
Welcome to South Dakota! One of a very few states left in the union that I have not visited. I have to admit, I kind of fell in love with the Precambrian west side and marveled at the vast oceans of crops to the East. Where do these farmers live??? There are no houses, just rocks and corn for light years.
Mt. Rushmore is awesome, more than I could have hoped for. As an artist I fell instantly in love with the magnitude of the sculptures alone. As a tourist I was happy as a clam swimming in a sea of foreign languages and “One Day Only!” bargain t-shirts. Heaven!!
The hike was short and fun, the exhibits to the point and interesting. The guides all had excellent voices perfect for Disney movies – I just can’t recommend this stop enough for a family vacation in the middle of nowhere.
Then there is Crazy Horse. Just a few miles down the road from Rushmore, it is a privately funded memorial to the Native Americans and their story. I had heard it was worth seeing, so we swung by. I was presently surprised to find it not only interesting, but completely breathtaking.
Just to give you an idea of it’s size, all four of the presidents on Rushmore could fit onto Crazy Horses’ forehead like a bad-a tattoo. The hole under his unfinished arm is ten stories high. The marble statue in the foreground of the photo is what the monument will look like when complete. The actual monument in the background is six miles away. CRAZY!!!
For more information, see Google.
After a morning dodging deer on the road, an afternoon of hiking and noshing, we hit the highway and made good use of the 75 mph speed limits. We were hoping to get close to whatever the next state is… Ah… Minnesoooooota! Yes! But we didn’t. With four wee ones to care for, the drive is never as quick as you think it will be, but is ten times more exciting!
Epic American Fail for the day: bus load of high school kids get out at Rushmore. First girl says: so who are these dudes on the hill? Boy says: I dunno, where’s the food? They’re like senators or something. Third girl saves the day: I know who it is! Washington, some guy, Kennedy and Lincoln.
Why is US history so difficult? Our country is only 200 bleeding years old!!! Think of those poor kids in Mycea!
My only regret so far is that we didn’t have more time budgeted for South Dakota. It seems a rather lovely place even if it’s practically Canada and the teenagers are dumb. Maybe they came from Canada and are therefore not required to study American History. None of them had those saucy Canadian accents, however, so we’re going to go with dumb.
Maybe we should up the voting age….
Tomorrow- Top Ten Things I Couldn’t Live Without on This Trip! Ciao!
