Simple thoughts...

Jeff and I left on Friday afternoon for Mt. Rushmore. We stayed in Custer, SD. It's a cute 'lil town surrounded by pine trees. We happened to go on the same weekend as the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. I've never seen so many bikers in my life! Here are some pics of the trip.

Hmm...not much to see in the north part of CO...

First time in Wyoming! 

This was the storm that we ended up driving into 20 minutes later....

...and we couldn't see a thing! I have never driven through a storm this big. We kept driving in and out of storms for the remainder of the drive. Every time we'd get out of one storm, our GPS would have us make a turn that lead us straight to another storm. It wasn't fun driving through all the hard rain and hail, but it made time go by fast since there were bucket loads of lightening to look at. :) 

Oh. My. God. OHMYGOD! It's a DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!!! What does it mean?!?!?!?! *starts crying*

Dinner stop at a town called "Lusk." Good 'ol Subway to the rescue. :)

Our hotel in Custer.

All ready to go!

Entering Custer State Park....lots of roaming buffalo :)

Is that a DONKEY?! 

Hello there! These guys pretty much knew how to get food. If a car window was open, they'd get fed. If not, they'd just walk on by to the next car. 

Lookie -- our bellies match!

This is a shot of Wildlife Loop. It kind of reminded me of the rolling hills in CA...minus the haystacks and Western-themed campgrounds. ;)

We stopped back in Custer for lunch. Here's Jeff waiting for his food.

You can't pass an ice cream & pie shop that looks likes this and not go in. I got cinnamon-apple ice cream and it was SO good. I ate it all before remembering to take a pic of it. :P After ice cream we headed back to Custer State Park to see the scenery on Needles Hwy and Iron Mt. Road.

There are all sorts of rock formations on Needles Hwy. This particular rock is where the name came from.

Tunnel carved in the mountain...

This photo is one of the pigtail bridges on Iron Mt. Road.

Mt. Rushmore!

 Sculpture has always been fascinating to me. I really can't wrap my mind around the process of creating something from a block of stone.  It amazes me that someone could design and engineer a 60-ft tall sculpture on the side of a massive mountain.  We've all seen this monument in books and in movies but it really is a site to see in person.

 We walked the "Presidential Trail," which would of been nice if 1) I wasn't pregnant and had to lug around extra weight. 2) If it weren't so darn HOT. The sun was not my friend that day.  3)  If I could breathe a bit better.  Seriously, my lungs are slowly running out of room and I feel like I can't get enough air. Climbing up these stairs made me feel like I was suffocating. Not fun.  4) I didn't have the third-trimester sleepies. I felt really jet-lagged and tired.

Afterwards, we headed into Keystone for dinner (not recommended during the Sturgis Rally). Bikers...everywhere.  Jeff and I felt really out of place. I think we were the only ones in town that didn't own a bike. The restaurants were overpriced and sketchy. We ended up driving to Rapid City for dinner. After dinner, we drove back to Mt. Rushmore to see the lighting ceremony.

 I have to admit, the lighting ceremony was a little anti-climatic. It took a few minutes to sloooowwwly light up the mountain. And that was it.  The presenter chatted for a good 15 minutes, giving us all sorts of presidential trivia. I really needed to brush up on my U.S. History. 

The next day we headed out to Jewel Cave National Monument. We opted out of going on the 1 hr. 20 min. tour mainly because there were no bathroom breaks on the tour. Damn you, bladder!!! It really bummed me out. Instead we took the "Discovery Tour" which essentially is the kiddie tour in my opinion. We went down an elevator, stood in a room while the guide told us a little bit about the cave for 20 minutes, and then returned back up.  I guess it was a good thing we did the 20-min tour cuz Jeff forgot to bring a jacket and it was 49 degrees F down there. He would of froze if we went on the longer tour.

And that concludes our trip. We headed back home after visiting the cave. I would love to go back and visit the Black Hills area again (maybe when the kiddo is older). I'd love to hike a few trails and do more exploring in the caves.  It's a good thing that it's only 5 hours away. :)

Oh, I forgot to mention this random bit. On our way to Custer, we saw someone pull over and take a picture of the city limit sign for Lost Springs. We thought it was a little odd that someone would take a photo of it, but later on we found out why.  It said: