Day 6

We arrived in the Badlands of South Dakota early Friday morning after spending the night at a highway rest stop. Agustin recommended seeing the Badlands and said it was is worth the $15 entry. For us $15 is a lot to spend in one shot, and we were hoping the Badlands weren’t going to be bad. Entering the park we saw the labyrinth like landscape which looked a thousand mini grand canyons. Although impressive we still weren’t sure it was worth the $15. Although after seeing some goat-like animals, and prairie dogs the Badlands won us over.  From the Badlands we headed over to Mount Rushmore. I’ve never really cared about seeing American monuments but for some reason I was excited to see this one, I guess because I appreciate the skill involved. It was an $11 parking fee, but free to enter the park. This seemed like an easy way to save money, so Diego, whom didn’t really care to see the monument, waited in the car on the side of the road nearby while I went up on bike. I took my photos and took it all in, and I have to say it was very impressive! After Rushmore we headed over to the Crazy Horse monument or as Diego mistakenly calls it, Crazy Whore. I heard about this being built as a kid, but I thought by now it was finished. I think they are short on money because only the head is done and the horse, which is the majority of the work is still just drawn out in a chalk (or whatever they use) template. Apparently Mt. Rushmore took 14 years but only 6 years were of actual work while the rest of the time was spent getting money. Seems like Crazy Horse is having similar issues. Might explain the $10 fee to enter the area, but with only a head I couldn’t justify the price, so enjoy some distant photos everyone. The last stop of the day in the town of Deadwood. It was conveniently on the way back to the number 90 interstate to take us to Yellowstone. I was excited to see this town since HBO had a show called Deadwood which was about the lives of the frontiersmen in the late 19^th century that founded the town once gold was discovered there. Its one of my favourite shows so I was curious to see what had happened to this town over 100 years later. Well the gold mines closed a decade or so back and to keep the town alive the town has permitted gambling in all the bars. They did a good job, the gambling brings in a lot of people, and historical aspect of the town keeps it from being trashy.  The town even has gun fights 3x a day. After Deadwood we continued along I90 looking for a grocery store. Sadly we haven’t seen one since Iowa, not even in the town of Deadwood. I don’t know where people get their food around here, maybe they grow it, who knows. We haven’t seen any franchises either, which has made getting WiFi hard, but we stumbled upon an open connection at a gas station when we stopped for the night.