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.