VACATION

Voting

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

MT RUSHMORE VACATION

Stan and I have been talking about going to Mt. Rushmore for 8 years since moving to Minnesota. On Thursday, June 19th at 4:30 am we started down the highway heading toward South Dakota with Erin and Jaden. We arrived at 2:30 pm in Keystone, gaining an hour due to the time zone. As soon as we checked into our room we got hit with a thunderstorm so we decided to walk around downtown Keystone. Since it was raining, we decided to sit and watch a saloon gunfight. Stan ended up an unwilling participant in the show, trying to retrieve his watch from a 7 ft giant gunslinger. We had a good laugh at his expense and he was a good sport.

We took a steam train ride to Hill City and got hit by rain and a hail storm heading back to Keystone. Temps really dropped and Erin and I were freezing, but we tried not to complain because there had been a drought in that area for years. We toured the Rushmore Cave and took a historic walk in the old part of Keystone. We went to Mt. Rushmore Friday night and enjoyed the evening program. We were honored to go down to the stage along with all veterans of the military while they retired the flag for the evening, we got a huge round of applause. We were proud!


By Saturday morning we were ready to leave Keystone so we did the Alpine Slide and headed North to Deadwood. We ate at the Midnight Star, Kevin Costner's casino, food was good and reasonable. Erin posing by the costume Whitney Houston wore in the movie The Body Guard. We decided to head to the Wall to see the Badlands and walk around Wall Drug. We enjoyed Wall Drug and Jaden had a blast playing in the backyard. Water set to music shot out of the ground leaving the kids guessing where the next water spout would come from. By the time we got to the Badlands, it was getting pretty late and the sun was getting ready to set, so we spent just about an hour walking around the badlands, that was enough for us... I kept watching for snakes.



On Sunday morning as we headed home we decided to stop and see the famous corn palace. It wasn't my favorite site seeing stop, but it was interesting. Sunday was warm and sunny, perfect for stopping at Falls Park, in Sioux Falls SD to stretch our legs. That was worth the stop and absolutely beautiful! We were home by 10:30 pm Sunday night. We had a great trip!