Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Cheating!!

Brenda gets to Mount Rushmore

No developers will be digging basements here anytime soon!

There are herds of Mule Deer and Pronghorns everywhere .......... and these guys!

Grasslands to the horizon



Brenda has always wanted to see Mount Rushmore although, after living with a “blockhead” for 36 years, one wonders why? But, I wasn’t crazy about driving all the way east to South Dakota and then angling south from there. That would likely add close to 1000 miles to our trip and possibly subject us to some significant snow in some significant mountains. So after asking ourselves, “what would Dr. Phil do?” (if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale), we decided to compromise. To fly home we have to fly right over South Dakota consequently, we decided to pop down for a couple of days, see Mount Rushmore and the Dakota badlands and continue the flight home on Wednesday. It’s not the same as taking the RV there but …….. it’ll do. Everybody wins!!

After seeing “the heads” at Mount Rushmore, we arrived at the State Game Lodge in Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota (are you sensing a theme here?), an historic, old, “woodsy” hotel, often frequented by past Presidents and, once used as Calvin Coolidge’s summer White House. Lot’s of ties to the past. This is the land of Custer, Crazy Horse, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane; all local heroes. And, the town of Deadwood, the last gold rush mining town in North America, is mere miles away.

South Dakotans claim that their badlands are badder’n those in North Dakota. We’ll have to take their word for it. The badlands have an almost lunar feel to them. They are beautiful in a stark and inhospitable kind of way ……. if that makes any sense. We have decided that, as tourists go, we are two easy marks. We love it all!! South Dakota is so uniquely different from anything else we have seen, it will be a memorable part of our trip, even if we cheated to get here!

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