Chapter 5

We woke up this morning to clouds, rain, and cool weather. After a terrible motel breakfast (why would the only yogurt option involve Sucralose??), we were on our way to Mt. Rushmore, which is about 45 minutes from Rapid City.

We were there by 8:30, and not surprisingly, it wasn't crowded at all at that time, which was great for us! We walked the Presidential Trail, which led us in a loop with various places to look at Mt. Rushmore from different angles. We heard an interesting ranger talk in the Sculptors' Workshop, and learned plenty of facts about how it was built. 90% of the carving was done with dynamite. They had many blacksmiths onsite, who had to sharpen 400 drill bits each day! I liked the information about how the shapes were influenced by the rock ... Lincoln was supposed to have ears, they were all supposed to have hands, but none of that happened because the rock was too hard to carve. They even started to carve Jefferson on the other side of Washington, and had to move him because they just couldn't do it. By the time we left, clouds had completely covered the monument -- we couldn't see it at all.

There were some "real" "patriots" at Mt. Rushmore.

We then drove back to Rapid City, to find presidential statues and take some photos. Tom's favorite is Chester A. Arthur. Nora liked how short James Madison was.

Then we were on the road to the Badlands.

The Badlands offer so many amazing views, and everywhere we looked, there was something to see. We stopped at many viewpoints. It was so hot in the sun, we were grateful when a cloud came over!

We climbed to the top of the tallest, pointed peak!

On our way in, some big horn sheep were posing near the entrance station, and on our way out, we were in 2 sheep jams. Lots of sheep. We also saw several fields full of prairie dogs.

We stopped for a short time at Wall Drug, because it must be done, and then drove to Pierre (for some reason pronounced Peer). There were thunderstorms all around, but not too bad where we were.

There was a beautiful sunset in Pierre.

We lost an hour when we got to Pierre, and ended up at one of the few restaurants in town: Perkins Family Restaurant, one of Owen's favorites from 2012 (breakfast all day = pancakes for dinner). Nora and I thought it was really funny that the frittata came with "dry toast", and ... the menu description was correct.