So Monday Morning We Hit Rapid City ...
... and MAN did it hurt! After leaving the rest stop seventeen miles out where we all napped for a few hours and entered Rapid City, South Dakota ... no offense meant to you reading this who live there, but it's got road construction hassles even worse than Minot right now and downtown feels like Seattle! That's what came to my mind anyway on a first impression. But we're here for a few days so we definitely made the best of it! Keep reading.
Just after nine am we were able to check into M Star Hotel Rapid City (on Mount Rushmore road, no less) and ... I don't know if it's just me, but I introduced myself to Chris at the front desk and it started a cycle of me introducing myself with a handshake to as many people whose stores we entered or just happened to be on duty at that time. Got to know Lyle, Dustin, Maddie, Moriah, and a few others there that way and got complimented on remembering their names. Small thing? I don't think so.
After the four of us settled into room 216, we relaxed for a few hours and then made the twenty-four mile trip to Mount Rushmore proper (it costs $11 to get into the parking garage) and for a few hours we took the public paths around the granite representations of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln and studied the exhibits of the sculptors, builders, their tools and how they had fun (there was a Rushmore baseball team)! We had fun too.
We'd have likely stayed for the evening fireworks show over Rushmore (which is named, by the way, for a New York lawyer who hunted in that area, late 19th century) but it was starting to mist and it smelled like it was going to rain (which in fact had been predicted all day, the reason we went to Mount Rushmore Monday instead of Storybook Island -- that we saved for Tuesday, and like the Medora Musical that Rapid City attraction was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year.
Wait a minute, IS celebrating its fiftieth this year.
Tuesday morning we first went downstairs for the complimentary breakfast (what hotel worth its salt these days does not have one?) and then our attentions directed to the Mt. Rushmore Black Hills Gold Factory & Outlet Store where several times a day you could go on a guided tour of their backroom facilities and see how their jewelry is made. And as our tour guide Rachel said, they did not give free samples dang it! Jewelry is just not mine and Martha's cup of tea anyway ...
So after the tour we headed to Storybook (we had to keep correcting ourselves saying Storybrooke Island, after the fictional hometown of Once Upon A Time) where there are statues of practically every fairy tale and popular American fictional character you can name they can climb on (like they did the dinosaurs at Dinosaur Park the day before, but the big attraction for them was sifting for precious stones and fossils) and rides. We've got a LOT of pictures from here. And it rained.
And in our room that night, it was pizza night ... oh, did I mention that the Black Hills Gold tour and Storybook Island and Dinosaur Park were free? Free is good. I like free. Wednesday morning Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I were divided between doing the Presidents' Walk in downtown Rapid City where there are statues of the first forty-three Presidents of the United States at street corners. And no, they are not canvassing for your votes.
According to Richard who worked the Presidential memorabilia shop the day we were there, the statues started going up at the turn of the century, beginning with Washington and Reagan and staggering inward (next Adams and Carter, then Jefferson and Ford, etc.) so no one could claim the city was playing favorites. We started our Presidential Walk -- which Martha said was my special treat this trip! -- with John F. Kennedy and his son. There's a shot of me and Jeffrey in that pose ...
MORE TO WEDNESDAY ON THURSDAY (tomorrow)
Just after nine am we were able to check into M Star Hotel Rapid City (on Mount Rushmore road, no less) and ... I don't know if it's just me, but I introduced myself to Chris at the front desk and it started a cycle of me introducing myself with a handshake to as many people whose stores we entered or just happened to be on duty at that time. Got to know Lyle, Dustin, Maddie, Moriah, and a few others there that way and got complimented on remembering their names. Small thing? I don't think so.
After the four of us settled into room 216, we relaxed for a few hours and then made the twenty-four mile trip to Mount Rushmore proper (it costs $11 to get into the parking garage) and for a few hours we took the public paths around the granite representations of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln and studied the exhibits of the sculptors, builders, their tools and how they had fun (there was a Rushmore baseball team)! We had fun too.
We'd have likely stayed for the evening fireworks show over Rushmore (which is named, by the way, for a New York lawyer who hunted in that area, late 19th century) but it was starting to mist and it smelled like it was going to rain (which in fact had been predicted all day, the reason we went to Mount Rushmore Monday instead of Storybook Island -- that we saved for Tuesday, and like the Medora Musical that Rapid City attraction was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year.
Wait a minute, IS celebrating its fiftieth this year.
Tuesday morning we first went downstairs for the complimentary breakfast (what hotel worth its salt these days does not have one?) and then our attentions directed to the Mt. Rushmore Black Hills Gold Factory & Outlet Store where several times a day you could go on a guided tour of their backroom facilities and see how their jewelry is made. And as our tour guide Rachel said, they did not give free samples dang it! Jewelry is just not mine and Martha's cup of tea anyway ...
So after the tour we headed to Storybook (we had to keep correcting ourselves saying Storybrooke Island, after the fictional hometown of Once Upon A Time) where there are statues of practically every fairy tale and popular American fictional character you can name they can climb on (like they did the dinosaurs at Dinosaur Park the day before, but the big attraction for them was sifting for precious stones and fossils) and rides. We've got a LOT of pictures from here. And it rained.
And in our room that night, it was pizza night ... oh, did I mention that the Black Hills Gold tour and Storybook Island and Dinosaur Park were free? Free is good. I like free. Wednesday morning Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I were divided between doing the Presidents' Walk in downtown Rapid City where there are statues of the first forty-three Presidents of the United States at street corners. And no, they are not canvassing for your votes.
According to Richard who worked the Presidential memorabilia shop the day we were there, the statues started going up at the turn of the century, beginning with Washington and Reagan and staggering inward (next Adams and Carter, then Jefferson and Ford, etc.) so no one could claim the city was playing favorites. We started our Presidential Walk -- which Martha said was my special treat this trip! -- with John F. Kennedy and his son. There's a shot of me and Jeffrey in that pose ...
MORE TO WEDNESDAY ON THURSDAY (tomorrow)
Comments
Post a Comment