"Look Kids, Mount Rushmore!"

A month has passed since I posted our last RV trip blog post. I didn't mean to get so sidetracked, but I still have a week of our vacation to cover and damn it, I'm going to do it!

So when we last left off, we had fallen asleep under starry skies in corn-filled Nebraska. I woke up bright and early the next morning (as usual) and went for a run down dusty, wildflower lined roads and quiet residential streets. I found myself wanting to lie down in the middle of a field and just stay put for a while, but we still had a week to go and about 2,000 miles still to cover. It was time to pack up and hit the road yet again.

This time we were heading for one of the big monuments of the US, Mount Rushmore! We were sure this majestic wonder carved with human hands would impress our kids who were quickly tiring of the novelty of driving somewhere new every day. We made our way out of Nebraska and crossed into South Dakota, ready for a new adventure.

What we were not ready for were the million and a half bikers who were in the process of descending on Sturgis, South Dakota for the annual bike rally. Apparently the usual crowd is closer to 500,000, but we were fortunate enough to hit the state during the same week of the 75th anniversary of this event which meant sharing the roads with thousands upon thousands of our tattooed, leather encased, mostly helmet-less riders. We had heard about this rally but assumed that since it was taking place in a city an hour north of Mount Rushmore that we were in the clear. We were very wrong.

At first it was a novelty. "Hey, kids, look at all the bikers!" The interest in the motorcycle enthusiasts soon wore thin when we almost lost our first game of highway "chicken" with a wayward biker who was attempting to pass a swarm of his fellow bikers and NOT GETTING BACK INTO HIS OWN LANE. As this biker sped closer to impact with the front of our RV, I think I yelled a few choice words that rhyme with "duck" and "spit". The biker swerved back into his own lane in the nick of time. I think I lost several years off my life.

This would happen to us at least once or twice again in the following days as it became clear that bikers were literally coming from every direction to fill every last inch of South Dakota. They weren't just coming to Sturgis, they were stopping at all the sights along the way. Including . . . you guessed it. Mount Rushmore!

As we inched closer to the national monument it became clear that we would be sharing it with thousands of our new friends. The line to get into the park snaked past the traffic light. John and I took one look at each other and made the obvious choice. We yelled to the kids to look out the window at Mount Rushmore while the light was still red. We all leaned toward the window, took the requisite shot of the four presidents, then the light turned green and off we went.

As a consolation to the kids for not actually stopping when we got to our destination, we slowly made our way through several small towns which were jam packed with motorcycles and stopped at Bear Country USA instead. After two weeks of seeing hardly any wildlife, we decided we'd better go somewhere to actually see something large and scary, like a black bear or a coyote. We saw plenty of bear since we were in (duh) Bear Country. We also saw a very brazen coyote that followed several RVs as if he was waiting for the door to open so that he could hop inside.

Next stop: The Badlands