Rapid City, South Dakota, USA
Trip Start
Mar 26, 2008
1
33
60
Trip End
Dec 07, 2008
Rapid City,
South Dakota,
United States
Thursday, July 17, 2008
We stopped at Little Bighorn and checked out the site of Custer's Last Stand. We bought a DVD that told much of the history of this historic battle from both sides and the kids were thrilled to watch this when we hit the road(kidding) It was really interesting to hear the full story though. Apparently, Custer's ego got the better of him when he took on several thousand indians with only a few hundred soldiers. This was an eye-opener for us as the movies portray it quite differently.
We also drove down to see Devil's Tower in all its enormity and we were fascinated by the Prairie Dogs out there. When you see the photos of Devil's Tower, you may recall it was featured on the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
Road across South Dakota to Minnesota
.We then headed for Rapid City arriving to meet our hosts Jeff and Renee at their lovely home. They have two gorgeous King Charles Spaniels called Bandit and Molly and they were great fun. Renee cooked a lovely homecooked meal of Elk and we sat down to really appreciate it. The kids were elated at the rich chocolate dessert that followed. We all headed to bed early and enjoyed a good night sleep, though there was some very spectacular thunder and lightning in the night.
The next morning we had a lovely breakfast of homemade muffins, fruit and cereal(thanks again Renee) and then headed for Mt Rushmore. What an awesome sight, and even hard to believe the true enormity of it when you are there. Apparently the eyes of the presidents alone stand at about 10 feet tall which really puts the whole undertaking into perspective. The sculptures took over 5 years to complete.
We then headed to a great waterpark and had a couple of hours of fun in the sun. I managed to roll my ankle coming off the first slide and hobbled up the hill to do a couple more before collapsing in the shade and relaxing with Cass.
We headed back to town for a picnic lunch in the park and came across an interesting display on the Berlin Wall
Custer's Last Stand
. We then headed home for some serious down time. The girls enjoying a marathon watch of the Little House on the Prairie series as Laura Ingalls Wilder (author of the "Little House" books) grew up in this area.
With some dismay in the evening I found that I could no longer stand on my foot and it was showing a remarkable ability to swell up. Renee came to the rescue and took me first to her lovely Chiropractor to get an xray who didn't like the look of it and sent us on to the A and E doctor. The doctor felt it was looking like a break, xrayed again and couldn't see a break. After a bit of discussion we agreed to leave it and treat it with ice etc. Thanks Renee! Spending much of your evening with me.
The next morning we were up and I took up the backseat position with my foot up on ice for our huge drive to Minnesota.
Comments
Interesting!
The prairie dog is a weird looking thing! What does elk taste like then? Sorry Cass, but you're looking a lot like Clare.