Mt. Rushmore Trip

Okay, here is my tale of the Mt. Rushmore trip. I only have a few pictures since my camera battery was not fully charged at the start of the trip and I failed to bring the charger because I couldn't find it in my collection of stuff strewn throughout my room.

I drove down to Cindy's house on Friday afternoon, we planned to leave Saturday morning, which seemed like a late start but it turns out that it was a perfect start. Friday evening we got last minute snacks at the local "broken" Alberston's (I think I would call it a mini Albertson's), Cindy was able to say good bye to her favorite Albertson's checker (who thought that she said she was looking for a roach clip - he's a winner). Then we joined a group of Salt Laker's to watch the new Indiana Jones movie. I probably wouldn't have seen it in the theater if I hadn't gone that night with this crowd. For those who have not seen it I will give nothing away, but I will mention that the movie was entertaining.

Saturday morning, just before the sun came up, Cindy and I arose all groggy but excited for the adventure to begin. We picked up two of Cindy's friends, who were soon my friends, and headed out towards Wyoming. I felt terrible that I forgot to bring my Chris LeDoux cd, a must for Wyoming travels. Luckily Cindy stocked us up with audio books, one of which was a Louis L'Amour book: Hondo. Excellent read by the way. We all fell for Hondo Lane, the hero of the book, and the rest of the trip we kept searching for our own Hondo in every man we saw. None of us found him.

During the Wyoming portion of the trip we stopped off at Independence Rock. A part of LDS/Wagon train history that we were previously sort of oblivious too.

This is where my pictures begin. Here is the interpretive sign for the passive solar restrooms. I thought it was kind of neat.

This is our party just before we braved the small hike through the meadow and up the side of Independence Rock. (Heather, Me, Tanya, and Cindy). It was really windy, I was the only goofball to bring a wind breaking shell, thus I look over dressed for the occasion, but really everyone was really jealous of my preparation.
This is what it looked like on top of Independence Rock. The wind was so strong those gals are doing their best to look all casual and relaxed.

I have a pet peeve and I am finding that Wyoming and South Dakota seem to contribute to my displeasure. I have always had a problem with the overuse of the the letter "K". It is too frequently replaced in words to be cutesy and catchy for various businesses, but it makes me cringe and chose to walk on by the establishments that do such horrible things (Although I thought that Circle K mini mart and gas stations were acceptable.) I didn't get a picture of it, but in Wyoming they have mini marts called Kum and Go. Sorry, but that is wrong, just wrong, the word is COME, not Kum.

So on Independence Rock I could not pass up the picture of my nemesis, "K". The rock is covered with etched names and dates from the early pioneers, this was the halfway point for those traveling to California (my question is, halfway from where? What if you traveled from England? or New England? I am sure this is not the halfway point for them.)

A view of the valley, possibly very similar to what the pioneers would have seen from the top.

Our next stop was in the town of Lusk. I felt like this was one of those towns that was bordering on misuse of the letter K. This town was probably supposed to be the town of LUST, but someone thought it wouldn't be appropriate. You can see the town name on the water tower in the distance.

We stopped to view the Crazy Horse Monument as a preparatory activity, it is in the midst of carving and chiseling. Look closely, the iron sign is pointing at the rock in the distance that will be carved to look like the sign, eventually.


Before to long we made it to the KOA Camp in Keystone, SD, where we found our little comfy Kabin (KOA Campgrounds are one of those places I try to avoid do to the flagrant misuse of the letter "K".) This is the kind of things that places like KOA Camps inspire of wicked friends (this comes from Cindy's account of the trip):

Then we went to our Kabin. Through the kourse of the day, the weather had been pretty klear, but upon arriving at the KOA Kabin, the klouds burst forth into tumultuous rain showers. We almost kried. But we decided to keep going and try to see what we kould see, kome rain or shine.
Next stop: Mt. Rushmore! We went Saturday evening with the plan of returning to the presidents several more times during the weekend (to make our parking pass earn it's keep) but we got so mesmerized by all the cool things to see and do in South Dakota that mostly we just drove by to pay our respects.





The fun thing about this trip was that Cindy currently has a crush on Roosevelt and I on Jefferson. Last year, when we were spending Memorial Day in DC, Cindy had a crush on Lincoln and I on Washington. So Mt. Rushmore is a perfect destination spot for us. See, fun.

Here are a bunch of shots of Washington (he was the easiest to isolate otherwise I would have done this for Jefferson).





We left for a few hours to get food and visit the shops in Keystone, SD. That was a treat. It felt like I was in Tahoe, CA or Skagway, AK walking through the tourist trap and having to subject ourselves to all the tourist crap that they sold. The thing I voted the most random and crapiest piece of trash in the shops: A plastic soft-squeeze popcorn ball. The clerk defended it's position in the store because it is one of those toys that alleviates home sickness. That was the most hilarious.

After we took in all of Keystone we headed back to Mt. Rushmore for the evening ceremony, the first for the year. This included a Park Ranger giving a small talk, watching a brief patriotic movie, all past and present military men in the audience were invited to retire the flag, and the Presidents were lit up with lights. Very pleasing. (There are no more pictures now, you'll have to go here to see any more.)

Then to our Kabin in the woods to sleep and rest ourselves for the next day of adventures.

The next morning we awoke ate pancakes and visited with some Fort Collin's students, one of which was complaining about not having enough beer to drink for breakfast. They were fun guys, we hoped to meet up with them again, alas we did not.

Then we headed over to church in Rapid City. After which we drove out to the Badlands, where we took a leisurely stroll in the park and visited a prairie dog village. Then it was time to return back to our KOA Kabin. On the return trip we stopped at Wall Drug (I only knew about this place because of Ellen, it is infamous to her, it is the place she almost lost her life to a semitruck). Apparently this is a very happening place and very famous for it's free ice water and useless tourist crap. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,ooo people stop in daily during the summer months. That means they employ a ton of students for the summer to answer dumb questions, clean up after dumb and dirty tourists, and sell dumb things to dumb people (can you tell I once worked in the tourist industry where everyday thousands of tourists stepped off their cruise ship and immediately asked what was the elevation.)

We slept once again in our KOA Kabin in Keystone, SD. The next morning we once again had pancakes. I think I might have met my Hondo this time, but I was to shy to do more than pay him for the pancakes and wonder if he was Hondo or not. No matter, we had better things to do. We were off for Sturgis. But before heading to the land of hogs and leather we detoured and saw a few of the pigtail bridges near Keystone. Those were really cool. I highly recommend driving through all of them if you are ever in the neighborhood. We learned first hand that Sturgis is one big boring T-shirt store if there is no motorcycle rally happening. But this wasn't to much of a bother, we had one more stop before the day was through: Devil's Tower.

Devil's Tower was AWESOME. It is hard to put into words how neat this geologic feature is. If you have a chance, go there. We visted on a wet and rainy day, it was perfect, not too hot and not too cold, and the colors were so vivid. If I was ever going to be a rock climber this would be the place that would inspire me to climb. I really wanted to be on the top of Devil's Tower, to look out and around and to feel the wind on my face, wind that couldn't be felt by those on the ground below.

Then we finished the long drive home and parted company. A very nice and inspiring trip. I know have another favorite state where I could potentially live, South Dakota (western half).