Americana Day 1
This fiasco started at 3am, monday morning. Getting up to catch the first flight out of Orlando. Got First Class. I had the omlette. Getting on the Eagle plane in Dallas to go to Rapid City, SD, I got a huge ego buster. The kids started complaining about how small the plane is. You know, is it safe? Does it really fly? That kind of thing. I tried to explain to them that that airplane has been putting food on the table and them through school but they still thought it was "dinky". What can I say?
When we got to Rapid City, on the way into town, we had to take a picture of this. The most worthless think in the world. A water park in South Dakota. As we went on through the vacation, we realized how warm blooded we are. While we had on jackets, everyone else were in swim suits and Bikinis. Maybe it's not such a bad idea.
On the way up to Rushmore, we passed through Keystone. Population 367.
Can you say "tourist trap"? (We hadn't seen Wall yet)
They even had Rattlesnake Jake's.
Our first look at the mountain.
Our weary travelers.
They got a whole bunch of nothing up there. Nothing times 10.
Our self shot.
They had granite plaques of all the states. We only worried about one.
It's a very impressive site. I kept looking for Cary Grant crawling down Georges nose.
Kristin got a new camera. I have about 50 more shots of her from her own camera but not enough web space.
The whole thing is empressive.
Possible Christmas picture.
They have something called "The Presidents Trail" that loops around to the base of the mountain for close up looks. At the beginning, they have an Indian came set up to look at.
Unfortunately, we couldn't go in to see. Apparently, we didn't have reservations.
Jake and Kris, hamming it up a bit.
By the end of the vacation, they got pretty good at that hamming thing.
More self shots.
The Boys.
The boys from a little farther on the trail.
Can you believe that is a smile on Jen?
The trail detoured into these rocks.
I kept talking about Rattle Snakes.
Family self shot.
Jen kept of saying that we should have gone the other direction on the loop because the one we took had more up-hill walking in it. I never did get through to her that we ended up at the same place and it had to be the same. Good thing she's going into Psychology and not Physics.
The boys even farther.
Another possible Christmas Picture.
Yes. There's an app for that. And we used the hell out of it.
After the loop, we wanted to wait for the nighttime lighting ceremony. So we got some coffee and sat around for a little family love time.
Yes. I love you too, dad.
It's getting darker.
They have a ranger come out and talk about the history and other stuff about parks while it's getting dark. Then when it's full dark, the lights gradually come up to show the monument. It's pretty cool.
And that's how our first day ended.