Days 10-11

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I didn't have time to post anything yesterday because we were out late, but let me do a quick recap of the last two days for you. Yesterday we were still in South Dakota and we got up early to drive the Needles Highway, which is a scenic road throughout the Black Hills with some interesting rock formations along the way. After Needles Hwy we went to Mt. Rushmore and spent some time there staring at the mountain and going through the visitors center. It hasn't changed in 16 years (that's probably a good thing) but it was still very awe inspiring to be there and the weather was perfect. After leaving Mt. Rushmore we continued driving to Badlands National Park. Dad says we were there in 1993 but I don't remember it. Either way, I thought this was one of the coolest parts of the trip. The Badlands look a lot like a desolate desert but I found the landscape to really be breathtaking and unlike anything I had ever seen before. The Badlands used to be a sea and then after the sea dried up was a tropical rainforest and is today very much like a desert. It has been eroded away over millions of years and the rock formations are pretty cool to look at. We spent a couple of hours driving through the Badlands and we then continued back towards Rapid City. I had wanted to visit the Petrified Forest but unfortunately time didn't allow for it to happen. This is the only thing on the trip that we had planned to see that we were unable to accomplish. I was a little disappointed but I saw the petrified tree in Yellowstone and I figured once you've seen one petrified tree you've pretty much seen them all. We concluded our day yesterday by viewing the laser light show at Crazy Horse Mountain, which was really interesting to see. Today we were up early and drove about 660 miles to La Crosse, Wisconsin, which is where we are spending the night. On the way we stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota to take a few photos. Tomorrow we continue east through Chicago, where we will be stopping for deep dish pizza and if all goes well we will be home Wednesday. I have photos from yesterday but it's late and I'm tired so I'm not going to post them tonight. I promise they will be here in the next couple of days so keep checking back to this post as once I update it they will appear here.

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