The day started off by leaving Rapid City and heading up into the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was kind of fun trying to imagine what General Custer's army must have been thinking as they entered the Black Hills, not knowing that the Lokota Indians were there and ready for a fight. After a picturesque ride up into the hills (about a mile high up), we arrived at Mount Rushmore! I think I've heard from people or reviews that it wasn't as impressive as they thought it would be and that it was smaller than they thought it would be... I don't know what they were talking about though because it was an amazing sight to be seen and the park there was done really well. There were some trails that brought you to the base of the mountain where you could really get a sense of the scale and details that went into its construction. Definitely a site I will always remember. We then headed to the Crazy Horse Memorial Monument, which if you haven't heard of, I strongly suggest you look it up. The monument has been under construction since 1948 and when it is done (in who knows how long), it will be the largest monument in the world. The park and buildings around the monument were done really well and very pretty. The monument itself was gigantic and a ride up to the base of the mountain (which is still an active demolition site) showed how massive this thing will be when complete. SO definitely look up the history of this site and its architect and you will be impressed by the effort involved. Following this trip we visited the towns of Hill City and Custer in Black Hills which offered a cool old western mountain town feel. The Black Hills are definitely an amazing place filled with great scenery, native american history, and a frontier style persona.
Exiting the Black Hills left us off at the far western side of South Dakota which after a bit of a drive, brought us to Wyoming. Since our route didnt take us to the interstate nor to anything of interest on the map, I thought that this would be a boring drive through desolate land. While it was still desolate land for over 200 miles, it was nothing short of spectacular. The scenery here was sooo picturesque and I truly got a sense of the massive amounts of land that is out in the western states. For my fellow planners, I really started to understand the whole idea of the Buffalo Commons. You could see for miles and miles, watch animals graze and traverse the landscape, and be at peace with your surroundings. I can't tell you how many pictures I took of the open road, the vast grasslands and rolling hills, and the herd animals that we came across. It was awesome to go for miles and not see a town or even a car, and just zip down the country road going over 80mph and still feel so insignifcant. The photos probably don't do the size of the land justice, but if you get to experience it for yourself, you will definitely know how I felt.
Our next stop in Wyoming was in the capitol of Cheyenne, which wasn't overly impressive to me, but their Capitol Building was very very nice.
The after a long day of traveling, we finally arrived into my destination State of Colorado and ended up in Fort Collins for the night. Tomorrow I head to Denver to meet with my cousin for lunch, then I'll drop off my dad at the airport and head west to Aspen with my cousin. That will complete this portion of the road trip until the return trip at the end of August. Until then I'll be in a town called Snowmass just outside of Aspen for about 6-7 weeks. Internet might be kind of hard to come by, but I'll update the blog when I can. Take care everyone!
Oh and I missed some photos of some funny stuff but I recall two things. One was a sign for a restaurant in the Black Hills that said "We deliver pizza and babies." The other was a homestead property in the middle of nowhere Wyoming that was named "Boner Ranch." :P
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