Blogs from Rapid City, South Dakota, United States, North America - page 5

Day 5 St.Louis to Rapid City, SD Up and rolling by 5AM.....yep it is still dark.....go back to sleep....I'll wake you when we get to Kansas City! This was the day that we worried about the most. It was our longest driving day....but we made it!! We started west out of St. Louis and made a hard right in Kansas City! We found that Highway 29 was filled with road construction so we jumped off in Omaha and found a very nice road in Nebraska. Route 30 to Columbus. Columbus, Nebraska had a strange, but wonderful little surprise. We found Pawnee Park. There were memorials that were dedicated to just about....everyone. There is a bell tower dedicated to Columbus and his voyage across the sea. A monument to veterans from almost every war. A piece of ... read more

Geo: 44.0812, -103.231Day 8Another early start to try and beat the crowds to Rushmore. I envisioned all those families at breakfast heading en mass to the wall of presidents.We drove back into "downtown" Rapid City on I-90 and went south on US-16 to Keystone, then 16A to Mount Rushmore. It is REALLY impressive. I was afraid of being disappointed, of standing there saying, “Is that all there is?” But not so.It is a work of art. It is so big, so commanding, and so very visible from so many places. The museum is informative and the movie is fascinating. Don't miss it. The displays are interactive, so when I pushed a button about safety, I heard one of the guys who helped build it say that no one died in the process of creating the monument, ... read more

Another spectacular day in the greatest country in the history of the world. Had another brief thunderstorm this morning around 4 a.m. As soon as the tent was dried out I packed everything up and hit the road. First stop, Mt. Rushmore. It was worth going there to get the picture, enough said. Next stop was Crazy Horse. Honestly there really isn't much there. It was also worth going to get the picture but I think I'll wait out the next 50 or so odd years till its done. Now to the fun stuff. I heard about Wind Cave N.P in the guidebook I'm using. I called ahead and reserved a spot on the advanced spelunking tour. It was a 4 hour tour that takes you off the beaten path and you get a chance to ... read more

We left Mankato, MN a few days ago and drove along the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway to Walnut Grove, MN (On the Banks of Plum Creek). We waded in "Plum Creek," by Laura's real dugout house from the 1800's. It was so much prettier than when I was there in wintertime years ago. The blooming prairie grasses and flowers were exactly as she described in her books. The whole town was going crazy with hundreds of visitors for the LIW pageant that night. We even spotted a crab under the same big rock where 150 years ago Laura tricked the famed Nellie Oleson, in Plum Creek, with a crab in that creek. After we ate a big pageant dinner at the little local community center we went to the pageant in our dresses and bonnets ... read more

4 days ago, we left Montana, crossed into Wyoming and then into South Dakota, the Black Hills region, so named because of the dark forests that cover the landscape. We're staying in an old (for America's standards) hotel, that is supposedly haunted, in Rapid City. The hotel claims to be the "Residence of Presidents", but it could be referring to the dozens of bronze life-size statues of past presidents adorning the streets outside; a theme that seems recurrent in this state. Take Mt. Rushmore for example: an avenue lined by all the state flags leading to the Grand Terrace, from where you can see the tribute paid to America's 'founding fathers'. We walked the "strenuous 40 minute" Presidential Trail (it took us 10 minutes) across in front of Mt. Rushmore, to get views from various angles, ... read more