South Dakota (Mt Rushmore, Badlands)

By Michael

It was the Fourth of July, and the day split us up before it brought us back together. Kathy, Lisa and Thomas set out driving from Iowa in the early morning, west across South Dakota on I-90, past the giant bull at Porter Sculpture Park and on to Chamberlain, where they spent time at the Dignity statue overlooking the Missouri River, with its beadwork sky and the story of the South Dakota tribes told out on the signs around it.

I flew separately, Grand Rapids to Denver to Rapid City, watching the plains go by from the window. They kept driving west past the Badlands and the dinosaur marking the Wall Drug exit, then came to the airport at Rapid City to meet my flight as it got dark. We stood out by the airfield and watched fireworks go up for the Fourth before driving on to Custer for the night.

By Michael

We started the day at Crazy Horse Memorial, walking through the museum at the Welcome Center before getting our first look at the mountain carving from the plaza. Lisa found the big scale model of the finished monument out on the deck and posed in front of it, grinning.

From there we drove to Mount Rushmore. We walked past the rows of state flags to Grand View Terrace for the four faces, then took the Presidential Trail down through the trees, past the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Heritage Village tipis and a deer grazing just off the path. Lisa signed I love you for a photo partway down. Coming back up the 425 stairs left us all winded.

After lunch at Big Thunder Bar and Grill in Keystone, we spent the afternoon at Rush Mountain Adventure Park, riding the mountain coaster down through the trees and working our way across the Wingwalker Challenge Course high above the ground. Kathy threw her arms up at the top of it.

Custer State Park stopped us cold, a whole herd of bison and calves walking right down the middle of the road with cars backed up behind them. We waited them out, then picked up Needles Highway, stopping for the sunset among the granite spires before threading the rock formations and one of its narrow tunnels in the last light. Back at the hotel in Custer we sat out by the fire pit before calling it a night.

By Michael

We started the day with breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express in Custer, then drove out to Wall Drug in Wall. Lisa rode the giant jackalope out front, and we took turns on the bucking bronco and the stagecoach statues before wandering the shops that line the old storefront arcade. We had lunch at the Prairie Food Parlor, hot dogs from the counter, and picked up a mug and a t-shirt warning us not to pet the fluffy cows.

On the way to Badlands National Park we stopped at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, walking through the exhibits on the Cold War missile fields that once sat under this part of South Dakota.

Inside the park we stopped at the first overlook, where a sign explained the Badlands Wall, and Lisa signed I love you for the camera with the striped rock behind her. We climbed out onto the spires along the Door Trail, Thomas and Lisa scrambling up onto the ledges, and walked the boardwalk at Cliff Shelf Nature Trail. At the Ben Reifel Visitor Center we looked through the fossil displays and got to touch a 32 million year old fossil tortoise shell. We drove the loop road past Yellow Mounds Overlook, where the hills turn yellow and red, and out the park's west entrance in the late afternoon.

We drove back to Custer for dinner at Pounding Fathers, then back to the Holiday Inn Express for the night.