80 Hours of Bliss: An Adventure of Three Friends

So, I just got back from the most amazing trip I have ever taken. Where to, you might ask? South Dakota. Yup, the most amazing trip I have ever taken was to South Dakota. Let me elaborate...sit back, relax, look at some pictures, and enjoy the upcoming novel...

It all started on Wednesday (except for the months of anticipation leading up to it!!!) around lunch time, after Shannon and I got off work. We packed up her car, filled up with gas, and headed northeast. At first we were excited when we passed the Utah border into Wyoming, because it was just one step closer to South Dakota. But then we decided we hated Wyoming.

So, about 2 1/2 hours into the drive, we decided we weren't having enough of an adventure yet, and blew out Shannon's tire. Good times, good times. Thankfully, Shannon has AAA, so we called them, and they sent someone out to tow us. They said it would take like an hour, so we took pictures with the tire (yeah, we're nerds) and started a game of Phase 10...but we only got through one phase before the tow truck showed up.

The tow truck dude towed us to Rock Springs (thankfully we were only 11 miles west of it when we broke down) and we got a new tire from Big-O and were back on the road again within an hour of the blow out (plus the place where Shannon bought new tires last year is covering the expense of the tire and AAA covers the rest...yeah!).

It was pretty smooth for the next several hours. We even had two amazing thunder/lightening storms as entertainment for about 4-5 hours. You can see these storms forever in Wyoming, because honestly, there's nothing else. Wyoming could have a pretty convincing argument for the whole "the world is flat" opinion.

We decided around 11ish that we should probably stop somewhere for the night. We pulled into a town called Lusk, Wyoming around 11:30 and checked out one of the hotels, but there were no vacancies. The other places we passed also had no vacancy signs, so we started heading for the next town. Then, I got a prompting that we needed to go back, so we did and we checked every single one of their hotels and motels and even their bed and breakfast, but alas no room at the inn. Again, we headed out of town, and I was curious why I had been prompted to go back the first time. We found out shortly after, as we realized we were driving right behind the tail end of a HUGE thunder storm that we would have been caught in had we left town when we originally tried. We checked another city shortly after arriving in South Dakota (Edgemont) and also no place to stay. Finally, at one in the morning, we found the last room at Days Inn in Custer, South Dakota. (We found out later, this was about 20 minutes from our ultimate destination.) I was so happy to have somewhere to sleep and was so giddy tired, I was jumping up and down on my bed and doing retarded back-flips (our room had two king-size beds..woohoo!). Then, I passed out for a few hours.

Shannon and I had planned on getting to Keystone, SD a few hours before Josh (Cooper). However, as we were getting ready the next morning, we got a call from Josh saying he was already there. So, we hurried and got ready and checked out of the hotel and drove the last few miles to Keystone. Unbeknownst to us, those last few miles afforded us a sneak peak of both the Crazy Horse Monument and Mount Rushmore...pretty sweet...we tried not to look to close, so we could experience it all with Josh.

Josh and I agreed to meet at the 3-hour parking lot across from the huge hotel on the hill. Since I ignorantly told Josh we were coming from Rapid City (boy was I wrong!), the directions ended up being backwards, but thankfully, Keystone has one main road that is about 2 feet long, so it wasn't too hard to find Josh.

It was a joyous reunion after not seeing each other in about 3 months! Shannon and I had to play with Josh's long hair (not super, super long, but definitely way long for him) and of course, had to snap some pictures to prove that we were all really there. Then, we drove up to Rushmore caves, not waiting to start our adventures of Keystone, SD.

Shannon and I had both been wearing shorts, so after parking our cars, Josh kept a lookout, while Shannon and I changed along the side of the road...yeah, we really did. And right after we got our pants on, about four cars drove past...good timing.

We headed into the gift shop and bought our tickets for the tour (the only guided tour we took there). We signed the guest book and left comments before we even went in the cave. I guess we were being kind of rowdy...at least enough to get the attention of the tour guide, Brennan. He told us that we were pretty weird for writing in the guest book before the tour, but he also told us we could put his name down under the tour guide section. Our comments were really ridiculous and had nothing to do with Rushmore caves, and under the tour guide section, Shannon, instead of just writing Brennan's name, wrote "Brennan's hot."

Brennan chatted with us a bit and commented, "I can tell this is gonna be a good tour." And it was. The cave was pretty sweet, and kind of like most caves I've been too on tours. I think the three of us were so excited to see each other, we were just super giggly the whole time, and we were busting up laughing almost the whole tour...and really, caves aren't that amusing, but we made it so. After the tour, we were looking around the gift shop, and Brennan asked us what "We're children! We're children! We're children! We're children!" meant in Josh's comment section, and so we told him about how he needed to see the movie Kung Pow. Then he asked which one of us was Shannon. I pointed at Shannon, and Josh said he was Shannon. Oh...good times.

Then we ditched Josh's car at a hotel and went to Mount Rushmore, which was AMAZING! It looks way, way smaller than you would think, but it is pretty huge when you hear the dimensions...I have that on a postcard, so I'll put it in here. But it was way cool to watch the movie with the making of it and learning about what it meant, and of course taking pictures that looked like our fingers were up the presidents noses and posing in the place of presidents...good times.

Then we went to Crazy Horse, but didn't go in the park, because it was a freakin' $27 a car! Dude, we're poor college students!!! So, instead we went back to the 3-hour parking lot and started watching a movie...Hitch. It started getting later, so we decided we should pick up some groceries and find somewhere to camp. Except, Shannon's car wouldn't start because the battery was totally drained from the DVD player. So, Josh had to walk to the hotel (thankfully it was close by) and get his car. On our unexpected list of events on the trip was that "Grettle saved the day." (Grettle is Josh's beater car.) We jump-started Shannon's car, and then we went to Dairy Queen to celebrate Josh getting a BYU scholarship (I brought his mail from Provo...and he thought it was bills...). DQ was in this strip mall sort of place, and there Shannon and I discovered our most frequented place of the trip: Public Restroom. Then, we set out to the country grocery store, then on to a campground.

We actually stayed at a paid campground the first night, called Horse Thief Lake (Unfortunately, we loved this place so much, we were to enthralled with it to take pictures). We checked in, built a fire, threw up some tents, and cooked a scrumptious dinner of chili and fritos (probably mine and Shannon's favorite camping meal). Then we played some Phase 10 in our tent, made a group trip to the outhouse, and were out like lights.

We slept in way late Friday morning...well, for camping...and didn't get up 'til like 9:30. We ate our apple bread breakfast, packed up camp, and headed to the abandoned mine Josh has never stopped telling us about. We parked the car at the base of the trail, and hiked in about a mile up the mountain. On the way up, we found a dead snake. It was cool. We came up on the actual factory-like building, which was about 5 stories high. It was mostly rotted, but we explored anyway, taking care where we stepped, so we wouldn't fall through rotten wood several stories. After a sufficient amount of time there, we headed up to the actual mine.

Okay, so you all have seen the typical opening of a mine...like what...6x8 feet opening. No, not this mine. It was like a freakin' crater! (The picture on the left...Josh is in the picture, kind of like a little green spec there next to the smaller hole about half an inch lower than the huge hole.) Josh, of course, wanted to go in the most dangerous way, while Shannon and I went in the back. We went exploring for awhile. There is one spot where there is what appears to be about a 6 ft diameter mud puddle. It's quite deceiving, though, because it's actualy a really, really deep mine shaft full of water. We never did figure out what they were mining.

That afternoon, we just took it chill. We watched a movie and played cards at Keystone Community Center Park. Good times. In the evening we camped on the other side of Horse Thief Lake just at some random spot. It was beautiful, but, like I mentioned earlier, we were so enthralled with exploring and such, we never got any pitures. Anywho, the lake was gorgeous, and had some small cliffs on the other side, and the majority of the lake was lined with a beautiful boardwalk, which we originally planned to sleep on that night, except a thunder storm rolled in (like the 4th one since we were there) and Shannon and I ended up sleeping in the car, even though we don't know why, since both of us still wanted to sleep outside. Josh and I even saw a tiny little turtle attack and nibble on a fish...CRAZY! Who'da thought a turtle would do that???

We finished watching the movie we'd started earlier, and afterwards, Josh and I went and danced by the lake during the stor, which was pretty sweet.

After breakfast together Saturday morning, we said our goodbyes as Josh headed back to Humboldt, and we headed back to Provo. The ride back was pretty good, except for when I accidentally took an 80 mile detour. Oops.

There was a pretty big thunder storm as we came into Utah, and we also realized that Provo Canyon was on fire, which we drove through. Our adventures didn't come to an end even while unpacking the car...while I was getting stuff out of the trunk, the wind came up and the trunk came down on my head (and neck apparently) and I got a lovely trunk mark on my neck.

Honestly, though, it was the best trip I've EVER been on!!!! I highly recommend anyone to visit Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills area!!!

*To see more pictures, you can also visit my Facebook Photos, Mount Rushmore album.