South Dakota

I think in general South Dakota takes a back seat to places like California or New York on the list of really-cool-states-everyone-should-visit, but that is big, unfortunate mistake. We traveled from one side to the other, and on I-90 alone there were so many things we would have loved see had we planned for a longer road trip.

Of the places that did make the list, some were interesting and educational, and some were silly and fun; there's a pretty good snapshot of the United States out in old South Dakota :)

This is Deadwood, and on the very enthusiastic recommendation of one of our younger brothers, we intended to stop and wander around awhile. However, the Sturgis Bike Rally was going on, and the wall-to-wall people plus motorcycles, as well as the bikini bike washes, caused one of us to make an executive decision which involved driving in one side of town and immediately out the other. Deadwood, we will explore you another time, but not in August :)

Mount Rushmore is majestic - it looks just like the pictures! ;) - and it was fascinating to read about the skill and ingenuity that went into its construction. One fun bit of trivia is that the mountain goats living at the monument aren't native to South Dakota; in 1923, Canada gave six Rocky Mountain goats to Custer State Park, but they made a break for it, traveled north to Mount Rushmore, and decided to stay. They were goats with refined taste in terms of accommodations :)

We spent an hour or two at Bear Country USA where our car was our cage :) 

We pretended to be dwarves from The Hobbit and traveled down, down, down into Rushmore Cave, 15 stories below the surface. We saw limestone stalagmites and stalactites and had sore behinds the next day because traveling down also meant climbing back up, all 400-ish steps. 

Our tour guide mentioned that different images can be found in the rock, similar to when someone goes cloud gazing. Can you find the face of the pig? :)

The Crazy Horse Memorial and the Indian Museum of North America gave us more sobering history to think and talk about. Work on the carving began in 1948 and is not anywhere close to completion; state or federal funding isn't accepted, so progress is very slow. 

This is a 1/34 scale model of the monument; once finished, it will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high.

I put Wall Drug on the must-see list the moment we knew we would be driving through South Dakota, but even if I hadn't, it would have been difficult to ignore as we started seeing advertisements approximately 200 miles before arriving. My thunder was stolen a little bit by the combination of a large crowd (the long-reaching arm of Sturgis, maybe) and the fact that we had just started a self-imposed ban on junk so their famous donuts were off-limits. Still, I'm glad to have seen it with my own eyes.

And then there was the Corn Palace. The inside smells of caramel corn and is used for all kinds of things, like basketball tournaments and proms and industrial exhibits. The outside is decorated with...corn (13 colors of it, as well as other grains and grasses.) Each year -since 1892! - a theme has been chosen, and a new mural is designed to fit the theme. This year we have 'Rock of Ages'; an enormous Willie and Elvis fashioned out of cobs and husks is a perfect slice of Americana, don't you think? :)