Family Vacation- Day Three part Two

So now we come to the main attaction--Mount Rushmore! Truth be told this is the only part of the vacation that I actually knew about beforehand, my attention being very much focused on getting things ready at work for my week and a half departure (I scheduled myself a few days of R&R at home to recoup before going back in). Of the five intended stops, I had already been to two of the major ones, being Martin's Cove and Yellowstone. I was quite excited for our first sight of this major national monument. Here is the first picture I was able to take, out the window of the RV as we were in line to get our pass:

Dad got the RV parked and decided to rest a bit, as he had already been there twice and wasn't feeling particularly well that day. Mom, Bill, Michael and I ventured forth into the great unknown....well, to us at least.

I was personally quite impressed at the presentation of the flags of each of the states leading to such a major national icon.

Apparently this goat felt the same, as he was looking back at the flags from the other side of a very short fence as we surprised tourists hurriedly documented him as a unique feature in our experience. I myself was quite happy to locate our own state flag and marker:

I took a lot of pictures of the monument, but I have to admit that this is certainly one of my absolute favorites:

We made our way to a lookout over a huge amphitheater. At the end of the day they do a large presentation about the monument and the presidents featured. I'm sure it is rather impressive, but we had already determined that we wouldn't be sticking around. We did manage to get a couple of great pictures with the monument in the background:

We took the easy route to get closer to the mountainside. A small cave led off the side of the path, through which a portion of the monument could be seen:

At one point while we were at Wall Drug someone accidentally said "booger" instead of "burger", which lead to a brief but rather humerous discussion in which we laughed that we'd soon have the chance to see the Presidents' boogers when we got to Mt. Rushmore. I have to confess I laughed a bit as I took this picture (Thomas Jefferson in particular):

For some reason or another (I think I blame Michael for this, though Mom may have been a co-conspirator), we took the longer, "strenuous" path back. Mom and Michael forged ahead as Bill slowly led me down (I was trying to send a text at the time and was meeting with limited success due to poor reception, go figure). The path (staircase, really) was quite scenic, and very well made, which I appreciate more now in hindsight, as I kept turning around to take more pictures in hopes of catching that perfect shot.

At the bottom of the stairs (about half-way back to the main entry), we took a breather. This is the second of three shots in which I caught just the right angle of Michael looking through his new binoculars. Kind of creepy, but also rather hilarious at the time :)

This is one of those shots that I hadn't actually intended to get, but was very glad that I did. I love the constrast:

After we had hiked up about half of the remaining distance, we took another breather. I personally also took the opportunity to "study tourists in their natural habitat":

The final stop, an absolute must for me, was the Gift Shop. It was huge, and packed to the rafters with both merchandise and shoppers. I admit, I was rather jealous. I have a hard time even imagining what it would be like to run a store like that one. That being said, I do enjoy the fact that I get to sell toys, not just your typical touristy souvenirs.

A short time later we started making our way back through South Dakota and back into Wyoming. With the aid of the GPS we were able to do a search for Walmarts in cities along our route. One of the closest ones was back in Gillette. I personally objected to spending the night there, as we had the night before. Where was the fun in that?

Unfortunately the next one in the route was around a hundred miles after Gillette, in Sheradon, WY. Courtesy the GPS we could project arrival times. We would reach Gillette around the time we had typically stopped the two previous nights, whereas it would take until about ten-thirty to get to Sheradon. Warming up more and more to the idea, I kept promoting the push on to Sheradon. It became a run-on joke, where even long after we passed Gillette and were closer to Sheradon we would say "It's getting late, let's just head back to Gillette", or "This is taking too long, let's just turn around and go to Gillette".

While it was indeed rather late when we got to Sheradon, I think we were ultimately all glad that we had pushed on. The remaining full day of our vacation could be that much more relaxed. We never really did have to rush from place to place, a fact I think we all liked and appreciated. I've never really cared for vacations where every moment is scheduled in advance. While I see that there are benefits, like seeing/doing more in the same amount of time, I've never been one to rush rush rush the entire time. Even with the long day, I have to say that with Mt Rushmore and Wall Drug, along with the fun involved in picking our day's final destination, it was my favorite day of the vacation :)