South Dakota Part 5 - Presidents in Rapid City

On our last day in South Dakota, we had a few hours to kill in the morning before our flight, so after a trip to the packed IHOP (a must for any US vacation), we decided to walk around and check out Rapid City's "City of Presidents" - a series of bronze statues of each American president placed on street corners in the city.  

I wasn't sure exactly how enjoyable it would be, but it was actually a lot of fun trying to guess which president we were coming up to (especially considering that we know about 10 presidents total) and seeing the different ways that they were portrayed.  There were a whole bunch of presidents that I've never even heard of, and apparently all sorts of drama that I wasn't aware of either.  A surprisingly large number of presidents died in office (eight out of 44), and a surprising number look like cowboys.  

Here are some of the statues we liked, in the order that we came to them (which has nothing to do with their historical order).  

Franklin D Roosevelt.  You can't see it from this angle, but there's a walking cane leaning on the back of the podium and you can see his leg braces through his pants.  He's also got a pretty good grip on that podium.  Died in office.

John F Kennedy.  There were only two presidents portrayed with children, which was interesting.  Also died in office.

Abraham Lincoln (the other president portrayed with a child).  Also died in office.

Bill Clinton looks like a standup comedian for some reason.

Richard Nixon, looking appropriately shifty.

George W Bush making his famous thumbs up gesture, accompanied by his dog.

Thomas Jefferson.  We couldn't work out if he was signing the Louisiana Purchase or writing the Declaration of Independence.  Love the hair.

I wish I had taken more photos of the presidents as there were a bunch of funny ones and the way they were portrayed was often interesting - what they were carrying or wearing.  It was definitely a fun way to spend a few hours before our flight.

There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 5.  You can also read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

South Dakota Part 4 - Crazy Horse and Devil's Tower

Crazy Horse Memorial is supposedly the Native American answer to Mt Rushmore.  It's been in progress since 1948 but there isn't a whole lot done.  We discovered why when the visitor center showed  photos of the workers - one white guy and his family including his little kids.  Apparently the government has offered millions of dollars in funding on multiple occasions, which has been turned down.  The current estimated completion date is 2120.

The whole place was rather bizarre.  The strangest part was the steep entry fee of $10 per person that only allowed you entry into the visitor center - there were further fees to be taken by bus to the base of the actual monument.  To put it into context, Mt Rushmore carpark cost $10 for the car, and the national and state parks that we visited cost $10 each for the car as well.  Visiting Crazy Horse felt like a rip off even before we saw that you had to pay more to get close to the monument.

A small model of what the memorial is supposed to eventually look like.

What the memorial looks like now from our paid vantage point (we didn't want to pay the extra to go closer).  They've carved his face and the top of his arm.  I don't recommend visiting Crazy Horse - there are too many things that don't add up in the monument's story and the visit left me feeling ripped off.

After Crazy Horse, we thought we'd take a detour to nearby Wyoming State to visit the Devil's Tower, which is the solidified core of an ancient volcano.  It's about 400m tall and looks pretty bizarre in the context of the landscape.  Devil's Tower was the first US National Monument, established in 1906.

From a little closer.  The Native Americans call it Bear Lodge, and their story goes that a group of little girls were playing when some giant bears spotted them and chased them.  The girls climbed onto a nearby rock and prayed to their Great Spirit who made the rock rise up so that the bears couldn't reach them.  The deep channels in the side of the mountain were made by the bear's claws.

The base of the tower is a sea of boulders bigger than a person, fallen off in the past.  That's me, in the white jacket, for a size comparison.

Apparently the tower is very popular with rock climbers.  There were two making the climb while we were there.  Here's a close up that shows them both - the guy in the orange jacket is the lower one, and there's also a girl above him and to the left a little in a green jacket.  The sound carried back from the rock so we could hear them yelling to each other from the base of the monument with ease.

Not the view from the top (I'm not that crazy or skilled), but the view from the base of some of the surrounding land.

Stephen somehow managed to randomly snap a picture at the perfect time when the sun was setting and the light turned the tower pink and orange.  30 seconds later when he tried to take another photo, the rock was grey.

There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 4.  You can also read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 5.

South Dakota Part 3: Custer State Park

Apparently Custer State Park would have been a National Park except that the state of South Dakota got in first.  It's home to a herd of 1500 bison, plus a whole bunch of other animals.

To get to Custer State Park from Mt Rushmore, we took the "Needles Highway" (highway is a bit optimistic), which wound around in circles up and down various mountains and rock formations.  It was beautiful and probably moreso because it was all covered in snow.

"Needles" comes from these rocky spines.  

The road also went through various tunnels carved straight through the rock.  One of them was barely big enough to get the car through, and you had to sound your horn to make sure no other cars met you halfway in the tunnel.  In case you're wondering about the blue sky in this photo vs the grey one in the others - this one was taken 9 minutes earlier.

 Once we were inside the State Park, the landscape changed dramatically to the open plains, and the animals were in abundance.  There were deer everywhere.

More open rolling plains.

Custer State Park is known for its herd of "friendly burros" (donkeys), who beg food from passing tourists.

The little burro looks just like a little lamb!  :)

They were so friendly that we had trouble leaving, as they kept trying to stick their noses inside the car.

We found the herd of bison.  They are huge!  (And tasty!)

We found a wedding party in the park too, that apparently wasn't expecting the -5 degree weather or snowy conditions.  I really don't envy those bridesmaids.

There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 3.  You can also read part 1, part 2, part 4 and part 5.

South Dakota Part 2: Mt Rushmore

After the Badlands, we drove over to stay the night at a hotel overlooking Mt Rushmore.

The scenery changes quite a bit away from the Badlands.

Unfortunately, it was a fair bit colder at Mt Rushmore - so cold, in fact, that it was snowing, and the view of Mt Rushmore from our window looked like this.  (That rock formation that you can see the outline of in the distance is Mt Rushmore.)

The next morning we woke up to snow on the ground and -5C.  Ouch!

It wasn't snowing anymore, so you could see Mt Rushmore in the distance.  Barely.

There were some birds wandering around in the morning that we initially thought were pheasants (as SD is famous for them), but later discovered are probably female wild turkeys.

Not only pheasants - some deer were wandering around the grounds as well.  They don't seem to mind the cold.

And here it was - Mt Rushmore.  It is even more ridiculous in person.  Supposedly the monument is to the 4 presidents and what they did for America, which was founding (Washington), expanding (Jefferson purchased half of the country from the French in 1803 called the Louisiana Purchase), Theodore Roosevelt developing (Theodore Roosevelt promoted construction of the Panama Canal to help US trade), and preservation (Lincoln ended the Civil War).

The best part of going on a day when it snowed is that George Washington looks like he's worked up a bit of a sweat there.  I didn't know but apparently the plan was for the monument to be much bigger and include their bodies as well - until they ran out of cash.

 In case you're wondering,  yes, it did really snow, and yes, it was pretty cold.

There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 2.  You can also read part 1, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

South Dakota Part 1: The Badlands

Our visas expired in October, so we had to leave Canada and come back in through the International Airport.  We decided to go to see Mt Rushmore in South Dakota for the long weekend (as our visas expired on a Thursday).  To our surprise, there were lots of other things to do in South Dakota as well!

Stephen's Opa told us a story about the Wall Drug Store - it's in the middle of nowhere in a tiny town in South Dakota, and it was a failing business until they put up signs on the highways nearby saying "Free Ice Water at the Wall Drug Store".  It saved the business and became a huge thing - apparently it was such a big thing that troops in World War II were putting Wall Drug Store signs up in Europe.  Nowadays it's a massive tourist trap selling all sorts of crap, of course.

The Badlands National Park.  Apparently 69 million years ago the whole of the middle of North America was an ocean - over time, the water left and various rivers and flood plains left deposits of different minerals there.  In the last 500,000 years, erosion has started to wear away at the deposits, and that's how we can see the distinctive layered patterns.

The strangest part is that the whole plain is completely flat - except for these rock formations.  Completely dead flat.

Look out for the Rattlesnakes!  Luckily it was too cold for us to see any.  At the start of October it was 5 degrees C in the middle of the day.

The coolest thing is that the lines from the different layers show up so clearly that it tricks and confuses your eyes.

We went for a couple of km long walk through some of the rocks, including a climb of about 50m up a ladder made of logs.  The funniest part of America is that the society is so litigious... but then you go to a National Park and you can climb 50m up the side of a cliff and wander around on top of the cliff and there are no railings or warning signs or anything.

Stephen found a hole to hang out in.  We have no idea where this hole came from or why it was there.

So we are pretty sure that South Dakota is where the Windows XP desktop wallpaper came from - doesn't that look exactly the same?  It was really disconcerting - I would turn around and jump because I felt like I was inside the computer.

Us in the Badlands!

There were plenty of animals hanging around in the Badlands as well - these are mountain goats.

That tiny little dot in the middle of the plateau is a bison.  I spotted it from that far away!

Here's a bison from a bit closer.  There were warning signs up everywhere that said not to get out of your car because they will charge you.

This is a prairie dog.  There were heaps of them wandering around in prairie dog villages - foraging near their holes.  They weren't scared of the car, but as soon as we opened the door and got out, they ran away.

There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 1.  Here's part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

Ottawa

We travelled to Ottawa for a weekend to run the Army Run Half Marathon there.  Stephen clocked his fastest timed run of 87 minutes (for the 21.1km race).  I was struggling with ITBS in my knee and had to walk after the 11km mark, but still made it in under 2:30.

Once again, I don't have great photos - only a few taken with my camera phone.

Ottawa was grey and raining on our first day there - not particularly welcoming.  We went to see the parliament building, which I unfortunately neglected to take a photo of the outside of.

Inside their House of Commons.  They use the same system as Australia and England.  Interestingly, the tour guide told us that the Queen isn't actually allowed into this room at all - she can't go past the entrance door.

Inside the Senate.  That's the Queen and Prince Phillip's chairs up there.

Inside the library.  Apparently at one stage the whole of the Canadian parliament building was finished like this in wood - but there was a huge fire and the whole parliament building burned down except for this room (because someone remembered to shut the huge solid iron safety doors).  The rest of the building is made of stone now.

The Rideau Canal.

Chateau Laurier - it's apparently a hotel.  Love the architecture though.

Stephen with a giant polar bear.

After the run, we needed to refuel with some calories, so we accompanied some local friends to a poutinerie in Gatineau.  Ottawa-Gatineau is a dual town sitting across two provinces (like Albury-Wodonga) - Ottawa on the Ontario side and Gatineau on the Quebec side.  Apparently you can only get good poutine in Quebec.  This was pretty good poutine, although I am pretty sure it was big enough to cause multiple heart attacks.  We manged to finish most of it!