Mt. Rushmore

Just a few minutes after leaving The Badlands, we could see The Black Hills (in Rapid City, South Dakota) off in the distance - they truly look black from a distance! It's the cluster of pine trees on the hills that make it look that color and give it the name. The drive up The Black Hills to the top, where Mt Rushmore lies, was beautiful! The little town of Keystone looked like something out of Frontierland at Disney World - log cabins, wood and cowboy/western looking buildings. We really didn't know what to expect at Mt Rushmore, besides the obvious mountain with the 4 president's faces carved in stone. It's definitely a tourist attraction! Entrance is $10 for the vehicle and it was packed. They created a really nice park leading up to the spot where you can view Mt Rushmore with little paved trails, lookout points, live music, gift shops and of course an over-priced cafe (which we did not eat at). After snapping a ton of pictures and commenting how Washington's mouth sort of looked like it was drooling (because of shiny rock coming out of the corner of his mouth) we took a short walking path with lots of stairs that looped around the park. The weather was perfect - blue sky, quite warm, but a very dry heat that is so unfamiliar from Miami or Baltimore's humid summers. After Mt Rushmore, Christian 'yelped' a good place to grab lunch in Rapid City (Firehouse Grill, which looked like an old firehouse from the outside), where we thoroughly enjoyed a grilled turkey sandwich, mexican salad and Arnold Palmers (iced tea with lemonade). Rapid City was surprisingly pretty happening and very cute! By the time we got on the road again, it was 2pm - we had intended to camp at Yellowstone National Park (in Gardiner, Montana), but it was too late at the point for an 8 hour drive. We decided to treat ourselves to a 5 hour drive instead and stay in Billings, Montana at a motel. We were exhausted by the time we reached Billings, all we wanted to do was grab dinner, have an insect-free hot shower, and crash in a bed. Billings - not a whole lot going on there! Dinner was good (at The Soup Place), but the sleep was even better (even though our motel room's AC unit made very strange noises).