Thursday, August 3, 2017

Cross Country Road Trippin': Mt. Rushmore

I woke this morning and hurried off to WalMart to get food for breakfast.  I was able to make it back without the kids even knowing I was gone.  I woke them all up and we hurried and packed up, ate, got ready, and set out for Mt. Rushmore.




Keystone is a cute town that reminds me of an old Park City. Its got a street like Main St.  It had camping and cabins all over that you can stay at.  It has all the things you need set up in the Black Hills.  It is absolutely beautiful there.  One of my most favorite parts of the drive was this beautiful bridge.
We all got so exctied when we were getting closer to Mt. Rushmore.  If I remember correctly JJ was the first to see it.  It was so exciting.  We all had butterflies in our stomachs.  It really was so fun.  Once we all saw it we were all so impressed.  It was much bigger than me all expected.  It is definitely a once in a lifetime kind of place.  It is amazing that we can create things like this.  
We all wished that Jeron was here to see it.  We will have to bring him back someday.  
It was cool how they have all the state flags and the order in which they entered the nation.   
 Here is the Utah pillar
 Even if this was as close as you could get this would have been pretty awesome. 
  
 Here is where I decided to go back and get Ellie a wheelchair.  I had to go to the car to get my wallet even.  Ugh.  It was a good decision though, because there was a lot more we wanted to explore.  I think I failed to mention that this was $10 and it is an annual pass.  Well worth it.  We must have come when there was some kind of biker rally because there was bikers everywhere.  

 We met a sweet couple from Maine.  They were so excited to hear we were going to come visit.  I told them we were only going to Portland though.  They replied with "Oh, then you're not really going to Maine."  haha.  They were sweet.  Told us to by a cheap lobster roll because they all taste the same.  They are also served on a hot dog bun.  Anything else is a fake.  Funny thing, they had just come from Utah.  They said it was one of the cleanest cities they have ever seen.  The loved what they saw and want to come back.  Someday.  We loved their thick accent.  My favorite part was when they told us to take the "Downeaster" train.  We repeated that so many times on the trip.  "Take the downeaster" 
 They had teepees set up to see how the native americans lived.  

  The weather was a beautiful 78 degrees.  It was perfect.  The hills were so pretty.  Elsie put one of the rocks in her pocket and later that day she pulled out what looked like fairy dust.  They literally sparkled.  We loved it.  
  Before we came down here we watched a video on how it was made.  It was cool when you got closer and could see some of the ways that things were done.  The dot in the eye is taller than me.  








 When we left we saw this awesome view of George so we had to stop and take a pic.   
 One of the thousands of bikers made it in my picture.  
It is time to say goodbye to Keystone.  I wish we had one more day or even week to spend here.  It really is beautiful.  But we must head out and move on to Illinois.  Nauvoo to be exact.  We are all so excited for this portion of our trip.  

South Dakota really has nothing after Keystone.  We drove for hours without seeing a single tree, shrub, anything.  The Badlands are the worst.    It is so bad that there is this trading post Wall Drug that has signs every 500 feet telling you what there is at Wall Drug.  It gets so crazy that you have to stop.  I mean it must be amazing.  So of course we stopped.  Emma said it felt like we had just entered the twilight zone.  It was weird.  It is an old trading post that now has every kind of store you could think of, all of which you don't need.  It reminded me of a really big state fair.  With the shops set up but this was actual brick and mortar shops for things you'll never buy.

Here the girls are at the toy store. 








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