Driving to Des Moines, IA
So on Monday, we woke up and hurried over to Mt. Rushmore. Of course a Bragassa trip wouldn't be complete without some sort of hold up, so as predicted, we pulled up to the Mt. Rushmore National Monument entrance only to find out that they don't accept credit or debit cards. I mean seriously...who carries cash anymore!?! So we had to turn around, drive back into the tiny little town at the base of the mountain, find an ATM, get cash, and then go back up. We contemplated not going in since we could get a pretty good view of it from the road, but we decided this might be the only time we're up in this area so we needed to go ahead and go in. Our only problem now was what to do with Vida. We couldn't leave her in the hotel because number 1, it was out of our way to go back, and number 2, it was past check out time...which pretty much voids out options number 1. The only real option we had was to leave her in the car in the parking deck...luckily, it was all shaded and she's a pretty quiet dog so I wasn't concerned about her barking, although I was concerned about getting in trouble for animal cruelty. Either way, we decided to try to go through the monument as fast as possible so we could get back to our fur child.
Once we went in to the museum, it was actually very interesting. I had no idea that the guy who designed Mt. Rushmore, is the same guy who did Stone Mountain in my hometown of Atlanta. Mt. Rushmore really is an amazing sculpture and when we left, both of us were feeling pretty patriotic after reading all about the history of the 4 people carved into the face of the mountain. After reading all we could read and taking all the pictures we needed, we got back in the car and continued our journey to Des Moines, Iowa.
On our way to Des Moines, we also drove past Badlands National Park, so naturally we decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit a National Park. Luckily, Badlands is a great park to drive through although there are some hiking trails you can take if you'd like...I personally, wouldn't like them considering it was super hot, and there are absolutely no trees for shade anywhere. Brian and I drove through the park for about 45 minutes...it is such a crazy place because out of nowhere, these big termite-looking mounds appear everywhere. It was like nothing I've ever seen before!
Take a look...
Beautiful fields of sunflowers!
No idea why this was there but it looked cool!
Terrible flooding!
Vida rode inside on the luggage cart like this!
Never in my life have I seen so many bugs...we literally thought it was raining because there were so many hitting the windshield!
Thanks for sharing about your trip to Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. We're glad that you decided to go see Mount Rushmore closer, and learn about Borglum. Interesting man, that is for sure.
ReplyDeleteAren't the Badlands just really something? I cannot believe how the colors shine at sunset and sunrise.
Safe travels,
Katlyn Richter
SD Dept. of Tourism
@travelsd
Great photos! What was the weather like when you were there (in August right?)
ReplyDeleteWe are headed up next summer from Kansas and usually prefer to escape the heat f possible on vacations.
Hi Brandon! The weather was pretty hot! We were there in August so it may just be typical of that time of year! Hope you have a wonderful time!
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