Black Hills Travel Journal 2010

I took a six-day trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota from June 27 to July 2, and here is my travel journal:

(All times in Mountain Time)

06/27/10, 10:21 A.M.

It’s that time again: travel journal time!  Right now we’re on the way to the most beneficent (inside joke) Black Hills of South Dakota.  I’m listening to Trip Lee’s new album Between Two Worlds (cop it!) to pass the time.  Since nothing eventful has happened, it’s time I say “sayonara” and move on to do some Sudoku to keep me sane and awake on this long, boring ride.

06/27/10, 12:49 P.M.

Back to where I left off.  Trip’s album is awesome!  It sounds mainstream, but unlike mainstream, it packs a message—the gospel.  For lunch we ate at Bonanza, which was good, but I wasn’t very hungry.  Rique then drove from Dickinson to Belfield.  I feared for my life.  His driving scares me worse than darkness scares a child.  I’m glad Dad is back behind the wheel.  Now I can relax as I finish the rest of Trip’s album.

06/28/10, 10:12 A.M.

I didn’t find time last night to write about the rest of the day, so I’ll catch you up now.  When we arrived in Rapid City, we stopped at the visitor information center—home of a Wi-Fi hot spot.  What a joke!  I got two pages to load on my iPod the entire time we were there.  We checked in at the hotel next and planned the rest of the night.  We decided to eat at Sonic for supper—yum!  I had a junior deluxe burger, a corn dog, tots, and a chocolate shake—buy one, get one, baby!  Next we went to Mt. Rushmore.  We walked around for a while then watched the lighting ceremony.  The ceremony was just okay.  I had a very hard time taking photos because I’ve never really experimented with my PowerShot at night.  It was late when we got back to the hotel, so we just went to bed.  Now for today.  We woke up, got ready, and went to breakfast.  Our hotel actually has a good breakfast unlike the hotels we usually stay at.  I wasn’t that hungry, though, and now I have a slight stomachache—like always.  We’re on the way to Keystone right now—more boring driving.  We’re taking an alternate route, which isn’t as beautiful as the usual route by far.  Well, that’s about it.  I really like using long dashes, don’t I?

06/28/10, 12:57 P.M.

Well, we just left the Presidential Wax Museum, which is a really cool place, but it’s kind of boring once you’ve seen it a few times as I have.  With one exception—the newest addition, President Obama!  I actually don’t like Obama at all since I’m a hardcore Christian conservative and Republican, but new things are always cool.  I had to get my photo taken with the Obama figure—to annoy Dad, of course.  To put it mildly, he doesn’t like Obama.  After walking through the museum, I fed one of my addictions—sock monkeys!  I bought a cute little brown sock monkey.  I totally sound 18 years old, don’t I?  Now we’re on our way to Hill City for lunch.

06/28/10, 1:44 P.M.

I don’t like eating at places we have back home, but there isn’t much of a choice in the Black Hills except in Rapid City.  We ate lunch at Subway in Hill City.  I had my usual—turkey breast and ham on Italian herbs and cheese, toasted, topped with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, pickles, black olives, mayo, and spicy mustard.  That’s a mouthful!  Now we’re on the way to Jewel Cave, and we’ll be cutting it very close to being on time for our 3:00 tour.

06/28/10, 4:39 P.M.

Well, it turns out it wasn’t a close call after all; we arrived with plenty of time to spare.  The cave was neat, of course, but similar to the wax museum, once you have seen a couple, they’re all pretty much the same.  That being said, I enjoyed the tour, and I think it would be so cool to explore the cave.  Jewel Cave has over 100 miles of discovered passageways, which would be fun—though difficult—to explore.  It’s a shame I was born into such a non-adventurous, non-outdoorsy (I think I made that word up) family, as I am just the opposite.

06/28/10, 5:24 P.M.

Pilot car!

06/28/10, 8:26 P.M.

Since I last checked in, we’ve been in Custer State Park, which is epically awesome.  Yes, it is deserving of epic status.  First stop was the pull-out at the base of Mount Coolidge.  Mount Coolidge, my old friend.  We had a great time there last trip—just ask Dad.  Next we went on the Wildlife Loop.  There was one area with tons of wildlife, so Mom and I got out and walked closer.  We saw antelope, burros, and prairie dogs.  Some people were actually petting and feeding the burros; I wasn’t that brave.  After the Wildlife Loop, we drove on Iron Mountain Road, which was boring with some exceptions.  The road winds back and forth, up and down, through the forest.  The cool thing about Iron Mountain Road, though, is that it has three tunnels—each with a view of Mount Rushmore.  Rique and I went exploring and climbed to the top of each tunnel.  I really could spend hours, if not days, exploring the forests and climbing rocks.  It’s unfathomably awesome.  Now we’re on the not-so-awesome, long, and boring road from Keystone to Rapid City, and I’m hungry.  Pizza tonight, baby!

06/29/10, 9:56 A.M.

Supper last night was muy lame.  I was hungry already by 7:00, but Rique wanted to swim until the pool closed at 10:00.  Turns out Godfather’s Pizza—the only pizza place I wanted—is closed by then, so we had Papa John’s instead.  Yippee… not.  I mean it was good but not what I wanted.  Now we’re on our way to Keystone, and I’m listening to TobyMac.  You got me feelin’ so fly.

06/29/10, 4:50 P.M.

Time for an update.  First thing we did was Holy Terror Mini Golf.  I creamed Rique.  Granted, he wasn’t even trying, but I played better than usual.  Now it’s 1-0 Bri in the Black Hills mini golf competition with Putz-N-Glo and Pirate’s Cove to go.  Next we went back to Mt. Rushmore.  We walked the trail, and like always, Mom drove us insane with making us pose for photos.  We went back into Keystone for lunch.  My old favorite place to eat—Executive Order Grill—no longer has much of a menu, so we decided to eat elsewhere.  Dad and Rique went to Dairy Queen, while Mom and I went searching for a place to eat.  We found the Balcony Grille where we shared an Indian taco and mozzarella sticks.  Both items weren’t the best I’ve ever had, but they were still pretty good.  Afterward Mom and I went shopping for a little while.  Mom bought a shot glass for her collection, and I—as I always do when in Keystone—bought some taffy.  Upon rejoining the boys, we went to Rushmore Cave—well, Dad, Rique, and I, that is; Mom doesn’t go in caves.  I liked Jewel Cave better, but it was still neat.  Now we’re on the way to Bear Country.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  It is ridiculously hot outside (though cooler than it will be later this week, ugh), and my feet are killing me.  Great stuff.

06/29/10, 10:32 P.M.

Now for the remainder of the day.  Bear Country was pretty cool—especially the baby bears, which were really cute.  I saw all sorts of other animals including wolves, bison (go NDSU!), mountain goats, and many others.  Next we went back to Rapid City to visit Dinosaur Park.  It’s an attraction geared more towards little children, but I still had a good time.  For supper we went to Culver’s—of course!  I shared a sourdough melt value basket with mashed potatoes with Mom and had a cone of the flavor of the day (Rocky Road).  Everything was muy delicioso.  After supper I’ve just been chilling.  That’s about it.  Adios.

06/30/10, 2:58 P.M.

We’re at Sonic right now waiting for our food, so it’s unlikely I’ll finish writing about what we’ve done so far today.  First stop this morning was what Rique and I have been looking forward to since we knew we were coming to the Black Hills—a chance for revenge.  Food is here—time out!

06/30/10, 7:19 P.M.

Time in!  Back to the subject of revenge.  Two years ago, when we last went to the Black Hills, Mom and Dad beat us by over half an hour at the Black Hills Maze.  Rique and I have vowed revenge for about the past week.  We started out awesome, getting the first three stamps quickly.  But like last time, one thing proved to be our downfall; we couldn’t get to the stamp on the green tower.  We ended up finishing in 36 minutes, which was good but not good enough; Mom and Dad finished in 29.  As you can imagine, Rique and I were mad.  Dad offered that we come back another day to try again, but Rique and I haven’t decided to do so or not.  Next we went to Reptile Gardens.  We started out by watching the alligator show and the bird show.  Then we walked around outside.  The best part of the outside stuff was getting to touch Methuselah (who is 129 years old) and the other giant tortoises.  We chose not to see the snake show (we’ve seen it so many times in the past anyway) and went inside the dome.  There we walked through the safari room and walked the mezzanine, seeing many of the world’s most venomous snakes.  Now back to Sonic.  I had a chicken strip sandwich, a snack trio (tots, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks), and a large blue coconut slush (happy hour!).  Everything was good of course.  Time out again.

06/30/10, 7:55 P.M.

Continuing… after Sonic we went to Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns.  Prior to our tour we got to explore Two Bears Cave—a small cave—on our own.  The tour itself was awesome—short but awesome.  The dogtooth spar crystals were neat.  This cave tour was far more strenuous than the others, though, as we had to ascend and descend stairways that were practically like ladders.  After the tour Rique and I convinced Dad to let us take the 20-30 minute nature walk back to the parking lot.  That shocked me because I thought he would be his usual self and freak out about bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, etc.  The trail was nice, and it made me wish that we’d actually go on hikes.  The final attraction of the day was Putz-N-Glo where Rique and I bought the Triple Play Pass, which includes mini golf, Miner’s Maze, and gemstone panning.  We started with the mini golf.  The course is lit by black light, so it looks pretty awesome.  I led by two strokes after the front 9, but Rique killed me the back 9 (and hit a hole-in-one) and ended up beating me by four.  I am still in the lead in our mini golf tournament.  Then it was time for the Miner’s Maze—a new attraction.  It was shorter and easier than the other maze but still a lot of fun.  I beat Rique 7 minutes to 12 minutes.  For my good time I got to pick a prize; I chose a pack of Old Maid cards.  We just arrived at the hotel with our food, so I’ll finish this later.

06/30/10, 9:59 P.M.

Continuing yet again… after the maze it was time for the third and final part of the Triple Play Pass—gemstone mining, another new attraction.  You get a bag of rocky sand mixed with gemstones, and you have to sift out the sand to be able to pick out your gemstones.  It was pretty fun.  The attractions at Putz-N-Glo weren’t supposed to be the last things of the day, however; we drove over to Storybook Island, but it was already closed.  It was actually early enough to get food from Godfather’s Pizza today, so that’s what we did for supper.  It was good, but we got screwed.  We ordered a large pepperoni and tomato pizza for about $20, but when we went there to pick our pizza up, we saw that large pepperoni pizzas are $10.  I don’t think the tomatoes were worth $10.  That’s finally it for the day.  Now it’s time to relax and then go to bed.

07/01/10, 5:38 P.M.

I’m wincing with pain right now, but before I get to that, let me recount my day so far.  All of today has been spent inside Custer State Park.  We started at Sylvan Lake.  We walked the trail and did a lot of climbing on rocks.  Again I could spend hours doing that.  It’s so fun, and the forest, lake, and rock formations are so beautiful.  I waded in the water for a little while; it was slightly cold as you might expect.  Rique and I found the place where Benjamin Gates (played by Nicholas Cage) stuck his hand in a hole to pull a latch in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.  After walking the loop around the lake, we ate lunch.  I had a buffalo burger and part of Rique and Dad’s pepperoni pizza.  Next we left the lake and drove Needles Highway.  We’re about to make another stop, so I’m going to pause.

07/01/10, 6:04 P.M.

Back to writing about Needles Highway.  Rique and I, of course, went exploring.  We ended up making our way up to the top of a very high rock where we had an awesome view of the Needles, a valley, the forest, and a town that we assume was Custer.  I got a little nervous up there, but it was pretty epic.  After being up there, we crossed the parking area and explored the other side.  We made our way onto the long, narrow tunnel.  We took a different way back to the parking lot, and that was the source of my pain.  And pardon the interruption, but we’re waiting for a pilot car.  Yes!  But back to the pain.  We were almost back to the parking lot when I slipped and totally wiped out.  I scraped my left knee pretty badly and scraped my hand a little.  My knee didn’t actually hurt at first, but my hand was killing me.  After a while the opposite was true.  Since I was hurt and clouds were rolling in, we didn’t stop again until Legion Lake.  I wanted to walk the loop, but it started thundering, so we just stopped to take some photos.  And that’s about it.  We just left the pilot car area, and we’re making our way out of Custer State Park and back to Rapid City.  I took some Advil, so my knee and hand aren’t bothering me anymore—thank God.  I’ll likely make one more update tonight after supper.  Later!

07/01/10, 8:33 P.M.

For supper Rique and I compromised on KFC/Long John Silver’s.  I wanted one of the new lemonades that Long John Silver’s has been advertising, but they didn’t have them.  Instead I had two fish tacos and shared KFC turnovers with Mom.  On the way back to the hotel, I saw a double rainbow.  That was pretty cool.  Now Mom and I are chilling in the hotel room.  Tomorrow is the last day of vacation already.  I don’t want to go home!

07/02/10, 1:27 P.M.

We’re on the way back home, but first I should write about the day so far.  I watched the Brazil-Netherlands World Cup game, and I was so hoping that Brazil would win because of my brother in Christ, Kaká.  They didn’t, though, so now both the U.S. and Brazil are out.  I’ll keep watching, though, because this World Cup has made me a soccer fan.  But enough about soccer.  After we checked out of the hotel, we went to Pirate’s Cove, a mini golf course.  Though Rique got lucky and made three hole-in-ones (emphasis on the lucky), I still beat him by five strokes.  That means, ladies and gentlemen, that I won our mini golf tournament in both courses won (2-1) and strokes (17 less than Rique).  He usually beats me at mini golf, but I was unusually good at putting, and he fooled around at Holy Terror.  We’re at Culver’s for lunch, so I’ll resume later.

07/02/10, 2:53 P.M.

Okay, back to where I left off.  After mini golf, we went to Storybook Island but didn’t stay long because it is so hot (the car is showing 101 °F right now).  Storybook Land in Aberdeen is more fun.  We decided to start heading home, but on the way on to the interstate, we passed Sonic.  Since I didn’t get my lemonade last night, I wanted a sparkling strawberry lemonade.  It was really yummy.  Meanwhile we were trying to find our way to I-90, but we couldn’t, due in part to Gertrude (our GPS) being dumb.  We finally made our way to the interstate.  We stopped at Culver’s in Spearfish for lunch.  I had a butterburger with cheese, a blueberry cheesecake cone, and some of Mom’s fries.  Everything was good, but the custard caused some problems.  The moment I stepped into the 100 degree heat, my custard turned into a waterfall pouring all over my hands and feet.  That was quite fun… not!  But since the custard was good, it’s all good.  Now we’re just on the boring drive up Highway 85.  How fun!

07/02/10, 6:40 P.M.

This will be my second-to-last entry.  I know, that’s quite sad.  I’ve been passing time by reading the Bible, listening to music, watching a video on my iPod, and doing Sudoku puzzles.  Now to pass some of the remaining time, I will write my concluding thoughts on the trip.  It started out slowly, but wow, by the end of it all, I never wanted to leave.  As beautiful as God’s creation is, the Black Hills are right up there at the top.  The mountains, the hills, the forests, the lakes—all of it!  And then, of course, the man-made attractions are fun and awesome.  Expensive but fun and awesome.  So many times throughout this trip I thought about how much I would want to live in the Black Hills someday.  Maybe that’s God’s plan for me, and maybe it’s not, but no matter what, I plan to come back several times—maybe with my own family in the future.  Carry on the tradition, right?  Maybe we can be more adventurous then because I am ready to conquer Harney Peak, baby.  And to go camping.  And read the Bible amidst God’s creation.  Man, when I was sitting atop the high rock Rique and I went up, I was thinking about how awesome it would’ve been to stay up there for just hours and pray and read.  Wow.  But I suppose I’m rambling now, so I’ll end this.  One entry to go.

07/02/10, 7:58 P.M.

We’re back home… ugh.

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For photos from my trip, go to my Windows Live Space: http://bripoeticjustice.spaces.live.com