Rapid City, South Dakota

The day before we left home, Danny pulled a muscle in his back which has been bothering him every day.  This morning we found a hardware store and he got a back brace which he says has helped.  He used that opportunity to ask about all the corn we had been seeing. He had been wanting to know what the corn was used for.  The salesman said the vast majority of it becomes ethanol and is mixed with the gas that runs our cars.  Now we know why miles and miles of corn is needed.  Along the way we have seen a number of crop-duster planes.  The first one was Monday afternoon and nearly gave me heart failure.  We were going down the interstate at about 75 mph.  A small plane had been circling in front of us.  Suddenly, it dove down toward the highway.  I thought it was going to land on the highway.  It was barely above car level when it went over the corn field and started spraying right beside us.  I can remember as a child seeing crop-dusters spraying tobacco fields but this was the first one I had seen in many years.

Today has been a beautiful drive. Yesterday we saw the different shades of green; today we saw some more of that but also the golden waves of grain.  At a rest area, Danny commented to the man working there that we had seen an awful lot of corn and soy beans and it was all beginning to look alike. The man said after we crossed the river, we would see more wheat and cattle than soy and corn.  We weren't sure which river he was talking about but fairly soon found out it was the Missouri.  We rounded a curve and all we could see in front of us was water. Because we couldn't see the bridge, it looked like we were going to drive straight into the water.  We made it safely over the bridge and stopped to eat lunch at a neat place in Oacoma, SD.  We couldn't decide what to get because we had walked by the dessert case on the way to the table.  There was a fabulous looking coconut cream pie in that case.  The menu said the chicken plate had two pieces of chicken so we decided to share a plate then share dessert.  It's a good thing we shared because each of us had full plates with half an order.  We would have wasted a lot of food had we each gotten an order. That coconut pie sure was good.

After we arrived in Rapid City and checked in to the hotel, we went to Mt. Rushmore.  That was almost a spiritual experience to think that God gave a man the vision and knowledge to design that piece of art long before computers were available.  We were very pleased that every thing in the gift shop was made in the USA.  A sign proudly made that declaration. Much of it was made by local artisans.  When we visited Gettysburg several years ago, it was very disappointing that everything in that gift shop, owned by the United States, was made in China or some other foreign country.  We did make a mistake with the hotel.  Not knowing the area, it looked as if Mt. Rushmore was right outside Rapid City.  It turns out it is 20 miles away and there were other hotels much closer than the one we chose. 

This picture and the one below are of the Missouri River from different sides of the river.

Fields of green and amber waves of grain.

This is a picture of what the mountain looked like before blasting and chiseling began.

Seeing this ticked another item off the bucket list.  It is awe inspiring.