Day 20 - Arden Hills, Minnesota

After Mount Rushmore, I continued East, and visited Wall Drug. It was really interesting, and I had some of the free ice water (it came from a dispenser, and wasn't really that cold), and picked up some toenail clippers, which I was in dire need of. Then I continued to Mitchell, SD, and visited the Corn Palace. It was covered with murals done with various shades of brown and yellow corn cobs. The front was also decorated with tufts of dried grasses of some kind, but the side was still under construction, and was mostly still plywood.

After leaving Mitchell, I went on to Minnesota and spent the night with my brother and his wife. I went to the mall earlier today, and picked up some things at Borders, where they were handing out coupons at the door (unfortunately, I could use the "$2 off Fiction" coupon on a Discworld novel, but not the "$2 off Humor" coupon).

One of many sections of Wall Drug.

You can actually climb on top of the jackalope from the other side.

All of those murals are done in corn cobs.

Day 18 - Rapid City, South Dakota

Today I went to see Mount Rushmore, and, since it was just a little farther down the road, the still-under-construction monument of Crazy Horse. On the whole, it wasn't that great. In this case, the pictures really do justice, and there's no good reason to go all the way out there just to see them.

That's as far as they've gotten so far. The only details they've done is the face.

A scale model of the completed sculpture.

Day 17 - Buffalo, Wyoming

So Yellowstone was pretty interesting; nature was out in force. Shortly after registering my campsite, I started making some dinner (Pro tip: beef Raman and tuna sandwiches aren't very good). I left the food on the picnic table, and walked a few yards to my car to get my water. About 10-15 seconds later, I turned around to see a big black bird (maybe a raven) flying off with my unopened package of Raman. Unfortunately, I had another package, and my sandwich plans continued unabated.

Later, I walked over to another section of the campground, and found two buffalo grazing in the middle of the circle of campsites.


Honestly, when I first showed up to Yellowstone, I'd forgotten about all the geothermal stuff going on, but here are some pictures.

According to the sign, this actually happened.

While walking around the geyser area, one of the larger ones started erupting, and I got fairly close to it. Then the wind shifted. As it turns out, the water from the geysers doesn't stay hot for very long, and it was pretty cold by the time it fell all over me.

This was at a museum at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. And by "middle of nowhere," I mean the entire state of Wyoming.

Note: I have a video of Old Faithful erupting, but for some reason, it doesn't want to load. Maybe it's too big. I'll try to post some still pictures later, when I get a chance to turn them the right way.