Badlands - Renae

Saturday, June 26, 2004
Today we drove until we came to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Before we went to see it, we ate lunch. When we were going to see Mount Rushmore, Dad decided that his back hurts and wanted to rest. The camper door was unlocked and Lisa said, for a joke, what if he got kidnapped. I’m sure he won’t get kidnapped, though, unless there is a whole gang of the kidnappers to carry him out. While we were looking at Mount Rushmore Travis got mixed up and by mistake said Rount Mushmore. Travis looked up spoonerism, which is what you call it when you mix the letters around, and found out that the name “spoonerism” is named after the guy who mixed letters around. Travis said he’ll start doing that but instead call them “weaverisms” and become famous. Anyway, after we were done seeing Mount Rushmore, we were headed for the Badlands National Park, about 50 miles from Mount Rushmore. It was only supposed to take about an hour driving, but our awful navigator, Travis, somehow took us way out around and instead of one it took six. The road was gravel and we met only one single car. We made it to the badlands at around 7:15 or so. It didn’t impress me as much as I thought it would, though. At first it’s really pretty, but after a while, they all look the same. I think the most exciting part of the day for me was the buffalo. There was a huge herd of them, even in the middle of the road. There was an especially big one that almost looked as if he was considering bucking us. There were also cute little babies. After we were done with the park, we went to a Flying J that was in Rapid City, which was close to Mount Rushmore, where we spent the night.