Day 5 (2014) - Mary Tyler Who?

After two days of "livin' on the edge" the final day of our short trip was relatively tame in comparison. The day began with a 10:30 reservation for brunch at a restaurant in Minneapolis called Hell's Kitchen that was recommended by Alan Nadel (2nd day in row for Alan credits, by the way).  He had been there a while back while in town for a family wedding, and said it was a "must do" while we were there.  Luckily he told me about it well in advance of our our trip so I was able to make a reservation.

We arrived at the busy restaurant a little before our reservation time, and were seated almost immediately.  Alan had said that the corn pancakes ("Big, house-made cornmeal/buttermilk pancakes dusted with powdered sugar and served with pure maple syrup") were "the best pancakes" he had ever had, so I wasn't even going to look at the menu (when Alan tells me to do something, I do it, have been for almost 30 years so why stop now?).

But when we asked the waiter about it, he actually said that the lemon ricotta pancakes ("Here are the hotcakes that put us on the map. Three melt-in-your-mouth hotcakes made with freshly-grated lemon zest and whole milk ricotta cheese. Served with fresh berries and pure maple syrup") were the best sellers.  So, Brian and I decided to share and placed orders for both types and we would each have half of each plate.  Brian also took the opportunity to get a side of Buffalo tater tots ("So popular in Minnesota, these are practically a food group"), made with his beloved Buffalo hot sauce, not buffalo meat.

Ethan went with an egg-based meal, and Amanda decided to go solo on an order of the corn pancakes. Debbie tried to stay good and ordered scrambled eggs with some sides.  However, the waiter also mentioned that another best seller was their sausage bread, which was described on the menu like this "Yes the name IS strange, but trust us on this deliciously dense bread made with sausage, toasted walnuts, black currants, spices, and black coffee. Go on, now...be brave and try it! Those who do usually grab entire loaves to take back home as gifts."  Not exactly gluten-free, but it sounded too good for her to pass up so she ordered a serving.

It's sausage, it's bread, how you beat that?

Well, they weren't just whistling Dixie with their comment about ordering more, since the first order was gone in about 20 seconds so we immediately ordered another serving.  What enhanced the sausage bread even more (not that it really needed enhancement) was their homemade peanut butter (available creamy or crunchy) and jelly that was so good you could just eat it plain. 

Mouth watering yet?  Mine is.

After devouring the second helping of the sausage bread, our brunch meals arrived, and (sorry, Alan) the waiter was right - the lemon ricotta pancakes were in fact superior to the corn pancakes.  The corn pancakes were really good, but as was the consensus opinion, the lemon ricotta pancakes tasted like "gran'ma's lemon cake."  And to give equal billing, let it be known that one of my favorite things that my mother used to make when we hosted Break The Fast was also a lemon cake, so in fairness, to me it was like both of their lemon cakes.

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

No, those Buffalo tater tots aren't made from Buffalo meat

Amanda with the corn pancakes

"I like eggs"

That empty plate used to contain sausage bread

Before we got our food, we had looked at the dessert menu and were eyeing a few items that looked outrageously good, but after the (laurel and) hearty brunch food were all stuffed.  We also checked out the bathrooms, which were not quite Stoneville Saloon styled, but unique nonetheless, with holograms all over the place.

From straight away

From the side

I paid the bill, we took some photos outside (the kids were so excited to do this) and headed out into Minneapolis. Our first post-brunch stop was a quick walk to the Mary Tyler Moore statue that sits outside a Macy's store.  For anyone maybe 35-40 years old or older, no explanation is needed on who Mary Tyler Moore is, or why there would be a statue in Minneapolis of her.  But for our kids, we got some version of "Who is that?" when we told them where we were heading.   (FYI, there's also a Fonzie statue in Milwaukee, which would likely elicit the same replies).  We quickly found the statue, Debbie did her best MTM impression (much to the embarrassment of all three kids) and we were done with the statue.

They can turn the world on with a smile

We had done a little research in the morning about what to do after brunch, and decided to try out the Mill City Museum in town.  Evidently, Minneapolis used be known as a mill town, generating much of the country's flour, that is until the whole block of mills blew up, which was a bit of a downer.  One of the mills was turned into a museum on the history of the industry, so that's where we headed, only agreed up by the kids when we told them there were supposedly some hands-on exhibits there.

We hopped on a free bus that took us down the street because we were under the impression that the museum was pretty close to where the bus would drop us off.  Well, not so much.  After about a 15 minute walk, and after about 1500 "are we almost there" questions, we arrived at the mill.

The museum exhibit starts out with a 19 minute movie on the history of Minneapolis, followed by a show not unlike the Carousel of Progress at Disney that recreated different scenes from the old mill. This was all somewhat interesting, but the kids only really sprung to life when we then went to the hands-on area and they were able to play with things like water tables and the like.

After wrapping up at the mill and taking some photos outside (natch), we decided to walk back to the car using the various indoor walkways that Minneapolis has installed that connects most of the downtown buildings.  The walkways enable the people downtown to get around during the winter when the weather is bad.  This leads me to ask, how bad are the winters in Minneapolis that they needed to break holes in every building to build these walkways?  Answer, they must have REALLY harsh winters.  Anyway, the thrill of going through the walkways back to car wore off after about 5 minutes (they weren't air conditioned and it would likely take longer this way), so we headed back down to the street level and trudged back to the car.

Man, I'm short

By now the troops were tired, and the vote was to head back to the hotel for the afternoon.  So we did. The boys changed and went to the gym, Amanda put on her bathing suit and went for a swim while Debbie napped at the pool and I worked on the blog from earlier days.  I also took the time to check out StubHub for tickets to that night's Twins-Tigers game.  Since none of us are Twins or Tigers fans, I didn't want to spend a ton of money on the tickets, and settled for tickets in the left field bleachers.  And since no one was selling 5 seats, I had to buy one set of 4 tickets and one set of 2 tickets in the same section.  The good news was the set of 4 tickets were in the front row (the other two tickets were in the 8th row).  Eventually the boys joined us at the pool for a bit, then I woke up Sleeping Beauty and we headed up to the room to change for the evening.

One thing I have neglected to mention thus far about the hotel in Minneapolis is that when we checked in the clerk at the desk said he upgraded us to a "special" floor and also gave me free WiFi and an access code that would enable us to get unlimited snacks and drinks from the vending machines (which happened to be right outside our door).  You would have thought that he had given us unlimited access to Fort Knox, because we kept raiding the snack machine like we were heading into battle or something.  We loaded up on Hershey's bars, chips and M&Ms to the point where I was afraid we might need another piece of luggage if we were going to take the extras home (we did bring them home, but since we ate a lot of what we killed there was room).

After freshening up, we headed back into Minneapolis for the game.  I pulled into a parking lot about 2 blocks from Target Field (which cost me all of $5 for the evening) and we headed to the game.  We found our seats (well, really bleacher seats with backs) and settled in.  At various points throughout the game (won by Justin Verlander and the Tigers, by the way) we headed out to get dinner.  I have to say, even though Target Field is a relatively new park, the food is more traditional ballpark food - lots of burgers, hot dogs, chicken fingers and sandwiches, etc.  Not a lot of local or unique foods, although Brian was happy to have found the one stand that sold burritos.  The kids ventured out on their own about halfway through the game for Dippin' Dots (because, you know, that is the ice cream of the future, has been for about 20 years) and later on I was the good husband and walked halfway around the stadium to get mint chip (officially peppermint) ice cream for Debbie (and cookie dough for me).  By the end of the 7th inning the gang had seen enough (with nary a home run to show for our prime ball-catching seats) and we headed back to the hotel.  We got back to the hotel pretty quickly, packed most of the luggage for the flight the next morning and called it a night.

Must be in the front row!

Luckily, the girl with the big hair (no, not Debbie) hadn't arrived
yet to sit next to Debbie, and by next to I mean basically on her lap

The flight from Minneapolis back to JFK was early in the morning (7:15 am) so we had to wake up pretty early to get to the airport, return the car and check in.  I dropped the rest of the family off (much more of a big deal in Minneapolis than in Rapid City) and headed to return the car.  What I had also failed to mentioned previously, was that in both JFK (where I dropped them off before heading to Long Term Parking - which at JFK is somewhere near Saskatchewan) and at the Minneapolis airports, the rest of my family was treated to "old school" security screening.  They did not have to take off their shoes or sweatshirts, nor take the laptop Ethan was carrying out of its bag.  I, on the other hand, must look like much more of a national security threat, since I was not granted this luxury and had to deal with all of the regular screening process at both airports.

The flight home, on the now seemingly huge 20-row plane (after two 13-row plane rides) was uneventful, and most of us closed our eyes for some portion of the flight, while I performed my role as backup bathroom guard to perfection.   

It's a crappy job, but someone has to do it

We got our checked bag back pretty quickly and headed to Saskatchewan via Air Tran to get our car.  At this point, the trip was over, and another fun, memorable, different, enjoyable family trip was in the books.

Until next time, if there is a next time...

Day 4 (2014) - Mall Rats (and Debbie the Good Sport - you will see why)

When we told the kids that we would be spending most of the day today at the Mall of America they looked at us like we were nuts, probably thinking something like "Why in the world would our parents have us spend a day of our annual trip at a mall?"  Well, as you may or may not know, the Mall of America isn't your everyday mall.  Sure, there are stores galore (at least three Lids stores, a few Foot lockers and multiple food courts), but this is much more than just a mall.  In addition to the stores, there is also an amusement park, an aquarium, a flight simulator, Barbie's Dollhouse, a CSI adventure, and various other entertainment locales.  When they told them this, their reaction went from "We're doing what today?" to "Oh, we get it now."

When we arrived, and they saw what was there, it made even more sense.  Pretty much right when we walked in we encountered the Nickelodeon-themed amusement park, with rides of all kinds.  When we eventually found where to buy tickets, we purchased 85 points worth of tickets.  Since the rides ranged from 3-6 points per ride, we figured this would be enough to satisfy the crew.  When we asked the kids which ride they wanted to go on first, Amanda immediately suggested the roller coaster.  We pointed out that the roller coaster started with a pretty steep initial drop followed by a few loops where you go upside down. She said she didn't care, and wanted to go on it. Brian passed on it, but Ethan said he would go with her.  As they waited in line, Debbie watched as others went on the ride, and became quite concerned that the ride was too much for Amanda.  It was at this point that Brian noticed the faces Debbie was making every time the ride took off, and asked for Ethan's cell phone.

[Commentary from Debbie, before you look at the photos:  Are you going to explain that I have a fear of roller coasters and misjudging how scary a ride can be, especially since Amanda's comment was "It's a Sponge Bob ride, how scary can it be?"]

What you will see next are some of the (real) faces he captured (and this was BEFORE our kids were even on the ride):

Not exactly "Livin' on the Edge."   Miraculously, they survived the ride (and went at least 3 more times throughout the day).

The Survivors

After this experience, Amanda felt emboldened and went on two other rides that brought back the fear in Debbie.  On one they flew around and ended upside down for much of the ride, and on the other (which Amanda did alone), she was on a winged car that she could control to do flips.

Can you call this "hair raising" if you are upside down?

The daredevil herself

While Amanda enjoyed her fearlessness, Debbie - not so much.  Eventually, we moved on to tamer activities, including the Aquarium, which was an OK aquarium, probably not worth the price I paid for admission.  We also went to a CSI exhibit where you had to pick a crime, review the evidence, and then try and figure out whodunit.  We all enjoyed the CSI exhibit, and clearly Debbie much prefers murders to scary rides.  Go figure.  We grabbed a food court lunch (Brian was able to get his coveted Chipotle, which is usually off limits during family trips), and went off to find more mall fun.

We paid to go through a mirror maze, which is like a corn maze, but with mirrors.  At first it seemed hokey, but once you got through the maze it merely felt, well, hokey.

Mirror, mirror on the walls, how do I get out of here?

We also went on a Buzz Lightyear type ride, where you had to shoot at targets.  Clearly my time in the Wild West did me good, because I was the runaway winner for most points (by more than double everyone else, but who's counting - I am!).

Fastest gun this side of Kolbeh

Before we wrapped up at the mall for the day, Debbie and Amanda hit the American Girl store for a new outfit for Amanda's doll (regrettably, we forgot to bring her doll so she couldn't get a new hairdo), while the boys and I killed time in a sports memorabilia store. 

By late-afternoon we left the mall and headed back to the hotel, where the kids relaxed for a bit, Debbie took a power nap and I started writing my blog.  Eventually I woke up sleeping beauty and we started discussing where to go for dinner.  I had looked up a few places online, and had also gotten some recommendations from a friend of Alan Nadel's, but when presented with all of the options and a vote was taken, it was decided that we would simply return to Cowboy Jack's next door.  So across the parking lot we went for another nice, easy meal.

If it ain't broke...

After dinner we just headed back to the hotel and called it a night.  Tomorrow's (final day) agenda includes brunch in Minneapolis (the Mall of America and our hotel are in Bloomington, about 15 minutes from Minneapolis), then we are going to play it by ear for the rest of the day, with an eye on the Twins-Tigers game at night.

Day 3 (2014) - Livin' On The Edge

The point of today was to cross off a couple of states from the Have Not Visited list - Wyoming and Montana.  Before we left on the trip, I had looked at a map and noticed that we were going to be on the western side of South Dakota, not far from both Wyoming and Montana.  Who knew when we would be back in this area again, so it seemed like a good time to visit both states, even briefly.  I tried to find something to do or someplace to eat in both states, and came up with a plan.  In Wyoming we would visit Devil's Tower National Monument, the country's very first official national park, and in Montana we would grab lunch at the Stoneville Saloon.  The whole trip, including the return to Rapid City should have taken about 4 hours of driving.

Since we passed on driving through Custer State Park the night before, we decided to take a little more of a scenic route to Devil's Tower, and drive through the Black Hills National Forest.  After utterly confusing our GPS lady for about 20 minutes, we entered the Black Hills National Forest, and we were mildly surprised to see many homes along the road.  We kind of assumed that a national forest would be mostly, if not totally, filled with trees and mountains.  It seems a little odd that they would have had to cut down trees in a national forest to build homes, but that's evidently just what happened.

To be honest, the ride through the forest, while scenic, wasn't really all that impressive.  At one point we had the option to catch up with a highway or make the trip continue on the scenic route, and despite our disappointment with the forest so far, we opted for the scenic route.  Good choice.  This part of the trip made the previous hour to hour and a half worth it.  There were mountains and babbling brooks - Debbie LOVED the brooks, and we got out to take a few pictures (and some of us marked our territory in the forest).

What a nice brook

Nature calls

This whole scenic route thing added quite some time to our trip, so by the time we got to Devil's Tower it was about 12:30 (we had left Rapid City around 9:30, with a short gas fill up).  Devil's Tower is a natural rock formation, the origins of which are somewhat in dispute, but if you ask our resident Earth Science expert (self-titled), he will tell you that it was due to an igneous intrusion, or something like that.  The site was quite impressive, but we really didn't have much to do there.  We weren't going to go for a hike, and we certainly weren't going to try and climb the rock (unlike some people we spotted on the rock), so after purchasing more clutter, and again marking our territory, albeit in a more conventional way, we were off.  I think we spent only slightly more time at Devil's Tower than Chevy Chase did at the Grand Canyon.  But hey, we were in Wyoming.

I'm thinking Close Encounters of the Third Kind

You have now spent as much time looking at
Devil's Tower as we did

Now we headed to Montana and lunch at the Stoneville Saloon.  I had found this place by locating the one (and only) actual town near the Wyoming-South Dakota border, Alzada, population 29, and the there was really only one choice for lunch.  The reviews of the place made it sound like a real western saloon, with sawdust on the floor and all the ambiance of what you would expect in a saloon, but where the food was surprisingly good.  The problem we had getting there was there was only one road from the Devil's Tower area, and there was a sign that said "Road Work Ahead - Consider An Alternate Route."  Unless we were going to somehow convert The Cube into a helicopter we had no choice.  So ahead we went.

Well, the road work sign significantly understated the work being done, because at some points the road turned to gravel, and then at one point we came to a stop where a worker had a hand-held stop sign.  We waited about 10-15 minutes for a "pilot car" to come to our location, and the once the pilot car turned around we started to follow it.  It was at this point that we understood the scope of the work. Basically, the road disappeared and we would have been better off in an ATV than in The Cube. Where there was once road (I only know that because the GPS said the speed limit where we were was supposed to be 65) there was nothing but dirt.  Eventually we got through the area and were back on real roads headed to Montana.

Alzada is really close to the Montana border, so shortly after we entered the state we took a quick left and the Stoneville Saloon came into sight.  It looked just like it did in pictures, and we parked and walked in.

Looks like any movie saloon you have ever seen

The first sign of trouble was the owner/cook behind the counter (who was adorned with a series of leopard spot looking tattoos along her arms and tattooed rings around her eyes) talking to a local cowboy while puffing on a cigarette.   

Since we were afraid to take a "live" photo of her,
here is the owner from a Google Image search.   This was
clearly from her younger, glamorous days.

There was no real "welcome to my restaurant" or even a simple greeting to acknowledge our presence - we were the only ones there besides the cowboy, who left shortly after we arrived - so we grabbed a booth by the door (easier to make an escape in case Josie Wales showed up and a gunfight erupted), and Miss Congeniality came over with our menus and asked if we wanted drinks.  We fell further on her bad side when we all opted for water. The look of disgust at that point should have had us headed for the door, but we were all really hungry. She returned with 5 waters, in red plastic cups, and asked if we were ready to order.

Fine dining

Most of us ordered hamburgers with tater tots (this part of the country is very big on tater tots). But then Debbie really made the lady mad when she ordered a cup of chili.  The owner's reply was "Just a CUP? You want something ELSE with that?  Maybe grilled cheese?"  In an effort to survive, Debbie decided to add sweet potato tater tots to her order (glad Debbie didn't order a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which for some reason was priced at $19.95 on the menu, versus about $3.95 for a burger).  Not sure that really placated our cheerful host.

Tater tots may have saved our lives

After about 10 minutes of cooking, Miss Happy Pants came back with our meals, again without a word uttered.  The food was actually pretty good, but we pretty much ate in silence, so as not to say or do anything that might further anger our gracious host.  I walked around and took some pictures, went to the uniquely decorated bathroom, picked up a shot glass for Brian's collection (likely a used one for all we know), and asked for the check.

Can't believe they copied our decorating!

Now what am I supposed to do with my chew??

Place your orders soon before they sell out

When she brought the check I informed her that we wanted to purchase the shot glass, and she nearly ripped the check back in disgust and added the $4 to the bill.  Still, I am glad I mentioned the shot glass because who knows what would have happened had we inadvertently walked out with the shot glass without paying for it. She returned with the updated check and I paid the bill and we hightailed it out of there and took some quick photos out front.

Stay classy, Alzada

Our rednecks

We got back into the car, and then Debbie uttered the line that her kids may never forget (or let her forget). I believe it went something like this "I like living on the edge, but that place creeped me out."  Well, the kids, especially the boys, erupted in laughter at the idea that Debbie "lives on the edge."  As Brian pointed out, maybe 78 times over the next 30 minutes, if the world was a big square, Debbie would live very close to the epicenter, with the edges barely in view. What Debbie meant, I believe, was that she likes to experience new places and things, which in fairness she does, as our trips have proven (the initial reaction to the pod up the St. Louis Arch notwithstanding).  All of this made for a very humorous ride back to South Dakota.

Our flight was at 6:30, and the GPS said we would get to the airport at 4:30.  The airport in Rapid City makes the airport in Portland look like JFK, so we knew we didn't need to be there 2 hours in advance. So, what to do?  Of course - MORE PIE!  We adjusted the GPS destination and headed to the Colonial House Restaurant where we were quickly seated and all ordered pie, Debbie this time also.  The kids all repeated their pies from the first night, while Debbie went for the chocolate cream pie and I chose the pie that had 4 different berries, which they called the Oregon Berry Pie.  Here are the description of the berries in the Oregon Berry Pie - blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and Marion berries.  I had obviously heard of the first three berries, but had no idea why a crack smoking, convicted felon, ex-Mayor of Washington, DC would have a berry named after him.  Regardless, the pies came and were all delicious and were gone in about 5 minutes.

If Marion Barry had stuck with pies containing
Marion berries he might still be the mayor of DC

We then left the restaurant and headed to the airport. We arrived at the airport a little after 5:00, and I dropped the rest of the family off while I went to return the rental car.  Normally, this is a long exercise, which is why I drop them off first to check in.  This time, I basically drove to the other side of the building, parked the car, dropped off the keys and met them inside the lobby.  We checked our one bag that needed to be checked and headed upstairs to go through security.  However, since there were all of 3 flights leaving Rapid City that night, and ours was first about an hour away, security was closed.  We hung out in the bar/restaurant area until they opened and went through.  The bad news was that I had forgotten that I put the large sunscreen bottle in Amanda's backpack, which I use during the days, so that bag got flagged and we had to toss the sunscreen.

We headed to the gate and waited for our plane to arrive.  It came in on time and we boarded the 13 row plane (same type of plane we took from Salt Lake City to Rapid City), gate checked the rest of our bags and took off for Minneapolis.  The flight was uneventful and only took an hour or so, but once we landed it took forever for us to get to the car rental.  First we had to walk a long way to the central area, then we had to take a tram to the baggage claim area, then once we picked up our bag we had another schlep to get to the rental car area.  We picked up our car from Hertz (a normal looking Dodge Caravan) and headed to the hotel.  This time I had booked an Embassy Suites, so it was like moving from a one-bedroom apartment to a 5-bedroom house.  The room seemed huge, and now everyone would be able to sleep in peace (although the double bed for Debbie and me is a little tight, but we will survive).

Everyone was hungry, so we started looking for places to eat.  When we parked the car at the hotel we noticed a restaurant next door, and when we asked about it at the front desk he said it was an American food/BBQ type place, so we opted for convenience and walked next door after dropping off our luggage.  Turns out the place was called Cowboy Jack's Saloon.  While it was the second saloon we ate at on this day, Brian's comment pretty much summarized the differences between the two saloons - "It's nice to eat at a restaurant where you aren't afraid of getting killed."

Quite an improvement from saloon #1

The food menu was extensive, and everyone found something they liked, and we enjoyed our meal in comfort with a very nice and friendly waitress, again a big difference from the lunch saloon.  The "living on the edge" jokes continued to the point where they started to get old (at least to Debbie and me, not the boys) and we also enjoyed the TVs and live music at the restaurant.  By this time it was very late, so after dinner we headed back to the hotel next door to grab some rest.

Tomorrow we will check out the Mall of America and see how the rest of the day goes to see what else we will do.

Day 2 (2014) - Dream Fulfilled

As I mentioned in the Day 1 post, the room we have here in SD is small, not Arthur's hooker's country small, but small nonetheless.  There are two queen sized beds for the 5 of us.  Ethan and Brian shared a bed, and in the morning Brian complained about Ethan's sleeping style.  But that had nothing on the restless night Debbie and I got thanks to the sleeping hurricane known as Amanda.  All I have to say is, when she gets married (MANY years from now) she must purchase a king sized bed.  Otherwise her husband (MANY years from now) will end up bruised and sleep deprived.  The girl just cannot sleep in one place for more than 5 minutes. She elbowed, kicked and crowded me, and Debbie reported the same.  I love my daughter, and enjoyed having her in the bed when she was a baby, but will be glad when she is in her own bed again.

If you saw the rest of me you would see I was dangling on the edge

But back to more important things - the day has finally arrived where The Volks will be visiting Mt. Rushmore.  After 4+ years of waiting, asking, planning, and many, many Amex miles, we woke up this day a short drive away from Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.  After a basic hotel breakfast, we piled into The Cube and headed off.  After about 30 minutes Washington became visible and then all four were seen from the highway.  We pulled into the parking lot and made a beeline for the monument (with a pit stop for some of us - read: me - to make a bathroom break).  We headed up the flag bordered walkway to the main viewing area and snapped about 4,765 pictures, because, you know, what if the first 4,674 weren't good.

1, 2, 3, 4 - yup all there

The Kids

The Men

Once we confirmed that all 4 presidents were still up there, (and after Amanda got her much anticipated shot of her picking one of the president's nose) we headed off to take different looks (again, because maybe we will see something different if we look from different angles).

This is why we schlepped to the middle of nowhere?

We headed to the right (an important and misguided idea), if looking at the presidents, and headed along a trail that lead to the sculptor's studio.  There we learned a little about the monument and the sculptor before we embarked on the President's Trail (or is it Presidents' Trail?) that would take us up closer. Before we started, we read a sign that called the trail a "strenuous walk" with 250 steps.  Being the workout mavens we are, we said "no problem" and headed out.  The kids bounded up the steps without much effort, while the elders in the group - read: me - started feeling burning legs somewhere around step #8.  Eventually we made it up the steps and got really good looks at the monument (and took another thousand or so pictures).

Up close and personal

So cool they have to wear shades (the kids, not the presidents)

The Trail is a loop that takes you back to the main viewing area, and (here is the reason going right was a big boo-boo) most of the way back was via a ramp, not steps.  Turns out, had we started out to the left we would have walked a ramp most of the way to the top of the Trail, then walked DOWN the 250+ steps. Oh well.

All the while when we were walking up and down the Trail, Debbie was looking for the "perfect" photo op location.  Last week she got an order for Photo Jewish New Year cards and when the customer sent the photo it turned out the photo was of her kids in front of Mt. Rushmore.  The photo was taken from a really great location, and we just couldn't figure out where they were when they took the photo.  When we were in the gift shop (you know, because we can't pass up a gift shop) Debbie showed the photo to the workers there and they also had no idea where the photo was taken.  So Debbie emailed her customer to see if she could help, and the customer emailed right back asking Debbie to call her.  After talking to the customer and getting a detailed description of the location, off we went.  Turns out the photo was taken down by the sculptor's studio, so down we went and there it was, the PERFECT spot.

The "Shot"

If we sent photo holiday cards, this would be the photo

After getting the perfect shot (and another whole bunch on the way out), we left Mt. Rushmore and headed down into town. 

Action shot

Keystone is a small, touristy town that likely would be an even smaller, non-touristy town if Mt. Rushmore was anyplace else.  The family was hungry so we stopped at a local restaurant, called Peggy's Place, for a quick bite where Brian and Amanda ordered the soup of the day - cheeseburger soup.  Yup, that's right, they make a soup out of all of the ingredients used to make a cheeseburger, with the exception of the bun.  We had seen a similar soup on the menu the night before but they were sold out (must be a hot item) so they jumped on the chance at lunch.  Brian devoured his and Amanda ate about half, and I think their need to have cheeseburger soup has been satisfied.

Lunch

After lunch we ventured a very short way to an alpine slide.  We signed our lives away with a waiver that no one read, bought tickets for one ride each and hopped on the chair lift to the top.  Along the way you could catch a glimpse of Mt. Rushmore (we were glad to see that all four presidents were still there) and disembarked the chair lift at the top.  When we arrived at the starting gate for the alpine slide there were two tracks - fast and slow.  Four of us chose the fast track, with one of us choosing the slow track.  I won't divulge which of us wimped out by taking the slow track, but I will give one small, hard hint - she gave birth to three of the alpine sliders.  

The Riders:

 

All of us enjoyed the ride down the alpine slide, albeit at different paces, and then we hopped back in The Cube and headed to Bear Country USA, or as I call it - Bear Country Safari.  Very similar to Lion Country Safari in Florida, you ride slowly through different areas and view different animals.  The difference with this place is that the highlights are bears instead of lions.  This is actually a big difference, since in all the times I was at Lion Country Safari the lions were basically asleep, while the bears were much more active.  They walked along the side of the road where were driving, and crossed in front and back of us.  At the end of the driving, there is an area where you can get out of the car and walk around and see smaller animals and baby bears.  The other animals were cute, but the baby bears were really fun to watch.  It was like watching a series of MMA fights between short furry MMA fighters.  There was one golden colored bear that was either a bully or just a little hyper, because he kept going at each of the other bears.

Da Bears:

After visiting the gift shop (more clutter), we headed to another one of Debbie's customer's recommendations - an ice cream store back in Rapid City called Armadillo's Ice Cream Shop.   At this place they have a flavor of the day (pineapple the day we were there).  We each filled up on ice cream (Debbie had Snicker's Delight, Ethan had non-dairy strawberry, Brian had soft serve vanilla with sprinkles, Amanda had a malt with chocolate chip and dark chocolate fudge and I had a coffee shake).

"Do we HAVE to a take a picture in front of EVERY place we eat???"

We then hopped back in The Cube and headed off to see Crazy Horse.  On the way to see Mt. Rushmore Brian noticed a sign that said that the Crazy Horse Memorial was 12 miles past Mt. Rushmore and suggested that we visit that monument.  This monument was started in the early 1940s, and is nowhere near done.  The project is privately funded and was the idea of an Indian leader to have a monument that celebrated the Indians and their heritage.  They hired a sculptor to do the work and for the first dozen years or so he worked alone.  Then he got married, had 10 kids and voila - a workforce!  Still, it was a very slow process, and when he died in 1982 all he really had to show for it was a mountain that had less rocks on it than it did in the early 1940s.  But he had mapped out what needed to be done, and when his wife then took over the project upon his death the one thing she changed was that instead of working on the horse first they switched up and worked on Crazy Horse's head.  That was a major change and worked out well, since they were able to finish his head by the late 1990s.  Once the head was done, tourism tripled and they were able raise more funds.  Now the project is on a fast track, and is expected to be done in a mere 60-90 years.  Yup, that's right, my great-grandchildren MIGHT have a chance to see the completed project.  If not them, my great-great-grandchildren should be in the clear.  That assumes the ozone layer is still a thing then and the world still exists, but I digress.

The painted rock is where his horse's head will be, some time around
the year 2100, so book your flights now

He looks mad because he's probably thinking,
"You guys have been here 60+ years, where's the rest of me?"

Our great-great-grandchildren can compare this shot to
the one they take when they visit.  Hopefully they will have
made some progress by then.

Once we wrapped up at Crazy Horse (a surprisingly enjoyable and informative visit), we had the choice of driving through Custer State Park or heading to dinner.  The issue was that we wanted to be back at Mt. Rushmore by 8:00 because they do a nighttime ceremony where they show a slide show of the presidents (narrated by James Earl Jones - I guess Morgan Freeman was busy), then they light up the monument (for you mom).  We were told that the drive through the park and back to Mt. Rushmore might take 1.5-2 hours, so we opted for dinner.  I had the name of a place from Road Food in Hill City called Bumpin Buffalo, and since we couldn't come up with any other place, to Bumpin Buffalo we went.  We decided to sit outside upstairs on the patio, and luckily were given a table far away from the two couples that were chain smoking between bites.  

The 3 seconds it took to take this photo didn't make or break
our timing to get back to Mt. Rushmore

The meal, nothing special, took quite a while to get and by the time we finished and got back to The Cube it was 7:50 and Mt. Rushmore was 20 minutes away.  I sped off (initially) and after following the slowest cars on the planet, got to Mt. Rushmore a little before 8:15.  We caught the end of the slide show and the honoring of the military in the crowd and watched as the presidents were illuminated (for you, Mom).

All lit up

By 9:00 we were back in The Cube heading to the hotel. After a very full day in South Dakota, and the fulfilling of a dream for Debbie, we retired for the evening in our too small room for another restless night. Tomorrow we cross off two more states from the Haven't Been Visited list - Wyoming and Montana.