South Dakota: Mount Rushmore and the Badlands
The flight to meet my family in SD is about 2.5 hours. 2.5 hours is approximately the amount of time that the kid three rows behind me insisted on screaming and crying while his mother just sat there and told him to “stop.” Seriously and honestly, I have flown more this year than probably ever before, and I take lots of trips and this was the WORST FLIGHT IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! I have never been so close to strangling a child before in my whole life!! Ok, that last part is not true ’cause I don’t believe in child abuse, but SERIOUSLY!!! OK….moving on.
I arrived into Rapid City, SD to meet my parents who were standing at the arrival door hanging American flags and had the biggest smiles on their faces. Oh man, it’s nice to be “home!” Mom said that one of the people at the airport asked her if she had a child serving in the war overseas and she was like “Well, No…” and had to explain. I found that pretty entertaining. The first night in Rapid City we headed to the hotel room where I got to share with them a few things I picked up while during my travels in Chile and South America. We stayed up a bit talking and just goofing around…but pretty soon the jet lag kicked in and it was bed time for us!
Our first full day in Rapid City we drove to the neighboring town, Keystone, and shopped until we dropped. Kinda. We walked through town enjoying the trinkets and black hills gold. After we had picked out enough souvenirs to fill a suitcase, we attempted the drive out to Mount Rushmore. As we got closer the fog thickened and it was near impossible to see. We drove into the gates, but it was useless ’cause you couldn’t see more than 20 feet ahead of you.
We decided to head back to the hotel to relax and spend some quality time. Jackie and I spent some time shopping and tanning while Mom had her online class and then it was off to Godfather’s. I love love love their pizza!!! I crave it here even. After dinner we took advantage of the remaining hours of pool time.
When Jackie and I were younger, we used to spend a lot of time in hotel pools. With all of the trips to the cities, dance competitions and even the Florida trip, some of the best memories were created in the pool decks of several hotels. Jackie and I have always been a fan of the water, and from the days of arm floaties to just a few months ago, it was hard to get us to finally get out of the pool and back to the room for bed. The SD hotel pool was no different. Well, kinda. This pool was fully equipped with a tossy, twirly slide that was actually pretty exciting to ride. None of us were really sure if we wanted to venture onto this hotel slide…but soon enough Dad gets out of the water and starts climbing the ladder like it’s some kind of challenge. And of course we can’t let him try this slide on his own, so Jackie and I followed close behind. WOW! I really can’t believe how fun this slide was!! We started competing to see who could make the biggest splash at the end and even the little kids were starting to get mad ’cause we kept taking all the time on the slide. haha! Overall, a great night! It was just like old times again.
The next day we ventured out to Mt. Rushmore again, this time having much more success than the first. The sights were beautiful! It’s hard to believe that someone could carve these meticulous structures out of that big rock! After about a 1,000 pictures, we took the long walk around the monument and enjoyed the weather. We had a long drive home and still had to check off the Badlands in SD off our list, so we headed out in the opposite direction towards Sturgis. Makes sense, right? Nah, we wanted to be able to check that one off the list too, so we stopped for some souvenirs and back on the road. Farther down I-90, we stopped at Wall Drug (anyone driving on I-90 may have seen the signs) for lunch. We explored the small town that revolves around the giant drug store and collected some more souvenirs. I got a Black Hills gold ring that was SO pretty, I haven’t taken it off since.
Next stop was the Badlands National Park. This park was so much more satisfying than I really thought it may be. The sights were beautiful and I really didn’t realize how many rock formations and mountains SD really had. Most people give the midwest a hard time for being flat and boring…but this was really a sight to see! The Badlands NP took us through most of the afternoon. A 7 hour drive still ahead put us back in A-town around 2:00am. Thank you Mountain Dew!
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