What A Day/Night!

Driving through South Dakota is so boring EXCEPT for those crazy home-made looking, folksy road signs announcing some far fetched local attraction. As soon as we left Mitchell,SD for Rapid City (about a four hour drive) we were bombarded with WALL DRUGS...free ice water!...Wall Drugs...fudge ETC,ETC,ETC,...this went on for 100 miles. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO of course we had to stop, in the middle of nowhere, in WALL, SD. Its a little bitty town... with 2 blocks of stores, a soda fountain, a Silver Dollar that looks like the "Buck " in St. Joe before Port 412, boot shops, fudge, figures of saloon type people you can pose with for pictures and the like. That's the entire town! It was started in the 30's by couple to bring business to the town. Those signs along the highway really worked, we weren't the only suckers there, it was packed! We three split a buffalo burger (it was dry) but the fries were the bomb! We were outta there and headed for dad's bucket list item of seeing Mt. Rushmore in Rapid City which was about 2 hours away...oh the anticipation!?!??!?
WELL .......what a site, it was fabulous, and I don't use that term lightly! The winding drive up into the Black Hills, the beautiful monument lined with state flags. It was a site to behold. The presidents carved into the mountain were amazing..it is something NOT to be missed! The only thing was.....I had to stay in the car!!!!!!!!!!NO DOGS ALLOWED, can you believe that, how unfair, oh well I had a good nap in the car. Mom and dad had a grand time walking a path with a ranger who gave us a brief history lesson about the 4 presidents and the sculptor and anything else he could conjure up. It was the best time we've had outdoors all year.Apparently one of the original carvers from 1927-41 was in the bookstore but we didn't see him. We left Rushmore very pleased that we took the time to visit this fine monument....Recommended!!!!!!!!!!!
We were told by our restaurant server Josh that we had to visit the scenic drive in Spearfish, SD. on the Wyo/SD border..it was magnificent! The winding drive through the rocky carved roadway towered up into the sky and was gorgeous, mom thought she saw a lion or something but it turned out to be a LOG
From there we headed out to the highway and were bombarded by some kind of odd bugs that littered and soiled our windshield so bad that the combination of "paintball" bug guts and glaring sun hampered our being able to see the road. We stopped and cleaned the window and headed out into the mountains toward WYOMING, Sheridan to be exact.
I think Mom went an hour too long with out food cuz she was gettin a little cranky. We checked into a really nice hotel and my Dad took me for a walk and the manager of the place was saying stuff to my Dad and my Dad got mad and the next thing I knew we were packin up and went to a different Hotel. I found out that the first hotel didn't like me and was going to make me sleep in the car. Good grief, I would have been so scared and cold. Today we have to get back in the car! What! I thought we were going to go see Sissie and Casey. They live pretty far away I guess. We are going to go to Yellowstone park today. I hope it's fun. I'll let you know. Hopefully we can stay at a Red Roof Inn tonite! Love you all! Barclay, Jill and Jeff P. S. thank you Donna for the chocolate, you saved my Mom's life last nite!