Intel Inside:
Tuesday I set my phone alarm for 8:30 so I could pick up Danielle in Boulder, BUT I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THE TRIP I GOT UP AT 6:30 and basically sat there and waited til I had to leave.
I picked Danielle up, we drove a long way to Mount Rushmore. We passed tons of good cities like Chugwater and Garbo. We were goign to see how many creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes we could swim in along the way but there weren't any. Well, there was the North Platte but it was too fast and big to get in according to Danielle. It took us 9 hours to get to Rapid City. I am not sure if that was the name of the city as I cant ever remember the name of it. It was Sturgis bike week in this area so all hotels, camp sites, and businesses were flooded with bikers and their biker babes. They all seem like nice people but are ready to explode at any minute. The first thing we did when we got to teh city was go to Olive Garden (after getting directions on a hill from a biker) and see a movie (Taladega Nights). Both were underwhelming. We drove to a Walmart and fell asleep in the parking lot.
It was fun getting up in the morning cause breakfast and a bathroom were only three stone throws away. It was a super walmart so i got some bananas and power bars for our day. I came back to the hotel (Toyota Matrix) and turned it back into a car (pushed the seats up and turned on the engine). We drove to Deadwood. Deadwood is an old, filthy casino town with 100000 bikers, 100 degree heat and 24Kt luxury. We parked the car at 9:30. We had 3 quarters which meant we woudl be there for three hours. There was a trolly stop so we waited there for a few minutes and as the trolly car was pulling up, Danielle dropped her purpse and all her cash, credit cards, change, make-up, and miscellaneous went all over the road. So we scraped all her stuff up as fast as we could. Apparently, not fast enough for the trolly car to let us get on. So we waited a little while for the next one until we saw that the trolly only comes on the 51's. so we missed it. We walked around, played a little, split a hamburger, and went to the Celebrity Casino where they had professionally preserved Hollywood relics like the $2,000,000 check that was used as a prop in Erin Brockovich and the leopard print shirt that Peggy Bundy wore on Married with Children. Everything was behind 1/4 " of plexi and about 5 feet from either a broken slot machine or a table with a napkins on it.
Our next plan of attack was to go to the waterpark but it was 14 bucks BUT we found advertisements for some other fun that looked either cheaper or more worth the money. We made reservations for the Circle B Chuckwagon Experience. It basically said you'd ride on a covered wagon, get fed, and get entertained for 18 (18= chicken, 20 beef, 22 = bison). So, we went to the Cosmic Zone. It basically said you'd be amazed. I(t was a guided tour. A 15 year old took about 25 of us up a hill, and had us stand in various parts of cabins with crooked walls and had us either throw, roll, or hold a tennis ball. If two people stood in certain spots and then exchanged places, the opposite person was then taller. Also, tennis balls would roll up hill. I know what you're thinking : magnets. No, he prooved that there were not magnets involved. He had an old Cafeine free Diet coke can that did the same thing. Remember: aluminum is NOT magnetic. Overall, this place sucked and we were disappointed even though we laughed the whole time. We drove over to Crazy Horse which didn't even look 1/4 of the way done. We rode our bicycles in to save 12 dollars and looked around. There was a furniture exhibit and there was a cat on a chair! A real live one. Somebody explained to us that it was probably to keep away mice. I bought a sweater and took a picture in front of the 1/34th version of the exhibit. We pretended to not know how to use our camera as to take up lots of time in front of the 1/34th while others waited. In the Bahamas, I want to prentend to not know how to use other people's camera's when they ask me to take a picture of them.
After that we went drove down to the Circle Chuckwagon feast and entertainment. It was pretty nice. It was on a farm in the middle of almost nowhere. A man threw a baked potato on our tin pans while we were in teh slop line. We also got applesauce, cinnamon bread, biscuits, and lemonade in tin cans. The floor was gravel and the excitement was high. There were seconds. Then the entertainment began. Three brothers sang old country songs that they would have sung in the woods like 120 years ago. We had to leave early and snuch out inbetween songs so we could get to the laser show at Mt. Rushmore.
We got to Mt. Rushmore as it was just getting dark so we were sort of in a hurry so we coudl see the faces in daylight so I pulled into the parking garage as fast as I could and heard a nice gigantic loud scrape followed by what sounded like my tires poping. I figured I had run over some spike strips but It was only our two bikes on the roof being crushed by a concrete overpass. BUT we sort of lucked out because it all sort of fell off the top and nothing was actually bent. We reassembled the rack and raced for the inside. My camera battery ran out on the second shot just as this 19 year old girl started telling the oversided audience all about Teddy Roosevelt's asthma. She sang the star spangled banner and told us to be proud to be Americans. Danielle and I were laughign the whole time as we finished our hot fudge sundaes that we got from the pack of Israeli's, Yugoslavians, and Russians that were hired for summer work at the dairy shack just south of the Mt. Rushmore pop dispensers. We then found out that the laser show was at Crazy Horse and all that there was at Mt. Rushmroe was a slide show which would have been fine had the projector not stopped working 2 minutes into My Country Tis of Thee. We walked around and asked where the laser show as at for sure and some woman workign there said Crazy Horse. We asked her if she ever sawt he show and she said no.. We were surprised and said why not. She said it didn't coordinate with her schedule.
We slept in Wrinkled Rock State Park and went swimming in a lake in the morning. A man carrying a shovel asked us how long we were staying. Since we were only staying 10 minutes, he wouldnt charge us. We drove back at lighting speed and went to sleep in my cabin by 10pm. Overall we had a blast.
Tuesday I set my phone alarm for 8:30 so I could pick up Danielle in Boulder, BUT I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THE TRIP I GOT UP AT 6:30 and basically sat there and waited til I had to leave.
I picked Danielle up, we drove a long way to Mount Rushmore. We passed tons of good cities like Chugwater and Garbo. We were goign to see how many creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes we could swim in along the way but there weren't any. Well, there was the North Platte but it was too fast and big to get in according to Danielle. It took us 9 hours to get to Rapid City. I am not sure if that was the name of the city as I cant ever remember the name of it. It was Sturgis bike week in this area so all hotels, camp sites, and businesses were flooded with bikers and their biker babes. They all seem like nice people but are ready to explode at any minute. The first thing we did when we got to teh city was go to Olive Garden (after getting directions on a hill from a biker) and see a movie (Taladega Nights). Both were underwhelming. We drove to a Walmart and fell asleep in the parking lot.
It was fun getting up in the morning cause breakfast and a bathroom were only three stone throws away. It was a super walmart so i got some bananas and power bars for our day. I came back to the hotel (Toyota Matrix) and turned it back into a car (pushed the seats up and turned on the engine). We drove to Deadwood. Deadwood is an old, filthy casino town with 100000 bikers, 100 degree heat and 24Kt luxury. We parked the car at 9:30. We had 3 quarters which meant we woudl be there for three hours. There was a trolly stop so we waited there for a few minutes and as the trolly car was pulling up, Danielle dropped her purpse and all her cash, credit cards, change, make-up, and miscellaneous went all over the road. So we scraped all her stuff up as fast as we could. Apparently, not fast enough for the trolly car to let us get on. So we waited a little while for the next one until we saw that the trolly only comes on the 51's. so we missed it. We walked around, played a little, split a hamburger, and went to the Celebrity Casino where they had professionally preserved Hollywood relics like the $2,000,000 check that was used as a prop in Erin Brockovich and the leopard print shirt that Peggy Bundy wore on Married with Children. Everything was behind 1/4 " of plexi and about 5 feet from either a broken slot machine or a table with a napkins on it.
Our next plan of attack was to go to the waterpark but it was 14 bucks BUT we found advertisements for some other fun that looked either cheaper or more worth the money. We made reservations for the Circle B Chuckwagon Experience. It basically said you'd ride on a covered wagon, get fed, and get entertained for 18 (18= chicken, 20 beef, 22 = bison). So, we went to the Cosmic Zone. It basically said you'd be amazed. I(t was a guided tour. A 15 year old took about 25 of us up a hill, and had us stand in various parts of cabins with crooked walls and had us either throw, roll, or hold a tennis ball. If two people stood in certain spots and then exchanged places, the opposite person was then taller. Also, tennis balls would roll up hill. I know what you're thinking : magnets. No, he prooved that there were not magnets involved. He had an old Cafeine free Diet coke can that did the same thing. Remember: aluminum is NOT magnetic. Overall, this place sucked and we were disappointed even though we laughed the whole time. We drove over to Crazy Horse which didn't even look 1/4 of the way done. We rode our bicycles in to save 12 dollars and looked around. There was a furniture exhibit and there was a cat on a chair! A real live one. Somebody explained to us that it was probably to keep away mice. I bought a sweater and took a picture in front of the 1/34th version of the exhibit. We pretended to not know how to use our camera as to take up lots of time in front of the 1/34th while others waited. In the Bahamas, I want to prentend to not know how to use other people's camera's when they ask me to take a picture of them.
After that we went drove down to the Circle Chuckwagon feast and entertainment. It was pretty nice. It was on a farm in the middle of almost nowhere. A man threw a baked potato on our tin pans while we were in teh slop line. We also got applesauce, cinnamon bread, biscuits, and lemonade in tin cans. The floor was gravel and the excitement was high. There were seconds. Then the entertainment began. Three brothers sang old country songs that they would have sung in the woods like 120 years ago. We had to leave early and snuch out inbetween songs so we could get to the laser show at Mt. Rushmore.
We got to Mt. Rushmore as it was just getting dark so we were sort of in a hurry so we coudl see the faces in daylight so I pulled into the parking garage as fast as I could and heard a nice gigantic loud scrape followed by what sounded like my tires poping. I figured I had run over some spike strips but It was only our two bikes on the roof being crushed by a concrete overpass. BUT we sort of lucked out because it all sort of fell off the top and nothing was actually bent. We reassembled the rack and raced for the inside. My camera battery ran out on the second shot just as this 19 year old girl started telling the oversided audience all about Teddy Roosevelt's asthma. She sang the star spangled banner and told us to be proud to be Americans. Danielle and I were laughign the whole time as we finished our hot fudge sundaes that we got from the pack of Israeli's, Yugoslavians, and Russians that were hired for summer work at the dairy shack just south of the Mt. Rushmore pop dispensers. We then found out that the laser show was at Crazy Horse and all that there was at Mt. Rushmroe was a slide show which would have been fine had the projector not stopped working 2 minutes into My Country Tis of Thee. We walked around and asked where the laser show as at for sure and some woman workign there said Crazy Horse. We asked her if she ever sawt he show and she said no.. We were surprised and said why not. She said it didn't coordinate with her schedule.
We slept in Wrinkled Rock State Park and went swimming in a lake in the morning. A man carrying a shovel asked us how long we were staying. Since we were only staying 10 minutes, he wouldnt charge us. We drove back at lighting speed and went to sleep in my cabin by 10pm. Overall we had a blast.
posted by chuck at 10:48 AM
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