Saturday, a day for the books.

Okay so time for Lindsay to chime in and yes I just referred to myself in the third person. I’m gonna give you a little bit of yesterday and the craziness that has already occurred before 4pm mountain time today. That’s right we hit Mountain Time. Well yesterday in Minnesota we almost got lit up by a road worker with a huge like blow torch air gun maybe we should have asked him if he’d cook our hot dogs. Not too many highlights yesterday except my first camping experience going well thanks for all who lent us items. We had a delicious meal of cheese dogs and potatoes yeah we are awesome. It was fun having B help put the tent together lol. Love you B. Oh and all the birds love um but B won’t let me stop and take pictures of them so I don’t know what they are. For you bird hunters out there…South Dakota bird hunters paradise there are more hit birds on the side of the road than anything else.

Now for Saturday a day for the books. We got up had a breakfast of potatoes and whatever else we wanted I packed up the car and were on the road by 830 not to shabby. Now the beginning of the excitement while I was driving B screams ooooo there’s something out there it’s a jackalope! I bust out laughing. She’s like what? I said there is no such thing. B asks what it is. I say a made up animal that’s a combo of a jackrabbit and an antelope. She’s like that’s what it was. I’m like, how about an antelope she’s said ok one of those. Then we finally get to the buffalo grasslands and Badlands national park loop. We stopped at a gas station to fill up and there was a colony of prairie dogs off to the side. What does B do? She chases them! Thanks you scared away my photo ops. Now for the best part we get on the badlands loop get out take some awesome pictures you know to prove we were there and then get cruising. Well I may have decided it was a better view for photos out the sunroof of the car. And sure as shit it was $150 worth of great photos because we both got tickets. B for allowing her passenger to hang out the sunroof and me for no seat belt. But with how long they took you would think they were gonna arrest a couple of felons. So no offense but they made it on to my song list and it goes “every party has a pooper and it’s the South Dakota federal and state trooper!’ PUT IT TO ANY TUNE YOU WISH. This leads to the fourth rule of the road don’t drive by the authorities hanging out your sunroof apparently they don’t look too kindly on that, not even a warning for us stupid tourists. I said to my dad before we left (because everyone was giving us a hard time that we have actually never camped before) that we were badass and he let out this big chuckle like yeah right! Well now we really are and I turned B onto the life of crime.

But after that we did see a bird of prey a perch a mountain top and pink and yellow hills and some big horn sheep one even peed for us which we really appreciated. So after we said fuck the badlands it was off to Wall Drug this place that has like a thousand and one road signs all the way to it starting in Minnesota. Wall drug was pretty nifty not really my thing though but I got a spoon and I saw it and had some of their homemade ice cream and took some pics. Then off to Mount Rushmore where on the way we got stuck behind someone driving 10 miles an hour in a 45 and it was a construction zone so you couldn’t pass. And who was driving? ME. So what did I have? SEVERE ROAD RAGE! Ridiculous. But on the way we took a little detour to a drive through Wildlife Park called Bear Country which I highly recommend. I however was not a fan of the rules because as some of you now I love animals and at the safaris where you can feed the animals but not from your hand I don’t abide and I pet them. So keeping windows and doors closed so hard for me. There was elk, mountain goats, arctic wolves, bison, timber wolves and a shit ton of black bears and grizzly bears. Oh and mountain lions that we saw scale a pine tree so awesome. Highlights the bear basically will rub against your car and if you’re lucky like we were you can see them humping each other while the wolves sat and watched from 5 feet away, also bears get dingle berries too people not just dogs for shiz. Lastly there was the walk through portion were they have all these other animals and most importantly 30 baby bear cubs running rampant and amuck, wrestling, playing swimming and generally just being the cutest damn things you’ve ever seen.

Mt. Rushmore well is Mt. Rushmore you have to go and see it. And it is quite amazing. We saw a mountain goat right on the side of the road driving away liking minerals off the rocks not even phased by all the gawkers. Then onward to Crazy Horse kind of disappointed we paid 20 bucks and the busses up to the in progress monument weren’t running.

Then a slight spat with my travel buddy but we recovered well. Especially after we started seeing the snow capped Rockies in the distance and my wonderful cousin made a nice compromise for me. We to the scenic route through the mountains! Best damn idea. We saw an owl and even B was impressed we saw prong horn antelope, a herd of elk, and two moose that I may have tried to walk as close as possible to take a picture cuz it was kind of dark. Would you expect anything less? All firsts for B to see! Plus we got the sunset over the mountains couldn’t get any better.. But it did we got to drive on dirt roads, met a guy who lived in Hartford and dad lived in Cedarburg and we are staying at a slightly sketch motel because we drove till 11pm here. But all in all I highly recommend South Dakota as a vacation spot there is sooooo much to see and do you need time! Pretty awesome day!