Friday, June 1

First thing we woke up relatively dry and traveled down the Needles Hgwy to Rapid City. We fought with the internet trying to maintain a signal but kept losing connection. At least the Chai was good. We got a late start that morning and after the internet fiasco finally started sightseeing around 2pm. The Journey Museum was the first on our list of sites to visit. It was a history of the Black Hills, everything from how the unique area was formed to the Native Americans that first inhabited there. Terrible stories about how the U.S. government slowly pushed the Native Americans from the lands they held sacred. There was also an atlatl but it was nailed to the wall. Not nearly as fun. After we searched for Dinosaur Park, a collection of life sized statues that overlooked the City. We found them, but it was pouring rain and seeing as how they were outside we decided to sit in the car and read Harry Potter hoping for it to pass. Eventually it died down and we got to go climb on the cement behemoths. When we were finished we stopped to get supplies for our mountain pie maker(Cheese, Tomatoes) and got a lunch of deep fried tamales and potato salad from the grocery store Mmmmm Oily. We ate in the car whilst driving to our next destination, Thunderhead Falls. It was located in an old gold mine shaft the actual falls were 600ft underground and pretty neat. After about 10 minutes there we were off. The Reptile Gardens/World/Land/Park/Thing we couldn’t remember the actual name. Steph got us lost on the way there and we ended up in a rural development marked no outlet. So we had to turn around and made it there about 15 minutes before last admittance. The park didn’t close til 8:30 though so we had enough time to see most of the park and two shows. The snake show was great. We got to touch an 8 ft Albino Burmese Python (sooo smooth), as well as see 4 venomous snakes including a hooded Cobra, and a prairie Rattlesnake(the only venomous snake in South Dakota). A lot of the out doors exhibits were closed because of the rain and closing time, but we also managed to see a Gator show. The same guy who did the Snake show taught us all how to wrestle an alligator. He was on a little island and just pulled a gator tail first out of the moat filled with at least 25 gators and Crocs. While he was demonstrating gator wrestling the 25 others looked on hungrily with their chins resting just out of the water just as captivated as the 10 people in the audience. When it was over he brought out a baby gator that couldn’t have been more than 2ft. Steph asked if she could hold the gator all by herself. The keeper agreed slowly stating that they weren’t supposed to do such things but an agreement was reached where she could hold the body while he held the mouth shut. He did let go of the mouth for about 10 secs just long enough for us to get a picture of Steph and the gator. Our reptile fantasies fulfilled we then made for Rushmore, much to the chagrin of tired Stephanie. It was cold, rainy and windy. We got there at 9 o’clock cause we heard that was when they turned the lights on for night viewing. To our dismay the lights do not go on at 9, instead a park ranger gives a little speech about god knows what and they play what might as well have been a 400 hour long video about why each of the four presidents deserves to be carved into the stone mountainside. Finally the lights came on slowly and we laughed because the rain had made funny patterns as it dripped down the faces. Washington looked to be crying while Madison seemed to have a bloody nose. We left as soon as we got a few pictures. We got back to the site around 11 had another grilled cheese dinner and passed out.