The day began with another delicious breakfast at Peggy's Place. Chelsi and Allison got omelets, but I went with the pancakes. I was starving... so I told our waitress I wanted three. She looked at me and said, "Hun, these pancakes are huge. I doubt you could handle three." So... I ordered two. I couldn't finish them! They were delicious though.
On the way to breakfast we had seen a Wax Museum in town. We decided that since we had time, we'd stop by and see how much it was to get in and maybe take a look around. It was $10 to get in, and we decided not to pay that much. We settled for looking at the eccentric gift shop, and Allison went around a back hallway and took a peek at Bill Clinton and President Obama. I must admit, wax people look FREAKY.
While we were looking around the gift shop, Chelsi came across some artificial snow in a pouch that they were selling. It peaked our curiosity, so we asked the lady how it worked. She took out her pouch and measuring cup and was anxious to tell us how the polymer binds to the water to make snow. It looked like snow and it was cold and wet. We were almost convinced to buy some!
After our adventure with the fake snow, it was time to go to Mount Rushmore! The car ride was a long one because we were so excited even though we were really close. We paid to park and ran up the stairs. Here are some of the many pictures we took at Mount Rushmore. We even saw a nanny goat at the top of a rock on the way to our tour! There are some pictures of the tour. The lady did an excellent job of telling us everything we could ever know about Mount Rushmore. I highly enjoyed learning all these new things!
I must share this story because it was so cool. Chelsi and I were looking at books in the Visitor's Center when I picked up a book with a guy's face on it who worked on the carving of Mount Rushmore. I thought it was really interesting. Turns out... later in the day when we made it into the gift shop near the end of the day, we turned the corner... and the same guy was sitting there who I had just referenced earlier! We had to get a picture with him. We talked to him for a long time and asked him a lot of questions. I asked him how it felt to be suspended in those little chairs while working on the mountain. I told him I'd be terrified! He told me how safe it was and that after a while they upgraded to a sturdier kind of chair. He even had pictures of everything so he could give us a visual reference. It was an honor to meet someone who had worked on the faces that are now Mount Rushmore.
After Mount Rushmore, we decided to go on Iron Mountain Road to check out the tunnels everyone had been talking about. This is where we decided to take some special pictures JUST for Poppie...
We stopped outside the tunnels to take the pictures with the tripod. The funniest thing about the tunnels- you have to stop outside the tunnel and honk your horn really loud before you can go through because it's only big enough for one car at a time. So, while we were talking these pictures, people would drive by and stop, look at us, laugh, honk, then go through the tunnel. We got a kick out of the people looking at us while we were taking these for Poppie! Too bad the sun was so bright that you can't even see Mount Rushmore in the background even though we specifically made it to where you could see it through the trees. Do you like the Grandpa hats Poppie gave us? These next pictures are just some funny ones we took in the tunnel. The first one is super cute, then the middle is us freaking out because a car honked. Good times! I decided to add it because we look so funny.
After our adventures in the tunnel, we headed to the town of Keystone to grad a bite to eat. We chose to eat at a place called Red Garter Saloon because we were told good things about it. We were all craving salad (we're becoming way too much alike), so we got some beautiful salads to eat. The top picture is a shirt with the restaurant's logo. The second picture is of my delicious salad!
After our delicious and healthy salads... it was time to ruin the night with ice cream!!! We couldn't help ourselves. Everyone around us had ice cream in their hands, and it was taunting us. We had to get some! You can't see the other ice cream, but I had Rocky Road, Chelsi had strawberry cheesecake, and Allison had mint chocolate chip and cake batter. Delicious!
Now it was time to explore the town. We walked up and down this little tourist town, and saw some interesting things like wolf-skin rugs, bear-skin rugs, and people making taffy. The girls even tried to convince me to buy this shirt! I didn't think it was bright enough.
As we were leaving Keystone to go to the Black Hills. As we were leaving town, it was right on the hour, and they were preparing for their gun show in the middle of the street. We had our windows rolled down and were stopped at a red light when one of the actors, all dressed up for his role in the gun fight, had a whip in his hand and said to us... "You girls need a whippin'?" We laughed so hard and said no thanks, and then began to talk about how tall the guy was. A guy later told us he was 7 foot 2!
It was off to the Black Hills! On the way we stopped and looked through one of those huge binocular-like things to see Mount Rushmore really magnified. It was interesting. After we went through the Black Hills, it was off to Custer State Park to try and find some Big Horn Sheep, Buffalo, Pronghorns, and the like. We were there for a long time! The drive was beautiful.
The first animals we saw upon entering Custer were pronghorns. Not just any pronghorns... ...but gravel eating pronghorns.
Below is a map of Custer. Do you see the black circle? That's where we came into the park. Do you see the green circle? We travelled the entire loop that surrounds that green circle. It was breathtaking and beautiful. There were a ton of buffalo! We didn't find any bighorns though. Apparently a disease called Wastings disease. It had currently killed off 60% of the population. We were sad, but still kept an eye out.
The top picture is of me and my new boyfriend! Seriously though... we pulled into this parking lot and the donkies walked right to us. Someone must have given them peanut butter because their tongues would not go in their mouths!
We headed back to town to take our Western picture! We were so excited, and we had to much fun. We got to dress up in Western clothes and I got to hold a HUGE (real) rifle! I had a copy of the picture, and if you want to see if you have to ask me. Either that or I'll take a picture of it and post it on a later blog. It's such an awesome picture! The guy taking our picture thought we were so much fun that he took a lot instead of just two or three. We had a really great time and couldn't stop smiling since we got to dress up and hold guns!
It was getting late, and we were hungry, but everything was closed. We talked to the guy who took our pictures and he recommended a pizza place down the road. We hopped in the car and hurried inside. The smell of pizza filled the air and we were starving, so we went up and ordered. The lady said these would be to go because she was trying to get out of there. We were just happy she served us, so we took our personal cheese pizzas and ate inside of my car. It was so cold outside! I loved how cold it got at night.
After we were full of pizza, it was time to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to Interior, South Dakota. That's where our last cabin awaited us. Little did we know that the night was going to get a lot more interesting...
I chose to make the drive since it was dark and I was the most awake. No speeding this time! I have to describe the drive to you. Imagine a pitch-black sky hugging a two lane road. Imagine mountains leaning against the pitch-black sky that are somehow so much darker than the night sky that you could trace the outline with your fingers. It was beautiful. Then, imagine that there are no lights on this road but your own... and a few small reflectors. Imagine that the moonlight is so bright that it lights up the road in front of you more than your headlights do. The light from the moon was blinding and entrancing. I loved the beauty of the drive.
We made it into the town of Interior and I woke up the girls so we could find our campground. Here's where the night gets interesting. We took out our papers and plugged the address to the campground into the Garmin. We had made it a point to call the woman at the campground earlier in the day to get an address. However... the Garmin didn't know where the address was. We took out our map, and found the small stretch of highway that the camp should have been on. We drove and drove and searched for this place. Are you kidding? Where is it? We got to a stop sign and decided to pull out the big guns. After some time passed, we were getting desperate so I decided to take out my phone and see if I could get internet to search for any number we could call to talk to a human. None of them worked. Three numbers later, I told the girls to hold on while I tried something. I searched Google for police stations near Interior, South Dakota. Found nothing. I finally found a number and we called it. It was a woman in Rapid City. We told her that this was not an emergency, but that we were lost. She was the nicest lady I've ever spoken to and she kept trying to figure out where we were from us describing our surroundings. After trying to find out where we were, she asked us to do her a favor. "Do me a favor. Call 911 and ask for Michelle. If you get the Indian Reservation, hang up and try again. That way, I can get your coordinates and find out where you are." So... we hung up, and called 911. An odd feeling came over me knowing that we had just dialed 911 for the first time ever. She answered "911, what's your emergency?" "Is Michelle available?" Using my cell phone, she knew exactly where we were. She then asked us to follow her directions, and we eventually pulled into a place that had a completely different name than the information we had gathered online. The online form said Badlands Interior Campground and Motel. Turns out... the sign for the place said Budgethost Motel and Campground. No wonder we were so confused! When Chelsi and Allison left the car to search for the key to our cabin, the lady stayed on the phone with me and asked to remain on the phone until we were inside the cabin. She asked me the usual questions like where we were from, what we were doing in South Dakota... and finally the girls came back and we found our cabin. It was quite an interesting night, so we hung up with Michelle and collapsed into our beds.
The next morning we slept in and then got up to search for food. We packed up my car, checked out, and asked the cute guy behind the counter where to eat in town. He told us we had to go into the Badlands and eat at the restaurant near the visitor's center. It was either that or meatloaf at a gas station. As we were leaving the campground, we found the sign that we were so desperately looking for the night before... which was covered by two 18 wheelers who had parked there when we were looking for it. NO WONDER WE COULDN'T FIND IT...
Hungry and tired of this campground, we headed into the Badlands. We found a place to eat and we each ordered the Souix Indian Taco. It was Indian fry bread with Buffalo chili, cheese, lettuce, and olives. I put salsa on mine also. It was so delicious, we decided to ask our waitress for the recipe. She told us that it was a secret (of course) and that the cook's grandmother gave it to him so he refused to give it up to anyone. Oh well... Google can probably show us how to make Indian fry bread!
Now we were ready to take on the Badlands! We hopped in the car, rolled the windows down, and the view was outrageously beautiful. Words cannot describe it. There was not a single cloud in the sky and it was really hot, but the Badlands were just so beautiful that I could have stayed there and gawked for hours. And we did... I took so many pictures, but will only share a few.
Before we headed home, we had one last stop. Jessica had told us about the town of Wall, and said we had to stop there and check it out. So... of course we had to!
Alright... so what I expected was that it'd be a Wal-Mart type building with a lot of random stuff. Instead, you walk in and there are tons of hallways, doors, rooms... it was like a mall or something with secret hallways.
We had some ice cream, a light lunch, and walked around a lot. We were there for a really long time and still didn't see everything they had. We did see the flying Jackelope! Don't forget my Call from Wall! Even though I didn't actually call anyone...
We got home safely around 2:30 am that night. We then got up bright and early to work the next morning, and everyone was extremely eager to hear all of our stories. It was hard to condense them all, so I said they'd just have to keep a lookout for my blog. The 911 story was the biggest hit, and they still tease us about it. I am glad to be able to share our journey with you and hopefully sometime this week I can write and share pictures from when Chelsi, Jesse and I did water quality monitoring with a group of highschool kids from a group called Upward Bound. Tomorrow Chelsi is doing Kids in Parks, and I am doing a campfire from 12-8. It will be fun, and hopefully there will be pictures!
NICE BLOG POST LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE HAVING FUN. LOVE, YOUR BROTHER
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