Up this morning in Rapid City. I found a Starbucks and met another person from Tacoma in line! What are the odds?! She was en route home from Baltimore. Got coffees and took Padre Bear his for his wake up :) Then I took off again to find supplies... What I didn't know was Target was just down the hill out of sight, so after trying to find another store close, I ended up going to the Evil Empire aka Walmart. I gotta say..... Cleanest and nicest Walmart I've ever seen! Happy employees chatting and joking with each other and enough check lanes open so no lines!!! Crazy, right?!? Got more lunch food and snacks, plus more bottled water... This hot weather in the car will dehydrate you FAST.
Got back to the hotel and got the cubs up and fed, then we headed out to the monuments. Mt. Rushmore was cool, such a great source of information about our history. Giant Cub was not impressed... He thought it would be bigger. We enjoyed the pavilion with the flags.... I grabbed a selfie that I posted on Facebook and my friend JB commented "Michelle, and the Presidents, and the Mennonites".... Lol... I didn't even notice they were back there!
After Rushmore, we headed on to the Crazy Horse monument. THIS was impressive to Giant Cub. If you haven't been, this monolith construction is a must see.... Take a pic.... It will be your grand kids and great grand kids when it's done... A snapshot in time.
The Native American stuff here is impressive. I'd like to come back and spend a few days to really absorb the history, and it makes me want to investigate the Native American roots I've heard that I have. There was some great local ties too, and a quote from Chief Sealth hangs largely on a wall....
The boys donated a dollar each to be able to each take a large rock from the blast. The family story behind this place is magical too.... HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Someday would like to spend 2 weeks doing the area we covered in 3 days :) I know we just did a blow through tour.
After Crazy Horse, it was about 1 pm and we still needed lunch. We drove through Custer, SD and that seemed like a cool place too. We stopped in Hot Springs, which is just dripping in old west history, and had lunch at a shaded picnic table by the river canal.
Aaaaaand... That's where the driving really began. We dropped down into Nebraska, which is full. of. NOTHING. And I really mean nothing. Whoa. For a long time. Eventually we ran into road construction that caused us to stop and wait for a pilot car. Talked to the flagger again... We could hear his radio giving severe weather warnings for Kimball County. You could see the thunderheads off in the distance. He didn't know what county we were in, so we looked it up on the map... Box Butte. Thankfully we just skirted the storm, it was SE of us and we were headed SW.
Snagged a quick pic. And there... Now you too have seen Nebraska :) that's it!
Eventually, we crossed back into SE Wyoming (yes, that's the third time in Wyoming for those of you keeping track!)... And we had to put the top up because it started POURING... Went from the above pic to this in about 50 miles...
Peace out!So over Wyoming. Not going back other than Yellowstone if I can help it! Finally got to I-25 and made it to Colorado... Our 7th state of 13. Stopped at Carrabas in Fort Collins, which was cool because the Giant Cub has gotten regular letters from Colorado State. :) We see the Carrabas commercials all the time, and the food didn't disappoint. It was a splurge though, because it's pretty pricy.
As soon as we got back on the interstate, dead stop road construction. Then more driving and then more dead stop road construction. And I'm NOT impressed with Colorado drivers... Bullying and speeding jerks. Padre Bear was happy to yell the Super Bowl score out the window as we passed Mile High though.... So that is noteworthy.
80's pop on Pandora got us through to the hotel in Colorado Springs. Our room looks just like last nights except it's green instead of the orange of last night. Pretty nice Motel 6 again.
Lessons from today.... I have learned that I am weird. The kind of road trip miles I put in each day is more than most people I guess, and Girl Cub was fine with it because she was used to it, but it seems we are the exception, not the rule. Too much car and not enough seeing stuff for the cubs and Padre Bear. He said if he had it to do over, he would just do this first 4 days of stuff and travel in all 10 days that we have. I can see that I guess... A couple of these days have been long. His suggestion for future road trips was shorter mileage days, more stops, and a few days in a destination where there is lots to do. Next time, I guess :) we're sorta into this one now. Tomorrow marks the halfway point already!!
Car needs transmission fluid again, so I'm going to get up early tomorrow to handle that, then it's SW across CO to Four Corners and sleep in Gallup. I hope there is lots of scenery to keep everyone interested.
Anyhoo, it's 2 am, so I'm going to shower and snooze for a few hours. I'll sign off with another selfie from earlier.
Mama Bear
PS... We got 3 more state plates today bringing our total to 45. It's getting harder to find them now, but I hold out hope for the parking lots at the Grand Canyon. :) There are lots of other road trippers out here!!
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