Mount Rushmore: I Thought You'd Be Bigger

 
 Road house reference!!  Aww yeah.  We drove up to Keystone to see Mt. Rushmore, and it was smaller than one would think.  Our Rushmore adventures started off poorly, because some asshole left their dog in their car, and the poor thing was practically screaming in the heat, so we went to the information center, and Lizzie reported it to the ranger there, and they "called someone" but no one ever showed up.  We went back to the garage to get the car's license plate number, but either the dog had given up, or they'd left.  Seriously who would lock their dog up in a car with no windows open in 90 degree weather?  I hope the dog eats its owners's face off.

In the 20 minutes we were waiting for the rangers, the man at the info desk told us all about the minuteman missile site out by the badlands.  Apparently there were ten nuclear missiles, and 2 people had keys to each missile, so if it was set off, no one person would know if he was the one responsible for wiping out another country.  Sort of like the old legend of a blank cartridge being used in firing squad executions, allowing each man on the squad to not feel responsible for the accused's death.  GOOD TIMES.  The info dude kept staring at my chest instead of my face, but it was not because of my impressive (also small) Mt. Rushmores, but rather because he felt super awkward and was uncomfortable making eye contact with me.  Also a fly landed on his nose during the conversation.  SO MUCH AWK.

We walked up to the site, and I had mixed feels, because while it's an impressive work, I knew that the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, was a high ranking member of the KKK. (He was originally commissioned to carve Stone Mountain, but gave up on the project.)  He was super into nativist heroism, and while I think you can love your country and your country's history, it's important to be conscious of the not-so-great things that "great" people are capable of.  Teddy Roosevelt knows--he's giving us all the side eye.  I narrated the thoughts of our founding father's to Lizzie:

Washington:  I DIDN'T HAVE WOODEN TEETH
Jefferson:  HOW DID MY PLAN FOR AMERICA BEING A SMALL AGRARIAN SOCIETY GO?
Roosevelt:  BULL MOOSE!  SHOOT ALL THE THINGS! MURR MURR MURR
Lincoln:  I feel my beard is not rightly represented here.

Also, the original plan was for these four fellas to have pants and whatnot, but that didn't happen.

Mr. Bendo Redux

 HELLO FRIENDS.  I AM PROSPECTOR BENDO.  I LOVE TO LOOK FOR GOLD, AND HUMAN FRIENDS.  WILL YOU BE MY HUMAN FRIEND?  FEAR NOT THE HEFT OF MY PICK AXE, FOR IF YOU ARE A FRIEND TO BENDO, HE WILL BE A FRIEND TO YOU.

Wall Drug is Just a Bunch of Crappy Stores. Sorry.

 To be fair, there are a lot of good photo opportunities as well.  We drove to Wall-Drug on the way to Mt. Rushmore, and it looked exactly like I expected--a bunch of crappy stores and crappy souvenirs, but it was still a fun place to stop, and we were able to fill up on sweet, sweet diet coke.  There was a "Wall Drug" splash park, where a water tower would spray you, five cent coffee, and free ice water. (In fact, the original owner of Wall Drug, Ted Hustead, had a very smart wife named Dorothy, who came up with the idea of advertising this free ice water to thirsty travelers on the way to Mt. Rushmore, and this was what really boosted Wall-Drug's business.) There was also "old timey photo" opportunities, but I knew that would upset Danielle if we did that, so we refrained from donning the ratty costumes.  Am I a great sister or what?  And a great horsewoman, as is Lizzie, as you can see from the photo.  That's her with Wild Bill Hickock.  They're engaged.  I didn't tell him she's already married...

Rattlesnake free on June 23. And 24.

Hellllllooooooo!  So this morning we started off in the Badlands again.  It was stupid beautiful.  I am in charge of rattlesnakes and the weather, but luckily no rattlesnakes bothered us at this point.  I sat on one of the buttes, and my butte broke off some of the rock, but luckily no rangers were around to notice.  DON'T TELL, OKAY??  We left the badlands (got a little confused and turned around, but it worked out okay) and headed out to the fabulous town of Wall.  We had been pummeled with Wall Drug signs since back in Sioux Falls, so we expected nothing less than magnificence...

Badlands Pictures

 More pictures!  Poor Lizzie is so frightened...

Badlands!

 We passed from Central Time into Mountain Time, which gave us the hour we needed to do a preliminary spin around the badlands.  SD route 240 does a loop through this national park, which is especially interesting because it's surrounded by green prairie.  The area used to be the bottom of a large shallow sea, which was eventually pushed and shoved by geological maneuvering until it gave way to these strange formations, which have beautiful banded color tones.  It's stunning, and the windy roads break out into multiple sweeping vistas, which scared the heck out of Lizzie, who is afraid of heights, as you may remember from previous trips.  We're going to go back tomorrow when we're less exhausted from our corn palace visit.  For dinner, we went to this tiny little bar in Interior, SD, called the Wagon Wheel Bar and Grill, and had delicious pizza and conversation with the locals, who were all about the bad storms that'd been coming through.  This one lady detailed her plans to hide in the closet (rather than the bathtub) with a mattress.  I worry about her chances of survival...anyway, it was interesting because I noted that some of the formations we passed through looked like they were out of Indiana Jones, and then Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade was playing in the bar.  Awww yeah.

Corn-u-copia

On the way from Sioux Falls to the Badlands, we kept passing signs for the Corn Palace in Mitchell.  At first we were like "nah," and then we were like "maybe we could cornsider this," and then we were like "WE NEED TO SEE THIS!"  Before I embarked on this trip, I asked my dear friend Tina, who grew up in part in SD, what stops I should make while here, and not once did she mention the Corn Palace, which I find shocking.   The Corn Palace...I'm sorry...the World's Only Corn Palace was originally built in 1892.  Early settlers were displaying their agricultural bounty on this gorgeous...er, palace, and each fall a festival was planned in celebration.  A new art theme is chosen for this folk art masterpiece each ear, I mean year, and this year it was um...Jesus?  We couldn't tell.  So unfortunately, Lizzie and I couldn't figure out what the point of the corn palace was, other than to get people into the sad little gift shops lining the street.  They had no unifying theme, and the corncession stand wasn't even open.  It had a few pictures of corn, but not many corn fun facts, which was disappointing. I guess Mitchell's prom is held here.  Damn that's sad.

 After the corn palace, we stopped by a prehistoric Indian village, which is an active archaeological dig.  We watched a boring video with a guy with weird Roman Centurion Helmet Hair, and had an even more boring tour, but learned a little about  the ancestors of the present-day Mandan people, which was interesting.  But not as interesting as a corn palace.