Cross Country Day 6: Stuck in South Dakota

An evening in the Badlands! After setting up camp for the evening, we got hit with a crazy thunderstorm (the same one we saw ominously in the horizon the night before)... we seriously thought the van might tip over the gusts of wind were so strong! I convinced Damon to help me haul in my huge rubbermaid bin of My Little Ponies into the van in the middle of the night in our PJs in the storm... I was afraid of the top blowing off and my whole collection getting drowned!

Anyway, we woke up to a beautiful blue, clear sky, and when I peaked out the curtains to check the crack on our windshield, we saw that it had gotten WAY worse!!! : / We called our insurance, and got an appointment to get it replaced the next day. However, that gave us a whole extra day to explore Badlands and Rapid City.

While driving through the Badlands, we saw our only glimpse of wild Prarie Dogs. They were too adorable! I jumped out of my car and snapped some pics of them with my telephoto...

After the Badlands, we made our obligitory stop at Wall Drug, and got many a great photo goofing around in their sculpture garden. Ride'em Jackalope!

That evening, we drove out to see Crazy Horse (impressive!) and Mount Rushmore. We narrowly missed hitting two deer on the road; they sure give you a scare when they get that close to your car!!!

Another great site in the surrounding ticky tack of Rapid City was some place that had a collection of fiberglass busts of obviously their picks of "presidents who should be on Mt Rushmore": Kennedy (ok), Regan (eh, but I see why), and.... W BUSH? Seriously? Weirdest three pairings of "great" presidents ever.. unfort, we didn't get a pic since we were so in shock driving past it both times...

(also, I could not stop confusing "Rapid City" with saying "Park City.")