Patriots, Weird Roadtripping and Our Last Camping!

South Dakota is the Mt. Rushmore state which was our first stop here. We drove in to the Black Hills Forest; beautiful landscapes on green hills and in to Keystone, where the mountain is. On the way we drove trough a place called Deadwood, that just like Keystone, is a western town with cowboy-themed fasades, it was really cool.
There was a lift up to a little top that advertised for a great scenic view over to Mt. Rushmore and it costed $8, and the ride up And down was really nice but we all felt very ripped off when we saw the view. Basically we didnt see anything, just 4 faces faaaaaaaar far away. When we got down i complained, the sunnmøring as i am haha (a norwegian thing if you english readers dont know).

So we drove a little further and got to see the mountain up close over at the Mt. Rushmore monument park. It was really cool to finally get to see it. The four presidents are, for you who dont know: George Washington, USAs first president, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Its amazing that theyve been carved out in a mountain. At 9 PM a show started where they were suppouse to light up the mountain. The time is set back or forward for every state we come in to so we rushed over around 8.20 PM to get good seats before the show was supposed to start when the time was actually 7.20 PM. Yeeeeeeeey. We sat there and waited for over 1 & 1/2 hous..

Anyway, as we waited, an american flag was lit up the entire time and when the show started everyone said a prayer for it. Then we saw a movie about the american history and the role the four presidents played. Then for a finale, as they lit the mountain in Slow Motion, yeees thats right, slow motion, everyone sang the national anthem. It was a nice, um what should i call it, seremony maybe, but it was kinda heavy we think. We all know that americans are patriots but we didnt realize they were that much patriots until we saw this. Wow, thats all i can say!

We slept in Keystone for a night and the next day we went on to the Crazy Horse memorial. The memorial isnt finished so once again we felt ripped off as we payed $27 for a carload, (over at Mt. Rushmore we payed $10), BUT this place was AMAZING.

Personally i fell in love with the native americans which ive always loved, but this place showed their works over the years and all the incredible arts and crafts theyve made. Crazy Horse memorial is a tribute to all the indians all over America and Crazy Horse was their hero. One of the reasons why are because he turned down the opportunity to alliance with the Americans. Until this day, and the reason for why the memorial isnt finished is because the people who today are working on it, Still havent accepted anything from the government. All the money they have are donations from anyone who wants to donate and well, i think its great that they still dont accept. (The pic on the right is a miniature of how Crazy Horse is going to be like when its finished).

After all this we continued our trip down to a place called Hot Springs, not far from the border to Nebraska. We spent a night here and at the time there was a little arts and crafts festival, so we saw a lot of pretty little things people had made and there was a little music too. A very nice little place with great people and delicious China buffets!

The next day we hit the road for a looooong trip through Nebraska. Not far from the border we did a pit-stop at Carhenge which basically is a copy of the Stonehenge, only made of cars. Pretty cool and i dont know who on earth had it so boring that they did this project. Fun for tourists though!


After a long and narly drive with craaaaaazy thunder and lightning and rain, we stopped in Kansas, in a tiiiny place called Lucas to camp. The bad weather didnt come after us, thank God, but it was really creepy there because we met some people, two older guys, who seemed nice enough, but they were drinking, and when they were done talking to some of our guys they just lingered and hovered over us, not saying a word. We waited like forever and they never went inside their RV and i refused to go to sleep until they did but in the end they FINALLY got in. It was hard to fall asleep but in the end we all did, and well we're all still alive. All the boys had knives with them in the tents, just in case. Haha. We did a pit-stop at the Garden of Eden, another weird place, then we got the hell out of that town.


Heres a random pic from Lucas.. weird place. Just weird!

We passed trough Kansas the same day And we passed through Oklahoma and we didnt stop before we got to Texas. We got to a park around 10 PM and got a campsite in the woods. This was in a place outside Dallas called Danton. It was very warm and humid and it was way too many mosquitoes out there so we didnt bother to go all the way inn to our campsite; we just put up our tents on the road where there werent too much vegetation so that we wouldnt get eaten up by all the insects!! This was officially our LAST time tenting because it was sooo horrible and because we were finally in a city again: DALLAS!!!

PS: i kinda did this one in a hurry so sorry for not too many great pics or a weird text or whatever; ill try to make it up to you guys in the next one from TEXAS!!!!!

- vic -