The Bad Palace of Mt. Drugmore

March 30th was an action-packed day, when we weren't sitting in the car for hours on end across South Dakota. After 250 miles of constant billboards, we visited both the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD and Wall Drug in Wall, SD. The corn palace was an impressive use of roughage while Wall Drug had lots going on. It was here that I bought new sunglasses and Josh bought a mortar and pestle. We got our free glass of ice water and buffalo burgers.

Lots of nothing

Lots of maize. Cobs were cut in half and stapled to the surface

King of the palace

One of the innumerable signs

To infinity...

...and beyond

Next we went outside of town to get into the badlands. We took a back road and were surrounded by hundreds of ferocious prairie dogs. Josh risked catching the plague to snap a few photos outside of the car. A few hundred yards down the road I got to drive the Subaru through a heard of buffalo, which was something new. We took the 240 loop through the badlands and it was pretty amazing what a little water will do. This was my favorite part of the day.

Buffalo X-ing

Glad for some fresh air

We continued driving to our destination for the night - Rapid City, SD. We booked our hotel and then decided that we had time to visit Mt. Rushmore. We got there right at dusk and caught a glimpse before dark. About 30 minutes later they illuminated the faces. By that time it had rained enough to make the presidents appear as if they had been crying. Regardless it was still impressive. The rain continued once we reached the hotel. A blizzard warning was rumored amongst the locals...

Mt. Rushmore to end the day

Maybe it will blow over.