Tuesday, June 01, 2010

A Weekend in South Dakota

Sometime before we even moved into the new house, Adam and I decided to go camping in the Black Hills over Memorial Day weekend. This was good, because my Winter and Spring quarters were back to back with only a week off in between (the week we moved!) and having a little vacation to look forward to at the end of all that work was a big motivation.

Anyway, finally, FINALLY at 9:30 on Thursday night I came home from my last class of the quarter to find Adam packing the car. And pretty much from that moment until we got home yesterday afternoon, I did very little in the way of Getting Things Done. I did not fold the laundry or empty the dishwasher, despite the fact that I said I would before we left. I did not rush around double-checking packed bags or locked doors. I was very laid back about the whole thing so this is I guess my way of saying thank you/sorry about that to Adam, who was the driving force behind getting us out the door and to the campsite.

Saturday was overcast, so we decided to put off the visit to Mt. Rushmore until Sunday. We happened to see Bear Country U.S.A. and decided to give it a try, and I am so glad we did because GUYS. It is Spring, which means it is BABY ANIMAL SEASON. To wit:



So cute it hurts, right?

Later that day we went to the Badlands. You can just barely see a little person on the right side of this picture, and it's Adam. He left me to go exploring because I kept yelling, "you are too close to the edge!" at him.

Badlands

On Sunday, we drove to Mt. Rushmore, which was a pretty cool thing to see:

Mt. Rushmore

Later that day we ended the touristy part of the trip with a visit to a ghost town, which was interesting but downright strange:

This is an outhouse. What?

What the What?!

(Those are an outhouse and the interior of a saloon, respectively, and while I believe the buildings themselves were either original or faithful reproductions, I'm not convinced that the interior..furnishings? Is that what you'd call them? are accurate depictions of daily life on the prairie.)

In addition to all that sightseeing, I also read several magazines, read this essay and a few chapters of Infinite Jest, made grilled cheese sandwiches over the fire, and played several thousand games of Ramp Champ. It was one of the best weekends of 2010 so far.

p.s. There are many, many more pictures here.

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