So, yesterday was our day to actually "visit" South Dakota. We left Rapid City (sadly without having tried out the indoor water park) and drove to Mount Rushmore. I think we were both a little unsure what to expect, as far as how big the sculpture would actually be (or I was, at least.) As we drove up through the Black Hills, it was snowy and lined with pine trees...and suddenly you get a glimpse of the mountain! We finally arrived and walked up to the Visitor Center. Besides the actual sculptures, there are some walking trails and a museum. Of course, the snow prevented us from getting on the trails, but we got some decent photos. We learned there would be a ranger talk at 10:00, so we hung around for that, which lasted about a half hour. We learned about the history of the area and the mountain, how it got its name, why they decided to carve and how they chose who would be on it. We also got to see some mountains goats. Afterward, we went down to the museum and saw a video about the history and one about the plants and wildlife in the park. Our pictures are kind of sad because they all have water running down their heads, but it's definitely worth a visit.
As we continued our drive, we saw signs for one of the world's biggest tourist traps, Wall Drug. The array of different items being advertised on these billboards was just too much to pass up...free ice water (the brilliant idea of the owner's wife back when the store had yet to build a reliable customer base in the 30's), an 80' dinosaur, an old-timey art gallery, free donuts and coffee for honeymooners...to name a few. It's in the town of Wall, which wasn't too far off our route, so we had to stop. Congratulations to Craig who won our Facebook photo game, featuring this must-see! It's kind of hard to explain...it's really a bunch of smaller stores all attached to a pharmacy, like an indoor mall...and you can't forget the backyard area with photo props, and the arcade building with the animatronic dinosaur.
From there, we drove over to Badlands National Park, which is made up of crazy rock formations, prairie lands and fossils, dating 34-25 million years ago. When we arrived, on the opposite end from the Visitor Center, we were told at the entrance that the main road was being worked on, but we could proceed - it turned out to be miles of dirt and gravel, so it was a sloooow drive through, but we were able to get some nice photos at that speed. We decided to get to the Visitor Center and then choose a short trail to visit, since we would have to backtrack. The Visitor Center has a museum dedicated to all the animals that had been part of the park's history, including the ancestors of many animals we know today. While Badlands looks like it should have been home to dinosaurs, we learned it had been underwater at the time, so they had crazy prehistoric marine life. We chose the very, very short Fossil Trail, which has fossil display cases along the route. From there, we drove out of the park and on to Sioux Falls, SD, really just a stop-over to break up the driving.
Not to get too much into it, but our Motel 6 in Sioux Falls was by far the worst hotel we've stayed in...we don't recommend it...enough said. We were actually in such a rush to get out this morning that we were up and at breakfast by 7:30 AM.
Our day today was mostly driving. Our friend Ariel had told us about a huge Jolly Green Giant cutout in Minnesota that we should check out...it had appeared to be on our route, in Le Seuer, but we had forgotten about it. As we approached Blue Earth, MN today, we saw a billboard for a 3D Jolly Green Giant...so, we had to stop and get a look. Turns out, Le Seuer is the birthplace of JGG, but for some reason, Blue Earth went ahead and one-upped them with this 60' tall fiberglass 3D version...good times.
We decided to spend the night in Milwaukee, WI, after much debate on which route to take to get to Chicago. Turns out there are actually a couple of interesting tourist traps here that we'll be able to do tomorrow. They also have a nice River Walk area downtown, which we went to tonight for dinner. We wound up at a fun cheese shop, The Wisconsin Cheese Mart, that is also a small restaurant and bar, with cheese, beer and wine tastings...it kind of doesn't get much better than that combination. We started off with some wine and beer and did a cheese tasting. Then on to dinner: ham and cheese panini for me and a Usinger's Famous Sausage bratwurst for Andy...delicious.
So, yesterday was our day to actually "visit" South Dakota. We left Rapid City (sadly without having tried out the indoor water park) and drove to Mount Rushmore. I think we were both a little unsure what to expect, as far as how big the sculpture would actually be (or I was, at least.) As we drove up through the Black Hills, it was snowy and lined with pine trees...and suddenly you get a glimpse of the mountain! We finally arrived and walked up to the Visitor Center. Besides the actual sculptures, there are some walking trails and a museum. Of course, the snow prevented us from getting on the trails, but we got some decent photos. We learned there would be a ranger talk at 10:00, so we hung around for that, which lasted about a half hour. We learned about the history of the area and the mountain, how it got its name, why they decided to carve and how they chose who would be on it. We also got to see some mountains goats. Afterward, we went down to the museum and saw a video about the history and one about the plants and wildlife in the park. Our pictures are kind of sad because they all have water running down their heads, but it's definitely worth a visit.
Not to get too much into it, but our Motel 6 in Sioux Falls was by far the worst hotel we've stayed in...we don't recommend it...enough said. We were actually in such a rush to get out this morning that we were up and at breakfast by 7:30 AM.
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