Day 2

Dan and I woke up early in the morning on Friday, thankful that we were still alive after our night at the scary Rodeway Inn motel in Kadoka, SD with a population of 773. When we had pulled up to the motel the night before, it reminded me of the movie Vacancy with John Cusak and I knew we in for a night of uneasiness. I knew we were in a quality motel when we were unpacking our car and I looked over to see a man peeing in the parking lot. That night, in order to ease our minds while we were sleeping, Dan made a makeshift booby trap by leaning a chair against the door, just to the point of tipping. Then he placed a bag of pretzels on the floor below the chair. This way, if some creep tried to break into the room while we were sleeping, the chair would tip and fall on the pretzel bag which would wake us up. I felt so safe with my little MacGyver next to me! ;)

After we survived our first night at the scary motel, we headed back out onto the I-90 and got off at our first stop of the day, Badlands National Park. We took the scenic Loop Road along Hwy 240. On the drive we encountered a sea of interesting rock formations within the parks 240,000 acres. The rock formations are thousands and thousands of years old and were formed from mainly erosion. We had some spectacular views of the landscape and stopped at many of the look out points along the way. At one point on our journey, we turned a corner and I noticed a mountain goat perched up on a cliff. It was so still that Dan didn’t believe it was real and was about to pass it by until the goat started to move. It was pretty cool to see! It took us about 2 hours to go through the Badlands and it was so amazing to see the vast and interesting rock formations along the way.

Next, we stopped in Rapid City for lunch before driving further west towards the great Mount Rushmore National Memorial. As we are driving through the Black Hills, Dan kept looking around to try and spot Mount Rushmore. We turned a corner and there it was up at the top of the mountain. One of the most striking aspects was the white granite faces in contrast to the dark evergreen trees. We drove up to the visitor center and walk around the memorial. I think Mount Rushmore was one of Dan’s favorite sites that he has seen thus far on the trip. It was pretty amazing!

Then, we continued on to the Crazy Horse Monument. Knowing that it is not yet completed, we were not sure what to expect. The face of Crazy Horse is done but you are much further away from the monument than at Mount Rushmore so it is hard to get a feel for the scale. It wasn’t until we went into the visitor center and watched a video that we realized that all four heads of Mount Rushmore combined are the same size of the face of Crazy Horse. Crazy!!!!! We don’t know if we’ll ever see the monument finished in our lifetime considering they have been working on it for over 50 years already and are only as far along as they are. The entire monument is apparently privately funded by donors and park admission tickets. This means that they are moving along slowly. Admittedly they say that if they took federal money the project would move quicker, but they refuse all government funding of the project. It was definitely worth the drive to see it though. Can’t wait to see it when its done
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After leaving Crazy Horse, we passed a sign for Custer State Park. We did a quick check in our guide book and discovered that there are buffalo roaming freely in the park. So… we decided to set out to find us some buffalo. As we drove through the park, we came across an area with many rock formations including a well known one called the Needle Point. Dan and I parked and decided to venture out into the rock formations at the top of the mountain. It ended up being some treacherous climbing that led us to the top of one of the highest formations. We got some great photos which are below
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We then continued into the park and finally found what we were looking for. We came across a heard of buffalo that were roaming along the road and frankly, on the road. It was pretty funny. At one point, we almost felt like we were being escorted through the park be a handful of buffalo, as three were directly in front of the car and a few were directly behind us. We were forced to drive at there pace, which was about 2 miles an hour. I opened the sunroof and stood up so that I could get a better view for pictures. Dan drove, while taking video, and giving some kind of animal planet commentary. It was quite the experience though. They towered over the car. Worth the drive to see them.

After leaving the park, it was getting late and started getting dark, so we decided to head to our hotel in Strugis, SD. After our experience in Kadoka the night before…. Pulling up to our Holiday Inn Express felt like pulling into a resort. The room was nice and clean and we even had a flatscreen to watch Back to the Future 2 while we relaxed. Bedtime! More tomorrow as we venture to Devils Tower and Yellowstone.