Downtown Rapid City, South Dakota

Yep. Still going on South Dakota recaps over here. 

Many of you have commented that you had no idea South Dakota had so many fun things to offer. Well, neither did we. When I first planned this vacation, I was afraid that we'd get bored spending three days there; but as it turns out, we didn't have nearly enough time to see and do everything we wanted to. 

So let me say this: South Dakota is completely underrated as a travel destination. 
Go there. The end.

On Sunday afternoon, after I squealed over the baby bears at Bear Country USA, we headed into Rapid City for a round of mini golf and some dinner.

There was a minor, ahem, episode around hole 7 where it might have taken me 17 strokes to get my ball in the hole. Let's just say I got a little upset and I might have tried to break my putter in half across my knee. But it's fine now. I recovered, and Jordan and I ended the game on good terms, both putters fully intact.

After mini golf, we walked around downtown Rapid City for a little bit before dinner. It was such a fun downtown! There weren't very many people out because it was Sunday evening and it was a little chilly, but we had fun acting like complete tourists taking pictures with road signs and such. 

I know people make fun of the typical "tourist" with their huge camera hanging around their necks, but HOW ELSE ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO TAKE PICTURES OF STUFF? Having your camera at the ready at all times is the only way to capture the moment.

No shame.

^^^Please look closely at this picture. AKA the most GIANT speed limit sign I have ever seen in my life. Look at it in comparison to me and then laugh for five minutes like I did when I saw it. 

Just... why.

^^^Okay, so weirdest slash coolest thing ever: On every street corner of the downtown area of Rapid City are life-size bronze statues of all the US presidents! We had no idea this was here, but Jordan loves history, and this might have been the most excited he was to see anything the entire trip, maybe minus his excitement over seeing the Mount Rushmore faces.

We saw one statue on a street corner, then looked over and saw another, then looked down a block and saw another. Jordan just pointed, then shouted, then took off in a sprint. You guys, I never see him move that fast for anything. We didn't see all 44, because it was cold and we were hungry for dinner, but there are, in fact, life-size statues of every single president. (If you're interested, you can see pictures of all of them here.)

Jordan would try to guess who the statue was before he got close enough to see the name. Amazingly, he was right every single time! I felt so lame. I only knew the big ones like Clinton and JFK and Bush, etc. I mean seriously, who knows what Zachary Taylor even looked like? My husband does apparently.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Rapid City and would honestly recommend it just for the presidential statues. Well, that and the giant speed limit sign. But, as they say, all good things must end. Luckily, our drive back to the cabin wasn't too bad, because we got to watch the sun set over the black hills. Not too shabby.

Want more South Dakota?
1) Trip overview (the route we drove + other random pictures)
2) Carhenge (awesome tourist attraction on the way there)
3) Our cabin in Keystone
4) Crazy Horse & Mount Rushmore
5) Bear Country USA

*Comments have been turned off this post. If you're interested in why, read this.

That time I saw a baby black bear run up a tree.

I've already recapped three parts of our South Dakota adventure: Carhenge, our cabin, Crazy Horse/Mount Rushmore. We stayed in Keystone Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, which meant we really only had two full days in South Dakota to pack in everything we wanted to do. I can't believe I thought we would be bored! South Dakota, you guys. It's for real.

Saturday was when we visited Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore. On Sunday, we got to do a few fun things, and one of those was visit Bear Country USA.

Think, safari except with bears and reindeer instead of giraffes and lions (or whatever kinds of animals they have in safaris). It's a two-mile loop that you drive, and you're given strict instructions to stay in your car lest you get mauled by black bears or gored by an elk. They used all caps and bold and lots of exclamation points on the flier they gave us, so we were pretty sure they were serious. That didn't stop us from rolling down our windows. I like to live on the edge. Don't tell.

Most of the animals didn't have actual pens, so they were free to just roam about. It was really cool to see animals up close like that, the black bears especially. They were right up next to our car! Then they'd walk across the road, and we would have to stop and wait. Kind of like you have to do for geese sometimes, except it's not really same at all. 

Because bears.

^^^ The whole time we waited for this bear to cross the road, I was shouting, "LOOK! IT'S WALKING!" I'm easily amused by animals performing regular functions such as walking. This is either a really good or really bad thing for my future children. Olympic gold medals in walking. Just you wait.

There weren't just bears in Bear Country USA. There were elk, reindeer, big horn sheep, and buffalo (which, being from Oklahoma, we weren't so impressed by).

^^^Reindeer!

After the drive was over, we parked, and there was a small area that was more like an actual zoo. There were only a few types of animals, like this little guy below. And they had skunks, which I thought was weird slash terrifying.

And THEN.

Then there was a huge pen full of baby black bears!

I think we stood and watched them for at least fifteen minutes. They were so fun to watch. There was one in particular that was an instigator. He (she?) was running around jumping on all the other bears. A lot of them were just lying around, and the one bear would come and jump on one or start wrestling with one until both got up and started chasing each other, and then two or three would get involved and they'd all chase each other. It was hilarious! I wish I had a video of it.

^^^ We were cracking up at this one. It's like he's taking a leisurely bath or something.

^^^One of them climbed a tree! Coolest thing ever. Have you ever seen a bear climb a tree? The little guy just ran up that thing!

Overall travel recommendation? If you ever find yourself in South Dakota, take a trip to Bear Country USA. I should warn you, however, that it was $16/person, which is definitely pricy. I mean, if you take a family there, it will add up. But it was a unique, fun thing to do, and honestly it was worth it just to see the baby bear run up that tree.

I will conclude now with one of the only pictures I got of Jordan the whole time we were there. Dude does not let me take pictures of him!

^^^See what I have to deal with? That guy.

-Have you ever seen a bear climb a tree?
-Have you ever been to a drive-through zoo thing like this?
-Do you have a favorite zoo animal? I didn't think I had a favorite, but after this I'd say baby black bears! I wanted to take one home.

Want more South Dakota?
1) Trip overview (the route we drove + other random pictures)
2) Carhenge (awesome tourist attraction on the way there)
3) Our cabin in Keystone
4) Crazy Horse & Mount Rushmore

9/12

*Project 12: A photo on the first day of every month in 2014*

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August

Read

1) Stella Bain by Anita Shreve (not very good, unfortunately)

2) The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr 

(check out my recap here)

3) A Dance with Dragons (part 2) by George RR Martin 

(If you've read this book, or really any of the series, you will enjoy this review I found on Goodreads. Literally LOL. And so true.)

Traveled

As you know if you've been reading this blog for the past few weeks, Jordan and I took a road trip to South Dakota Sept 11-16. See more pictures from our cabin in Keystone here, Carhenge here, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse here.

Dates

Our entire South Dakota vacation was a date. On Sunday night we went into Rapid City and had dinner and went mini golfing.

Things that Happened in September Last Year

I finished all my 2013 resolutions.

One of my blog posts kind of went viral for about a week. 

I published Part 1 of my "How to Start Running" series.

Notable Events

1) I checked "Do 3 Legit Pull-ups" off my bucket list. Watch the video here.

2) The sunrises on my way to work were out of this world in September. Check this one out. Completely unedited. I can't even.

Coming up this month on the blog...

1) Blog Talk #6! The topic is: quality vs. quantity. Find links to all the past blog talk posts here.

2) More South Dakota recaps. Yes, it's still happening.

3) A Day in the Life in 72 seconds. I filmed clips of my day and put them together in a video that's a mere 1 minute, 12 seconds long.

4) Life of an Editor part 2: answering some FAQs.

5) Runners Tell All on October 21. The topic is: your most memorable running moment. This can be anything. Funny, happy, sad, embarrassing, exciting... The sky is the limit!

6) Linking up with Kiki on October 22 for another round of The Circle. This month's topic is all about books! I'll be talking about the books I've read so far in 2014 and telling you what book I would take with me to a desert island.

Housekeeping question: Do you like a preview of what posts I have coming up, or do you prefer to be surprised?

Actual question: What are you most looking forward to about October? One of my best friends is coming from Illinois to visit this weekend, and I can't wait to see her!

Mount Rushmore & Crazy Horse [South Dakota Recap]

So yeah. There's just no way around it. Mount Rushmore is freaking cool.

I was a tiny bit worried that we'd go there and look at it and then be all, "Huh. Well, there's that." BUT SERIOUSLY IT'S SO COOL. There's just something about being there, even if it does look just like the pictures you see in movies and on billboards.

First, though, we went to see Crazy Horse. We didn't know it at the time, but it ended up being a majorly good decision to see Crazy Horse first before we visited Mt. Rushmore. Because let's just be honest: compared to Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse is kind of a letdown. It's cool and all that they're carving a guy on a horse into a mountain, but since it currently is just a face, it's kind of like, "Yeah, okay." 

See for yourself:

See what I mean? 

In 200 years it will look awesome, though. Something to look forward to if we haven't yet had to evacuate to Mars. Hashtag global warming.

There's also a large Native American museum on the property, which was interesting but probably would have been more informative if Oklahoma didn't already have tons of Native American stuff all over the place. I did love all the paintings, and learning about the history of the mountain carving gave me a greater appreciation for what the carver went through to get as far as he's gotten with it.

Long story short, if you're visiting South Dakota for the first time, definitely take a trip to Crazy Horse. It's kind of an icon. But at $11/person, there's really no need to go multiple times until they've made major progress to the carving.

Since Crazy Horse is still being worked on, they do public blastings, and you can take rock from the monument. Luckily, I was able to talk Jordan out of taking one. I mean, that's neat and all, but seriously. What are you supposed to do with a piece of rock? As if we have space for more random crap in our apartment. No.

After Crazy Horse and lunch (hot dogs at the Crazy Horse food court. Yum), we drove to Mount Rushmore. Both of us were giddy with glee at the thought of finally seeing it in person, which leads me to a funny Jordan story: 

When you're driving on the road to Mount Rushmore, you can't actually see the faces until you get around the front of the mountain. It looks mostly like this until they're almost right on top of you:

The faces aren't visible anywhere else along the road except for the profile of Washington's head, which you can see in the picture below.

So we've got the destination plugged into the GPS, and we're driving up the mountain, and then the GPS is like, "Turn left for final destination." And I'm like, "Jordan, turn left. There's the entrance." And Jordan looks to the left, sees the faces, and goes nuts and shouts, "There's the faces!" while continuing to drive right past the entrance and down the mountain away from Mount Rushmore. So we have to drive farther down until we find a spot to turn around and go back.

I like to tease him and say, "Hey, remember that time you drove right past Mount Rushmore?" I bet there are a ton of accidents on that road from people staring at the faces and crashing into each other.

You can't walk up to climb on the faces or anything Richie Rich style, but there is a half-mile "Presidential Trail" you can walk to get closer to the mountain. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. I mean, we really couldn't have asked for more perfect outside weather. And, anything after Labor Day is considered the "off season," so there weren't very many people. Two points for not being a teacher! We may not get summers off, but we can go on vacation during the off season. Whatup.

We went back that night to see the lighting ceremony, which happens every night at 8:00. I told Jordan it reminded me of when I was in Greece and saw the Parthenon lit up at night. He told me to stop bragging.

So that was Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore! I hope you enjoyed the pictures. It's so difficult to only choose a few to share from the hundreds I took. And again, there is just something about seeing it in person that you can't get from a picture.

Next up on our South Dakota adventure: Dinner in Hill City at the Alpine Inn, building a fire in our fire pit with wet wood and nothing but matches, Bear Country USA (aka where we see tons of black bears), a tour of downtown Rapid City.

Have you been to Mount Rushmore? 

Do you think that's somewhere you'd like to go?

Anyone else seen a famous building or monument lit up at night?