We had to drug Mercury, and she wasn't happy about it:
Josh drove the entire way, so he deserves a lot of recognition for that since, all told, we traveled over 2,000 miles. We spent the first night in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which was pretty but we saw pretty much none of it. On Monday we drove to Billings, Montana, with a quick stop-off in Helena to see the capitol:
There was a very relaxed feel to Helena, especially since they let me roll around on the carpet:
They also had very nice bathrooms and a free blood pressure machine.
Across the street from the capitol was a Montana state history museum, which included a huge metal sculpture of a cow skull. You don't see this in Oregon:
I liked Helena a lot. I'm not sure if I will ever have a reason to live there, but it's a cute, little college town. The Montana landscape was also very pretty:
We stayed overnight in Billings and went to the temple in the morning.
Montana = beautiful, but then we went to Wyoming, which is flat and boring, except for this:
Josh was really the motivating force behind our sightseeing, since I had already seen many of these places as a kid. He wanted to see Devils Tower very badly. So we went.
It was really hot. We hiked around a little bit. Josh loves this picture:
And he also wants you to know that he chose this t-shirt specifically for this day of sight-seeing:
These areas attract tourists from strange places. For instance, at the Montana State Capitol, there was a Swedish family taking pictures and generally being in the way. At Devils Tower, I had to wait 5 minutes while a German family had a water fight with the potable water.
We then drove to our hotel in Deadwood, South Dakota, where we dropped off Mercury before going out again to see:
Which looks like this a little closer-up:
Although it is a work-in-progress, they have finished the face:
The statue in the foreground is what the finished product will look like:
If you don't know much about this monument, or about Crazy Horse in general, I recommend reading a bit about it. It was commission by a Lakota elder and has been in progress since 1948.
This is the quote that inspired the design:
This is how the finished product will look:
It was getting late at night, and Josh wanted to see Mt. Rushmore lit up, so we went there next. Apparently when you buy a day pass to Mt. Rushmore it is good for the entire year, so we went back the next day as well:
the flags are the U.S. state flags. We tried to get a picture of Oregon's flag, but it refused to unfurl in the wind.
We were actually there on the 4th of July, but they can't do fireworks at Mt. Rushmore because of fire danger. They did, however, have men dressed up as the presidents, taking pictures with tourists.
It was special to be there on Independence Day, but I was glad we had gone to the museum and everything the night before because it was hot.
I am going to have to write a separate post about Deadwood, just because it's a cool town and I have lots to say, but I can tell you now that the farther east we got, the crankier I became. We have now been in Grand Forks for almost a week and it hasn't gotten much better. But you can still look forward to a post about our trip to Universal Studios in Florida, new things we are discovering about Grand Forks, and pictures of our new apartment.
