Today was a much more exciting day. We woke up and had breakfast of coffee and toast downstairs in their nice breakfast room. We’ve decided that Super 8 is the way to go. They are usually cheap, the rooms are nice, they have free breakfast (not usually too exciting but fine) and wifi.
So we drove up to Mt Rushmore which was about half hour from Rapid City. It was great. The sky was blue with interesting clouds and it was very windy. We took a ton of pictures (or at least I did) and did the presidential walk which is about a .6 mile loop that brings you closer to the mountain and has little blurbs about each president. Though I’d already seen it, it was still cool (it was awhile ago) and Dan liked it as well. It’s so well done. A lot of detail went into those carvings the most impressive of which may be Teddy Roosevelt’s glasses. We got a patch there, to add to our collection and then headed on our way again.
Quick stop before the Badlands was to get some food which ended up being 2 hot-and-ready pizzas from little Caesars. I didn’t know they even existed anymore. Pizzas in car we headed for the badlands. The way that we went put us on a whole lot of unpaved road. Which was scenic, but very slow. One thing that we did get to see that we wouldn’t have seen if we had come from Wall was the buffalo. Which were pretty cool. I guess not as special as they would have been if we hadn’t gone to Yellowstone though. In Yellowstone the buffalo were the things that you saw constantly and other animals were more special. One cool animal that we saw were the prairie dogs. They’re so cute! Other people weren’t too interested in them, but we loved them. I have a ton of pictures (of course).
So we drove through the park which they were repaving to most of that road was dirt as well. The scenery is pretty awesome. As far as the badlands craggy mountains/hills/formations go most of those occurred after wall, so maybe next time that’s what we’d do.
We stopped at a few overlooks to take pictures and then at the visitor center to get a map. We had picked out a hike that we wanted to do. At the visitor center we talked to Paul who was back for his first day this year but has been working there for the past three years. He was quite friendly and talkative and we chatted with him for a little while. Last stop in Badlands was the door and window parking lot, which had 3 trails coming from it. We did the Notch Trail, which was great. I think it was 1.2 miles altogether. It was a nice little walk which included climbing up a wire and log ladder and walking through some ravines and along and within the interesting rocks. The end of the hike gave us a view of the valley.
On the walk back we tried to take interested jumping pictures off rocks. We got some pretty good ones, and a lot of failed ones. Dan kept trying to take pictures of me jumping and taking them too early or too late so it just looked like I was doing weird things.
From the Badlands we drove for awhile. We originally had a destination of Mitchell, SD but decided we should just drive the extra hour because we had time and go to Sioux Falls, SD. We stopped in Mitchell anyway for gas and to see the corn palace which had signs for miles before we got there. It was actually a whole lot cooler and less tacky than I thought it would be. I’m not sure why exactly it was there but it was definitely the number one attraction. All road signs about Mitchell told you where it was located by how far from the corn palace it was. The other cool thing was the gas station had wifi so I looked up hotels in Sioux City and booked a hotel from there. I think we were all glad that we didn’t stay in Mitchell. It was a strange town that seemed like it would be sketchy after dark and may have had some sort of drug problem.
In Sioux city we checked into our Motel 6 (not half as nice as a super 8) and asked the woman at the desk where a good place would be to go for dinner. She gave us directions to a street that had a lot of restaurants on it and I asked if there was anything in particular that was good. She said something along the lines of “they’re all there, there’s McDonalds, KFC, etc). Funny that when we asked for restaurants that’s what came to mind and what she thought we’d like.
We ended up going next door to the Roll’n pin restaurant which actually turned out to be pretty good. They had a bit of everything in a diner-esque menu with a slightly more up-scale (than a diner) atmosphere. The waitress was nice and we all liked what we got, and it wasn’t too expensive so all in all turned out to have been a good choice.
It was pretty late by this point so we went back to the hotel room and read until bedtime.
This morning we woke up early so we could get to Madison at a good time so we’d have more time there to visit. It’s pretty exciting. The drive through Minnesota was just a lot of farmland but as soon as we crossed into Wisconsin over the Mississippi river there were suddenly trees and hills. It’s a pretty area and a beautiful day. It’s spring again! I’ve missed spring. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so cold and snowy in the places that we’ve been recently. I mean… it’s may! The fact that it’ still snowing places was surprising though maybe I should’ve known.
Anyways we should be in Madison around 2:30 with plenty of time to enjoy this beautiful day! Hopefully we can see some cool things and have some time hanging out. It should be pretty great! Then tomorrow off to Chicago to meet up with Josh!!
I just have to reiterate how exciting it is to be back in warm spring weather again. It’s really invigorating J
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