Schmoozing with the Big Whigs
Trip Start
Jul 29, 2011
1
34
38
Trip End
Aug 28, 2011
Gillette, Wyoming
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
We quickly took off the fly and gave the tent a good shake to get rid of these pesky bugs, but unfortunately they flew right into my hair instead. Lucky Craig got to put up with a slightly shrieking, dancing in panic Jenny, to the point when he suggested that I wait in the car until he had put the tent away. Refusing to uphold my princess image, I stuck it out, and just got quick at batting the big bugs away (did I mention that they were really gross?). After we had put the tent away, even Craig was getting perturbed by these bugs, to the point where he suggested we eat breakfast in the car. Fine by me!
After breakfast, we continued on I-90 West, in search of South Dakota's Badlands and Mount Rushmore. We had gotten a tip from a very small, tanned man at a campsite in Portage, Wisconsin, that we should do the Badlands loop on our way to Mount Rushmore. It was a very cool national park. We drove through thousands of rock formations created through water erosion, and kept our eyes out for rattle snakes, bison, and big horned sheep. Fortunately we didn't see any rattle snakes, and unfortunately we didn't see any bison or sheep. We did see some cows that looked kind of like bison, from a distance...does that count?
After our Badlands loop, we continued on towards Mount Rushmore. We had a quick stop in Rapid City to try and find a cheap replacement for our broken down Coleman stove. We stopped in at Wal Mart (that smelt really bad), picked up a small one burner stove type thing, bought some more groceries, and off again we went!
Mount Rushmore is breathtaking. The park created to view the monument is really nice - there are flags for each state, with the date below the flag saying when the state joined the union. The monument itself was incredible! It is very hard to imagine that people were up there, carving out the faces, especially to the degree of detail that they included. We were both very impressed, and during the drive away from the park, we kept spotting mountains that seemed like they were just made for faces!
Leaving Mount Rushmore, we entered state #5 on our Across Canada roadtrip, Wyoming. After this we only have a few more to go, and then we're back on Canadian soil. Tomorrow takes us to Yellowstone National park to check out some geysers, and we are probably going to spend a couple of nights in the park, so we can do a bit more exploring.
Blog again soon!!!
