Last night was the first night that we spent in a designated campground. We stayed very near to Custer State Park, around 20 minutes from Mount Rushmore. Waking up early this morning, we arrived at Mt. Rushmore around 30 minutes after they opened and enjoyed a sparsely populated park for the first little bit that we were there. On our 2007 Out West trip, we visited the monument; however, with being so close, we decided to visit again. It still amazes me how small the memorial is, not to underestimate the miraculous work of Gutzon Borglum and his other drillers, but it is dwarfed by the surrounding Black Hills.
There was a path around the lake, winding all around and in between the rocks. Zach and I tapped into our more adventurous sides and decided to climb up one of the rock faces. I was a little over zealous and decided to climb up onto a rock in order to find a prettier view of the lake….. mistake. I made it up the rock just fine, but the descent was a challenge that I had not quite anticipated. Thanks to Zach and scraped up legs, I made it down fine, but let’s just say the sheer drop off on the other side of the rock wasn’t comforting in the slightest. |
Well, the “why not” journey continues, and we are loving it so far! It amazes me how much we have already seen, and we have barely been on the road for 48 hours! My favorite thing about long trips in the car is watching how quickly the scenery changes. We went from the open grass prairies with staggered eroding rock formations in the Badlands last night, to the heavily wooded Black Hills Forest Reserve this morning, and will find our way to snow capped mountain ranges in the next 12 hours. That’s why road trips are so memorable- you get to see the changes as you go along, rather than walking off of a plane in a completely different place than you left. It’s the board game tournaments, the books read, and the hours spent looking out the window that make road trips so special, and I can’t wait to continue on this journey.