23. See Mount Rushmore

A report on one of my items from my 30-before-30 bucket list.

This trip turned out to be quite the epic road trip. 2,122 miles in 4 days. Pretty crazy, but so amazing! July 24-27, 2014.

A few months ago, my friend Rebekah was talking about how she is almost done visiting all 50 states. In fact, her and her sister Ariel were planning to hit North Dakota (49) this summer. I asked if they would be visiting Mount Rushmore since it is pretty much on the way. They were, so I invited myself. They were kind enough to have me come along, and it was so awesome.

We truly had no plans. We brought camping gear so we could sleep wherever. We had not scheduled anything before. This always makes room for loads of adventuring.

We started out driving north through Rexburg. Stopped to surprise my sister before she boarded a bus to go home to Boise for the month. She was just waiting on the grass for the bus. Saw her for just a minute, but it was fun to surprise her.

We then headed to Island Park to visit Debbie, our high councilman's wife, at their cabin. She is just so lovely, and she fed us a delicious lunch. Those were the best BLTs I've ever had. We couldn't stop talking about them. She told us we had to stop at Buckaroo Bills in West Yellowstone for ice cream. It was pretty delicious. While there, Ariel said she wanted to go to Old Faithful. Since we had nowhere to be, we took that route through Yellowstone. I haven't been there since I was a kid, but I still remembered a lot of things. Particularly the water falls.

It was a nice stop, but it made it take a lot longer to get to Montana. As we came out of Yellowstone, it was dark, and the next option was a mountain pass, always scary in the dark. Since we were closed to Cody, I called up my old roommate Sara who grew up in Cody and asked her if we could maybe crash at her parents' house that night. She and her parents were more than obliging and put us up in their basement. I have heard so much about Cody, and I was glad to finally see it. Next time I need a real tour from Sara. And I need to go to the rodeo there.

We then spent Friday driving to North Dakota. I also think it may have been my first time in Montana. We drove through the rolling eastern hills of Montana, and it was pretty beautiful. But nothing compared to North Dakota. I had no expectations for the state, as people just have ragged on it forever. But wow. It was amazing.

We wanted to stay in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As we came up to the park entrance, there was this adorable town of Medora. We decided to drive through before entering the park, and we are so glad we did. Multiple people told us we needed to go to the Medora Musical. So we bought our tickets before heading into the park. We set up camp, then came back out for dinner and the musical.

And it did not disappoint. Seriously, what an awesome, random celebration of North Dakota. Country music, dancing, singing, costumes. They had everything.

The next morning, we rode horses in the Park, and we just didn't want to leave. Lovely people. Lovely scenery. Lovely place. I would totally go back to visit North Dakota if it weren't so far away.

We then headed down to Mount Rushmore, arriving in the early evening. People had told me it isn't as big as expected, so I had again, low expectations, but it was pretty neat. The history of it was so interesting. I had always wondered why it was those four presidents who were chosen. I learned that the monument symbolizes the founding (Washington-1st president), growth (Jefferson-Louisiana Purchase), preservation (Lincoln-unity after Civil War) and development (Teddy Roosevelt-trustbuster, national parks, Panama Canal, national irrigation systems) of the country. We took the walk around the monument and it is just pretty amazing.

These are the large models they used to measure where to blow off the rock.

We also drove past Crazy Horse. It was neat to see that in the process after reading about how they built Mount Rushmore. It still has a long way to go, but eventually. Hopefully.

We then drove North through the beautiful Spearfish Canyon.

As the sun set, we still had no place to stay. But we stopped for food in Belle Fourche, then headed across the border to the KOA at Devils Tower Wyoming. We slept under the stars and awoke to a beautiful sight.

The view from my sleeping bag.

We took the nature walk around the tower in the morning, then started the long trek back to Utah.

Overall it was a terrific trip with good food and great company.

Because of this trip, I am now super impressed with Teddy Roosevelt and all he did before and during his presidency. I really need to learn more. He said, "I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota." Now I understand.