Rushmore and the Badlands

Miles on Lucy: 64,090
Hollow metal dinosaurs passed: 4
Buffalo Jerky pieces eaten: 1

Yesterday was our first 'official' day of the trip. After touring around Minneapolis with the fam on Sunday (picture highlights posted on facebook), we set out early Monday morning for Mount Rushmore. Nacho and Cheese are staying with the family Raines for the summer. I got overly concerned about Nacho feeling like I abandoned him or that he might not remember me since I won't see him until possibly Thanksgiving. But after reading no fewer than three scholarly articles on dog memory and their anachronistic nature, I felt a little better. That, and I watched that YouTube video of that lion seeing his handler after 20 years like four times.

 

an early photo of the bud.

 So we barrel across southwest Minnesota and eastern South Dakota. In case you're wondering, the Plains are exactly that. They're also flat. Like, I was hoping to see a  cow just to break the monotony. We pass the time quizzing each other from a trivia book we brought and listening to a great account called 1491 about what the Americas were like before Columbus. A whole lot like this, is my guess.

Minus one gas-up /lunch at the Buffalo Ridge Gas and Gift Shop- complete with live Buffalo Herd and an anamatronic ape in a tuxedo who plays the piano- we don't stop until we cross the Missouri River. There's a nice scenic overlook that marks a spot where Lewis and Clark camped out for a few days. If crossing the US at 75 miles per hour takes several days, can you imagine doing it on foot- with no maps- and a pesky native girl who keeps asking to be on your money and after like a month you're like fine but the joke's on her because you know no one will use a $1 coin? I'm pretty sure that's how it happened.

Snakes!

 Western South Dakota is the foothills of the Badlands and Black Hills, incredible rock formations that we can see from the highway. They stick up like knotty, gnarled fingers from the otherwise flat expanse of the Prairie. The landscape becomes more interesting, with rolling hills and high bluffs. We know we're getting close after we pass Wall Drug- an infamous tourist trap that everyone stops at only because they're so bored of looking at corn.

 We pass our hotel in Rapid City and head straight to the memorial. Everyone has seen Mt. Rushmore a thousand times in photos and history books, so I figured it would look just like that. However, there's something surreal about actually standing in the shadow of four of the men who made this country what it is today. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the South- these four men are arguably responsible for more of it than any others in history. There's a sort of reverence about this place that we feel immediately upon entering. We got there after all the gift shops and cafes had closed- we were among only a handful of people milling around. A nice family from Anchorage snapped some photos, we walked around a bit more, and left. Those 30 minutes were completely worth the 9 hours of cornfields. 

After quite possibly the best Indian/Nepalese food we've ever had (I know, right?) we head to downtown Rapid City for a local beer and to plan the next day's drive. After today we'll be officially through the Midwest.