South Dakota - done!

Having left behind Wyoming we continued our road trip heading east towards Mount Rushmore and the Badlands (oooh, scary) .  To be honest, there wasn't very much to see on the way across - its a pretty flat and dull expanse.  Didn't even know we'd crossed into South Dakota - no signs or anything - rubbish!

On the way to Mount Rushmore we had seen some ads talking about the 'Crazy Horse Monument' that was apparently "in the process of being completed".  As this is the largest mountain carving in progress in the world, we thought it would be worth a look - wrong!

Now call me (Rob) tight (and I have been many times), but I think paying $20 to see this:

when it should actually look like this:

is a rip off.

Apparently they are trying to get it completed by private funding only and not taking anything from the government.  Stupid idea bearing in mind this was actually started in 1948! Here's a tip - take the money you numpties and make a proper thing that people wouldn't mind paying to visit.

Moving on from this geological disappointment, we got to Mount Rushmore.  Couldn't believe it - someone had finished the job.  Good work.  To be honest, before we got there we were pretty sceptical about the place, but it turned out be better than we thought and we really enjoyed it.

You could see the carvings from a main viewpoint, but we also took a small boardwalk trail which was good and allowed some different views of it.  It was also amazing to see the amount of "exhausted" Americans taking this easy stroll.

If you look close, check out the glasses on Theodore (3rd from left) & the eyes - really clever!

They also have a "lighting ceremony" each night which is basically 45 minutes of spouting how wonderful the Americans are and how they are the greatest country in the history of the world - EVER! Oh yeh, and then they turn on the lights so you can see the mountain ;-)

How we stopped ourselves from throwing up we're not quite sure.

The following day we decided to do some spelunking.  Well not quite - we went on a tour of Fart, I mean, Wind Cave :-). We'd never done anything like this before and it was quite a neat experience - plus it was a nice place to cool off from the 100 degree heat outside!.  The cave system contained things like boxwork, popcorn and frostwork - nope, that didn't mean anything to us either!

Frostwork!

Boxwork!

Trolls!!!

On the way to Custer State Park we stopped by the local prairie dog town to watch the locals going about their daily business, these little rodents are really entertaining and really do bark like a very small dog!

Next were the Burros - a donkey to you and me.  These are wild in the park but have obviously got used to people in cars over the years, they wander beside the cars and poke their heads in through the window to see if you have any food for them. One of them got a bit frisky with Rob, greeted him with his massive tongue out, Rob puckered up as he thought his luck was in!

Whilst heading east we checked out Badlands National Park.  The landscape here was strange and at times it seemed like you were on a different planet (Lisa often is!).  Colourful rock formations appeared out of nowhere but after about 20 miles of it though it did get a bit samey!  This is where we've experienced the highest temperature yet, 103 degrees Fahrenheit - nice and toasty!

The last few days have been spent driving for the most part.  We've now left South Dakota and crossed through Minnesota.  We stopped in Wisconsin briefly, looked around the State Capitol building and Rob finally got his haircut after putting it off for a while.  He didn't end up with a weird mullet or anything, so relief all round!

That's genuine concern/fear!

Everything is under control in the Governors Office! 

Just having a rant!

We're still heading towards the east coast in time for the Fall colours in New England and we'll be popping into Chicago over the next couple of days for some big city action - will let you know how that goes...