The interns took a trip to SOUTH DAKOTA! and Nebraska, but "The Good Life" wasn't all that great. Most of the fun took place in the car, all 12 hours each way... a total of 1512 miles for the entire trip. And more inside jokes than we could count.
We took Friday off and drove all day and most of the night. On the way, we stopped first in Mitchell, home of the Corn Palace. The inside was just a big auditorium with a gift shop, but the outside was made entirely of corn. No joke. They did have some photos of all of the years and the outside of the palace. There was one that had a giant swastika sign on it, but they claimed it was "Indian Good Luck" - okay, Mitchell. Ok. We picked up some trucker hats and took some great photos with a giant corn-on-the-cob.
Continuing, we decided to take a detour and head through the Badlands, which actually turned out to be one of the most exciting parts of the trip. They were so unique, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it. And in the middle of nowhere! They kind of sprouted up out of nothing, which makes for a pretty amazing landscape. We also saw prairie dogs! In the wild! They were pretty loud, and dodging in and out of their little holes, so cute!
Next stop was Wall Drug. Ok, so the fun part was actually taking photos of the signs for Wall Drug all along I-90. Alexis had the camera ready and we ending up screaming and pointing if we were about to miss one. Well, maybe that was just me... There were 70-something signs, mostly advertising their free water and 5 cent coffee. Oh, and they're "new" T-rex, which turned out to be a la Jurassic Park and "fed" every 15 minutes. Once there, we took a photo on a jackalope. Oh, and we got our free water. It had a funky flavor.... haha.
We ate a lovely Mexican dinner in Rapid City before ending up in Hot Springs at a very quaint hotel on the river. We missed a lot of landscape on the way in since it was dark, but upon waking up, we saw that we were in the mountains! Such a nice change of scenery from the "Great Plains" in my opinion. We started our day by heading out to the Crazy Horse monument. We passed through some really small towns (ie. Pringle) and had a great time when we drove right through bison crossing the street! They're pretty ugly animals, but they were so close to my car! Crazy Horse was pretty impressive, but we were all pretty sure that they are never going to finish it. The family of the sculptor who started it refuse to take any help/money from the government and so they're pretty slow-going. Crazy Horse also was the home of some MARMOTS!!!
Next was, of course, Mount Rushmore. We wanted to eat lunch before taking some time with the presidents, so we drove to Keystone. On they way, we knew we were close to Mt. Rushmore but couldn't quite figure out where it was. We turned around a corner and, jokingly, I told the girls to look behind us, and there it was. In all its glory. In Keystone, we ate some pretty tasty pizza right next to a helicopter launching pad - not the quietest experience, but we were just happy to be eating. Mt. Rushmore was pretty cool, and of course, being very mature young adults, we each took a photo picking on the presidents' noses. Heh heh.
It was pretty late according to our schedule, so we headed back to the hotel and took a rest before heading off to Nebraska for dinner. The drive to Nebraska was only about an hour, but it was seriously the most boring hour OF MY LIFE. There is absolutely nothing there. Not even houses or farms. There's just grass. No hills, no nothing. Gahh. We found the only restaurant in the town of Chadron, so we settled down into a booth in Helen's Pancake and Steakhouse. Yum. They had Rocky Mountain Oysters, which aren't oysters, and therefore we didn't eat them. Jackie had Crow's Butte which started a ripple of giggles out of us mature young adults :)
The next morning we decided to just head out and drive home. I'm probably forgetting some things, but that was our road trip in a nutshell. It was really nice to get out of the Twin Cities for a little bit. Next adventure: we're dyeing our hair tonight! Ahhh!
Peace.
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