June 30th: The Badlands and POTUS (Day 8)

June 30th
After a night of rest, we shipped our boxes at the local post office and hit the road. As we traveled through the countryside of South Dakota, the rolling hills of grass began to reveal more and more of the massive rock and clay formations that lay beneath. We saw plenty of prairie dogs and chipmunks in an area that really looked unlivable. We reached Badlands National Park and made our way through the scenic drive stopping along the way to do some rock climbing and to take pictures. The badlands is the place in all the westerns where there is no water and Trigger has to be either set free because he can't traverse the terrain or shot because he broke his leg trying to traverse the terrain. Our hero then wanders thirsty through the winding rock formations until he passes out under an outcropping and is later revived and nursed back to health by a kind Indian wiseman. Luckily, we brought water and left our trusty steed Mazda on the paved road when we ventured of the trail to climb rocks and use the port-a-potties. On the way out of the Badlands we saw a pair of black horned antelope (mom and baby) before continuing our ascent into the Black Hills and stopping in Rapid City, SD for lunch downtown and a little bit of shopping.

In keeping with the Mount Rushmore theme of the area, Rapid City commissioned bronze statues of every US President and placed them on street corners throughout the town. This is a really cool idea and makes for a fun game of "who is that guy" as you go through town. After awhile though, you start to wonder what it is that seems odd about these brown men on the corners and it finally sinks in that it is their diminutive size. Except for the founding fathers, Washington, Jefferson, etc., the presidents are kind of hobbit sized and top out at maybe 5' tall.

Continuing our patronage of roadside attractions, we went to Bear Country on the way to Rushmore. It’s a drive through wildlife park where you can see wolves, rams, antelope, coyotes, wildcats of all kinds and, of course, lots and lots ‘o bears. The dogs growled and made generally aggressive noises during most of the drive, but remained strangely silent and attentive in the big bear area. The drive concludes in a walk through zoo like area containing all of the baby animals and, most importantly, a huge play area full of baby bears. It looks like a playground at recess sans the adults with all the bears fighting, swimming and climbing trees. Cheri took a few hundred pictures and tried to sneak a baby bear out of the park in her backpack. :)

Afterwards, we headed to Mount Rushmore. We spent a couple of hours walking the trails and stopping for a presentation about the artist and the workers that sculpted the mountain. It was truly awe inspiring to see an artistic vision realized on such a large scale.
There is a great quote at the site by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore:
"A monument's dimensions should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated."
It reminded me that most of our presidents are just normal guys, clocking in every day and doing the best job they can. Just like the rest of us, precious few of them truly make an impact that lasts more than a decade beyond their term in office. We even saw a picture taken at the beginning of the process that shows the beginnings of a head to the left of Washington. I haven't had time to find out which of the four it was or if it fell off or what.
From there, we headed to Custer State Park to make camp for the evening. After getting settled, Kevin made a delicious veggie stew which we had to eat out of the pan because of a mix-up with our bowls and the dog’s bowls. Even though our night owl neighbors were a little loud and we didn’t have access to water at the site, it was still a good night.

More photos for Day 8