"Moving Spencer to College" Trip - Day 2

(The content of this post happened on 25 Aug, 2013 CDT)

The second day of the trip was absolutely unforgettable!!! Because we visited Mount Rushmore, the mountain which is very famous and can be seen on many Movies or shows!

Mount Rushmore was remodeled in the show I like - "Phineas and Ferb"

We had breakfast at the hotel, it was Buffet. The food was not special, but the waiter was very friendly. She always greet and chat with guests, so we had a good breakfast time.

Haha! Good morning! :)

The hotel breakfast Buffet.

The dinosaur park was the first place we went on the second day of the trip. We were going to go dinosaur park was because of Styles, he loves dinosaurs and fast cars. Barb said that she was not sure if dinosaur park were still there because the last time she saw was 30 years ago, she went there every year with her mom and dad when she was a child. But we found it! It was still there, and Barb said it did not even change! The dinosaur park is on a small hill, so the view there was really good, we could get a bird's-eye view of the whole Rapid City. There were some fake dinosaurs, Styles loves it very much, he climbed and took pictures with them. We then went to the gift shop, I made a coin that have dinosaur park's patterns on it, it was a really good monumental stuff, and I like it very much.

Video

The next stop was the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, I was so looking forward to seeing it, because it is a very famous place, we can see Mt. Rushmore in many movies and magazines, and many people may have seen its pictures before. But I was going to see the REAL one! :)

Another Mount Rushmore was remodeled in the show I like - "Phineas and Ferb"

Mt. Rushmore was a 30 minutes drive from downtown Rapid City, before arrived our destination, there were other attractions called Bear Country, I was not sure what was that, but I thought it was a tourist zoo.

Mt. Rushmore was located on a hill, when we were on the road, we could already see the four president sculpture high on the mountains, It was very spectacular. The day we visited had many people, so it took some time to enter the parking lot. The Mount Rushmore was a national park, we could buy a yaer parking pass, and we can enter at any time during the year. The parking lot was very big, there were divided into many zones, we parked in the zone which is nearest to the park entry.

One the road to Mt. Rushmore

Entering parking lot

The Mt. Rushmore's sculpture was much bigger than my imagination, with the international flags flying, the scene was very beautiful. JJ and I just keep taking pictures. At the same time, I saw many kinds of people, I also saw some Chinese, but they speak Cantonese (it is not my language).

International flags were flying

Continue to go inside, the sculpture was getting bigger and bigger in front of me, it was really spectacular. I couldn't imagine 130 years before, how did the workers made this huge awesome artworks. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln were lifelike. There were a plaza for visitors to sit down and take a rest, chat with friends, and watch this awesome artwork. Under the plaza, there were a theater, but it only opens at night, so we did not visit. I also saw there were some people walking on the trails that was on the mountain, it was very near to the sculpture, just next to it, but we did not visit either.

Mount Rushmore~

My Video!

After watching this unbelievably awesome artwork for at least 20 minutes, we went to the gift shop. I bought some postcard, and send it back to Taiwan, to my family and friends when we came back to Ipswich. Each of them were different, some are the day view of Mt. Rushmore, some are the night view with beautiful fireworks. I also made a coin that have Mt. Rushmore pattern, just like the one I made in dinosaur park. The interesting thing is, it was made by the real penny!

At the gift shop, it was Taiwan's flag!

We then went to the Rushmore Mall in Rapid City, it was a pretty big mall. JJ and I just look around the mall, walk from the beginning to the end of the mall takes over 7 minutes, it was the biggest mall I have ever been so far. There were some interesting stores in the mall that attract my attention, like GameStop and candy store. Although GameStop may not special, but it was full of video games, who don't like games? :) And it had many ads about the unreleased game - Grand Theft Auto 5, it is my favorite game. The candy shop was very "sweet", from drinks to Jelly Belly candy, it had all kind of candies!

On the road to the mall

Soda flavor lip balms....

GameStop

Candy Store

Since Styles was bored, Barb took him to take the small train. It cost three bucks per person, but make Styles not to cry was the most important thing. There were no other children taking the train so it was cool because the train was open for Styles.

After shopping at the mall, we went back to the hotel. All of us were tired, it was an unforgettable and rewarding day.

Supper~

Tried three different brands of fast foods, in one day. Unhealthy...

Very tired!