Black Hills Vacation

Well, the time has come to finally document a little vacation we went on over Memorial Day weekend. Lynn & I both had 4 days off of work so we decided to go somewhere. So, about Tuesday we finally decided how about South Dakota? Ok, sounds good. So we left Friday morning and drove all the way to Custer, South Dakota. You should be proud of me people, that is a lot of driving in one day for me.

As we were driving across boring Wyoming, we noticed the terrain looking awfully familiar. Like, this really looked like the Martin's cove area. We'd both been there before, and even thought of stopping on the way, but I swear the maps we looked at said it was a couple hours out of the way. Well.... pretty soon we hit a sign that says Martin's Cove visitors center turn left. So we did. Mostly because we could use a bathroom break at this point. Because really, the conditions weren't ideal. 

Here is a little photo we took:

Yes, that is Lynn freezing in his shorts. It was cold. Very cold. And also very windy. The missionaries at the visitors center made us watch a little video with them. I think they were lonely because not many folks were out on such a "pleasant" day.... So we watched and heard a little shpill. Then got back into the car and on the way to Custer!

We barely made it. It turned dark and super foggy very fast! In case you didn't know, those are not the best driving conditions when you don't know where you are going. 

Note to self from day 1: Don't underestimate how long of a drive some places are from home.

Saturday was going to be our major sight-seeing day. I was stoked. The weather was not stoked for us. First we stopped at Crazy Horse. See it right there behind Lynn?

Ha. Stupid fog. We got half price entrance tickets because, well, there was nothing to see. We did walk around all the visitor center stuff and saw a little film about the carving of it.  Here I am standing next to the mini replica of it. They didn't even have it pulled out of its storage space because of the lovely weather.

Next we drove through Custer State Park. We saw quite a few animals actually! Buffalo, deer, moose, antelope. Not bad. The Black Hills were really pretty. It was fun to just drive around and see the beautiful landscape.

Next stop for the day: Mt Rushmore! The big monument we had been waiting to see! Check it out! It is right there behind us!

Amazing right? 

Boo Mt. Rushmore. Actually, boo fog. 

We watched a movie there as well, and walked around the visitors center to see some cool stuff. These are some of the models they used to get the correct scale in helping carve the mountain. We actually got to spend a lot more time there looking at everything because there were no crowds to fight! So that was one good thing.

Since we had time to kill, we walked down and around the trails there.. This next photo was actually in the sculptor's studio. Sculpting is hard, if you haven't tried it.  It was super impressive to me. The mountain is probably even more impressive, but oh, right, we couldn't see it. 

We left Mt. Rushmore and walked around the little tourist trap city of Keystone for the evening, got us some good steak from a little saloon restaurant, then headed to our next stop for the night, Spearfish, SD. This was going to be a good thing to get this far back on our journey westward. Well.... the next morning it was blue sky and clear. We couldn't just leave South Dakota without seeing what we came for.   So what did we do? We drove back to go see them. As much as I hate driving, it was worth it.

Note to self from day 2: check weather conditions prior to going on a sight-seeing trip.

Sunday: 

Ta-Da!

Yay! We could see the presidents!

 Don't worry, it was still cold & windy. I was stubborn and did not wear my jacket.

Here is a cool profile view of George from a little lookout point.

Next we headed back to Crazy Horse.

 Ta-da!

We weren't paying to get in again, so we just checked it out from the road.

Next, back to our original plan for the day.... We went to see Devil's Tower in Wyoming. My parents had raved about it, so we had to go check it out for ourselves.

Ta-Da!

It actually was pretty cool, just a random big tower out in the middle of Wyoming. Lynn thought it would be fun to go rock climbing on it. People do it, but I think it looks scary.

I realize this picture is random, but I was so excited to take a picture of the odometer for the trip hitting 1000 miles! I was so focused at 999.9... then all of a sudden, as I was ready to click.. It went to zero! What the. I was bummed. By the time I finally got back composure, it was already at .4. So here we are at 1000.4 miles in to our trip...

Note to self from day three. Bring more than one pair of pants on a trip. Also more that just one sweatshirt. My suitcase full of shorts and flip flops didn't quite do the trick...

Monday. Well, we had to get back to Pleasant Grove UT today. Ugh. Another long day ahead in the car for me. We decided to head back through the north end of Yellowstone.  There was a fun arch there to drive through...

We took a few stops at Mammoth, Old Faithful, and Jackson.

Saw some buffalo. Chilling in the SNOW.

We made it through 5 states that day. That is pretty impressive I would say. We stopped at Grace to stretch our legs, and again in Elwood. I was so glad to get in my bed that night. What I was not glad about was getting up the next morning to go back to work. It was pretty killer.

We had a great trip despite all the elements. It is good to just get away for awhile. We are looking forward to our next adventure! Any suggestions? :)