Westward bound, eastbound and down.

Sorry I haven’t updated as soon as I should have, we got back from our trip to the black hills a few days ago but I had a lot of homework to catch up on that I was supposed to have done before I left. I got the last of it turned in about 10 minutes before it was due. Now I’ve basically got a week left and then the final before I’m done and I get a month off before my Summer class starts.

The trip was pretty fun, only interrupted by minor bouts of sickness on my part. Once by motion sickness and also by a little altitude sickness the next day. It was probably more of a mixture of both. I guess I’m a wussy but I tried not to let it bring me down. The weather was really nice for the most part, it rained a little bit a few times but it didn’t really ruin anything. On the way up there we went on the back roads through the sandhills crossing the border around Valentine, stopped at Nebraska National Forest which was completely underwhelming and headed towards Badlands National Park. I vaguely recall it from when I was a kid but it was better than I remembered and was pretty cool. I wanted to scamper out on some of the further areas to get a picture but I didn’t do that all that much because I was afraid that Jess might completely whig out if I did. She was afraid I might slip and fall to my death on the slippery rocks which was a valid concern and if that happened who would drive home? After the Badlands we spent the night in Wall. If you’ve driven through South Dakota then you have seen the signs for Wall Drug. There’s only about ten thousand of them but they don’t seem the same as I remember them. How not the same? I don’t know, they are just different… Anyway we took a trip through Wall Drug, it was an obscene tourist trap. Good thing it is the off season and it wasn’t that crowded. You could rob them blind if you wanted to since they had about one employee for every three shops. I don’t know why you would want to though, everything in there is junk. I bought a t-shirt and Jess did too and then we went and ate dinner. Side note, they apparently import a bunch of young women from the nordic area of Europe to work at the businesses there for some reason.

Next day we were on our way into the Black Hills. The first place we hit was Mount Rushmore. It was pretty neat, about what I remembered. We took a walk around the little look that goes near the base of it. I was hoping to be able to go higher but I think that trail was closed.

After that we went over to Crazy Horse. We weren’t able to go very close to that. I guess there were tour buses that drove you closer but I didn’t feel like paying for the ticket for that after getting killed on the entrance fee. I didn’t know that they started that thing in like 1948 and that it isn’t being funded by the government. We learned that and a bunch more when we watched the informational movie. The guy who built it looked pretty wild and grizzly and he talked like a crazy man. He seemed like someone you would expect to smell like urine and see shouting at clouds or something. Jess and I ended up with a couple rocks that they blasted off the mountain. They let you take them there unlike most places where they threaten you with jail time.

Next we headed for Jewel Cave to catch the last tour of the day. I liked this part of the trip the best because I have never done anything like it. They take you thirty or forty stories underground and you make about a half mile loop through the caverns. It was really pretty neat to look at but I don’t know how people find there way around in there when they are spelunking without the walkways and stairs. You could get turned around in there so fast and never find your way out. I guess there are over a hundred and fifty miles of passages and they are adding more every year as they explore outward. Afterward Jessica had to give her evaluation of how our Park Ranger preformed while giving our tour since they basically do the same job, Jessica just does it on a prairie instead of in caves.

To end the day we made out way in a little loop though the valleys and ended up staying in Deadwood for the night. It was ok I guess, I don’t gamble so it didn’t really excite me. Jess gave me two dollars and ten seconds later it was gone. I don’t get people’s fascination with it. We had planned to spend another day in the area but we went through all the places we really wanted to see a lot faster than we thought we would. It wasn’t crowded at all and a lot of the touristy things were still closed. Since there wasn’t really anything that jumped out at us we decided to just head home the next day instead of spending more money. Traveling is pretty draining to me anyway and I enjoy relaxing more anyway. On our way home we stopped at the Corn Palace. There isn’t much to it, it’s basically a civic auditorium decorated with corn.

So that’s it, it was a good little trip to go do something. Now nothing again until the fall and Jess can take time off. Click here for all the pictures and if you are reading this on facebook come on over and check out the site itself at fightingpolish.com every once and a while.