Well, it’s over, and I would say that with the exception of the endless traveling, it was a huge success!
First of all, Google maps is a big fat liar and it does NOT take eight hours to get there. It takes ten. Same with the return trip. I’ll get you someday, Google maps. Watch your back.
We went up through the Sandhills, which was nice, but I don’t need to do it again. Mom and Dad, nearly every rock formation we saw – with the exception of the carved faces – reminded me of some part of the side of Grand Mesa.
Saturday was jam-packed. Up at dawn, donuts in the car for breakfast, and on to Mount Rushmore. We saw it from far away.
And up close. Totally worth it.
(This was in a little cave on-site.)
After that, we went to Crazy Horse. It was expensive, but Lloyd was impressed that so much had been accomplished since he went with Brad and company in college. (Mount Rushmore had much, much more for visitors, too.)
(The dark object is a statue inside the building. The mountain behind it is the actual sculpture. All four face of Mount Rushmore could fit inside Crazy Horse’s head. It is HUGE.)
Then Lloyd tricked me into going on a hike. Dang it, Lloyd! I’m a delicate flower! I’m not cut out for exercise!
Then we went on another little hike around Sylvan Lake. It was more of a walk, really. We saw a wedding that was happening there and thought about crashing it, but decided against it. We’re pretty sure we’re in some of their photos, though. Ha!
Lastly, we drove back to camp via the Wildlife Loop. It had buffalo, ground hogs, donkeys and deer all over.
We stayed two nights in Game Lodge campground, one of the few that is open this late in the season. It occasionally has wildlife walk through the property. We were not disappointed.
Here’s a terrible bunch of video snippets with very little explanation. We approached Mount Rushmore on a wonderfully winding road with crazy switchbacks, tunnels (that frame the faces) and bridges supported by big logs (first clips). Then, there were goats in the campground, so we time-lapsed that. I made it black-and-white because the sun was going down and it was hard to see. (That’s me at the picnic table. The goats got close, with a ‘food?’ look in their eyes, but moseyed right along.)
Tomorrow I’ll write a little more about what we did. After all, if we take a big trip I’d better get some mileage out of the material, right?