We slept in a little bit the next morning, just because we could, and then leisurely headed out to see Mount Rushmore. It was about 20 minutes away from our hotel. As we got into the actual town around Mount Rushmore, it was so strange looking! It almost reminded me of Clifton Hill at Niagara falls. Tons of bright lights, big signs, souvenir shops. You can tell this town survives solely on tourism income. As we were driving up to Mount Rushmore, you could actually see the mountain, but we decided to do the whole thing and park and walk around the park. I was so shocked at how SMALL it actually is. In movies and shows, they picture the carvings to be the size of the actual mountain but in reality, it's only about 1/8 the side of the mountain. In the top corner. Yeah, it was pretty cool, but I was disappointed about the size. Also, I've seen it so many times in movies that I felt like I had already been there. Either way, if you're American, it definitely something you need to see, because it's a very patriotic thing. As a Canadian, though, I didn't think it was that great, mostly because I didn't get the significance of it.
So we been there'd and done'd that ... and yes, I got a T-Shirt for my quilt and we pushed off. We weren't there more than an hour and a half. That's my kind of tourism! On the way back, we stopped at this drive-though animal park that we saw on the way in called Bear Country USA. We didn't know how much it cost, but we decided if it was under $20, we'd go, but no more than $20. It looked so neat. So we drove up, and after the girl at the gate told us it'd be $30, Andre glanced at me and promptly handed the girl $30. I know how much Andre loves bears, so it was probably worth it. The drive-through took about 30 minutes. We saw huge moose, wolves, buffalo, deer of all kinds, lynx, bobcats, fox,... I'm sure I'm missing something. It was a lot of animals. Towards the end, though, there were lots of bears. TONS of them. They were just walking alongside the car. One even decided to cross the street in front of us at a very leisurely pace, so we actually had a huge lineup of cars behind us as we waited for him to cross. They were very cute.
After the drive through, there is a little zoo that you can get out and look at. They call it Babyland because it's where they keep all of the baby animals. They were so adorable. The best part is that we saw a little baby black bear climbing a tree and then he had a rough time trying to figure out how to get back down. He tried going bum first, head first, but no matter what he did, he couldn't figure it out. His tree was sort of like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree because he had chewed so many of the leaves and branches off of it, which left very little to help him climb. It was so adorable.
When we got back to the hotel, I decided to go relax on the sun deck in my bathing suit while Andre went to get the oil changed on the car. Of course, when I decided to do this, Mother Nature decided that she'd let the clouds make a special appearance. This was our first experience with American clouds. Seriously, not one thus far (the fog over the ocean doesn't count, I've decided). Needless to say, I didn't get a tan.
When Andre got back, we went out for supper. We were going to try out a Chili's, but stopped short when we saw a place called "Dickey's BBQ Pit". That was what we were in the mood for.
So we went in, and the place was packed... good sign. They had a special on, $1 pulled pork sandwich. So we did that, and each added a side dish. I had potato salad and Andre had the fried okra. We're starting to realize that Americans by default eat A LOT. Not only were our side dishes served in huge cups, but the drink (we asked for a "regular") came in a 32oz cup! Also, some people (average looking people) were getting 2 or 3 sandwiches. Also, a "meal" came with a sandwich and 2 sides (not just one), so the Americans were adding 2 side dishes on top of their 2 sandwiches. If that wasn't enough, if you ate in the restaurant (you could take out, it was like a fast food place), you got to serve yourself to a gigantic pickle (more like a cucumber) and ice cream for dessert. So we got 2 sandwiches, potato salad, fried okra, 2 large pickles, a drink and 2 servings of ice cream... all for $8. It's a good deal to me! Not only was it cheap, but it was really tasty too!
We waddled back to our hotel. I decided I wanted to see if there was my favourite dollar store, Dollar Tree in Rapid City. Sure enough, one had just opened in May. So Andre, being the good sport that he is, humoured me and we punched the address into the GPS. This address took us on a wild goose chase because there was no Dollar Tree when Susan said we had reached our destination. Andre was determined to find it, because he had seen a map on the computer when I was looking up the address. After stopping at 2 malls, we finally went back to where Susan told us to go and looked around some more. Sure enough, it was there. I stocked up on dollar store medicine to re-stock my pharmacy at home. Things like Aleve, Rub A-5-3-5, Polysporin, Expectorant, etc. You can't get these for $1 in Canada!
After we were done at the dollar store, we went back to our lovely hotel to pack it in for the evening. We had a long drive ahead of us.
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