Snowman Express

Day 3: May 31, 2009 547.9 miles
We slept great in that Walmart parking lot. We were able to pick up a couple of things at the store. All of us took showers and drained every last bit of the water out. I was the lucky one to take the last shower. Spit bath takes on a new meaning. It surprises me that we ran out of water since we haven’t totally figured out the water heater so the showers were pretty chilly and therefore quite hurried. I have gotten hot water out of the sink so I am not sure what is going on there. We still had water bottles with water in them so that is what we used for brushing teeth this morning. Seth and I went into the store to wet our hair down and they didn’t seem bothered by that. Sandra wins the prize for the most primping time. There is so much room in this rig that she was able to bring her flat iron, small and large barrel curling irons, make-up kit, hair gels, mouse, and other beautifying accouterments...as if she needed any of that! She is sure a fun, athletic, girly girl!

Next stop–Church
Anyway, when we were all prettified, we let mapquest lead us to church to attend the Rapid City 1st Ward which started at 9:00 am and we got there on time. Just after we sat down we heard “Snow’s!” and turned around to see a now-married young man who grew up in our ward-Sam Evans and his wife Chelsea and their darling red-headed, 1-year-old, Lucy Mae. Sam is getting a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering. It was fun to see them. We enjoyed Sacrament meeting which included a darling young woman youth speaker and a young men orchestra choir. The Crockett’s had spent the night in a hotel and they were running late so we didn’t see them until after sacrament meeting.

Next stop– Mount Rushmore
Keith and I decided that, with the 8.5 hour drive ahead of us after time at Mount Rushmore, we would leave after Sacrament. The Crocketts disagreed and desired to stay all three hours so we headed off without them. Mount Rushmore is in such a beautiful spot in those gorgeous Black Hills. Borglund really knew that this was going to make him legendary. We took a guided hike up close to the monument and learned some very interesting, fun facts (like the fact that Borglund took the Mt Rushmore job after being fired from the Stone Mountain job, throwing a tantrum and destroying the models, then evading arrest). Our guide was sort of a free spirit. The kids had a nice time quoting her for the rest of the day. One thing I thought was interesting were the reasons for those particular presidents being memorialized.
Washington: The Father of our Nation
Jefferson: Expanding our Nation (not for writing the Declaration of Independence like we thought)
Lincoln: Preserving our Nation
Roosevelt (Teddy): Developing our Nation into a worldwide power.
Anyway, Mount Rushmore is worth visiting on the way somewhere but really you are done with it after a couple of hours. We even watched the movies, looked through the exhibits, listened to two Guide presentations, took cover from two rain/hail storms and used their facilities twice. (We are very proud that we have yet to put No.2 in the rig– ha!) So, having had our fill of the Monument, we headed toward Council Bluffs, Iowa.

This stretch was potentially very boring but actually it wasn’t. First of all, yet another rainstorm burst upon us and as we drove out of it the clouds were extraordinarily beautiful. Grandma Donna would have been exclaiming all over them. As we were admiring the clouds we were treated to an air show. Yes, SIX air fighters in formation were flying back and forth in front of us. Way cool! Then, a little later, we were in the middle of watching Forever Strong (which I am going to buy!) and we were entertained as we watched a very confused Keith get pulled over by a K9 cop. We even have video of Keith getting into the Police car. The cop said he pulled us over because we didn’t have a front license plate...bogus. He wanted to know exactly what our plans were, whose RV this was, and he wanted that dog to sniff our DRIVER. He let us go “with a warning.” Ha! I may have to edit that video and use it for black mailing purposes. I may soon have unlimited chocolate budget! Girls, I will share! Well, any way about 100 miles down the road there was a very large van out in the grassy area in the middle of the highway with about 20 Latinos or Native Americans sitting around it and two cop cars with their lights a flashing. We wonder if they (the police) were all warned of some sort of human smuggling and they were being extra vigilant. I mean, COME ON, would you really pull a Utah RV over for an obscure regulation that only South Dakota cares about?

Well, we are about to stop for dinner at a rest stop. I used Justin’s roaster to cook a pork roast and potatoes and I made Amy’s yummy sauce and were going to have salad and ice cream with the topping that Robin so lovingly left at my house. Yum! Print this post