Yesterday morning, we bid farewell to Interior (population 67) and drove Route 44 to Rapid City (population 67,000) and-- after the prerequisite visit to Mount Rushmore-- we meandered through the Black Hills on the Needles Highway, which is an outrageously scenic and outrageously stomach-churning road-- lots of hairpin curves, tight switchbacks, and one-car-width-stone tunnels-- and just before we entered one of these skinny tunnels, we saw a mountain goat perched on a cliff, so now we know how to tell the difference between a big-horn sheep and a mountain goat (we saw big horn sheep in the Badlands) and it was very very hot again, which was fine, except that all the real men in the region wear cowboy hats, blue jeans and button down shirts with long sleeves-- long sleeves which they never roll up-- so I felt like a tool in my EMS light weight hiking shorts, black baseball hat and Adidas t-shirt; finally, for your amusement, I offer the names of two convenience/fuel establishments we have encountered multiple times in the West:
1) Kum & Go;
2) Loaf 'N Jug.
Funny pictures from Mount Rushmore?
ReplyDeletehaven't looked at those photos yet.
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