After getting up, we head over to Donna’s Main Street Diner for some breakfast - it’s a proper American experience and obviously hugely popular locally with everybody that comes and goes chatting with the waitress - we have French Toast, again, but this is genuinely excellent and one of the best breakfasts so far. Without waxing too lyrical, but these sorts of places feel so uniquely American and we can’t get enough of feeling like we’re part of the local community.
We drive out of town and the plains slowly morph into gentle valleys that are lined with jet black fallen trees, stone of ochre and burnt umber, all iced with snow. It’s so striking that we stop and walk back down the road to take it all in and get some pictures - it’s bitterly cold though, so we hurry back to the car after a few minutes. We head on, into clearing skies and bright sunshine - it’s still freezing, but it’s great to feel some sun on our skin (from the warmth of our heated Range Rover). The hills continue to grow as we move into South Dakota, and before long we see signs for Mount Rushmore - as one of the world’s most well known attractions, we decide we can’t really pass it by.
We head off into the Custer National Forest, which surrounds Mount Rushmore, and drive up a weaving road to the entrance to the monument. From an sparsely used carpark, it’s just a short walk up and immaculately manicured pathway to the viewpoint which looks up at one of the world’s most recognisable sculptures. It’s pretty incredible, with a scale that’s hard to actually perceive, and I’m glad that we’re getting to see it without the hordes of visitors it must attract during the warmer months. One downside to visiting at this time of year is that pretty much none of the wider offers are open, so we can’t really gain any wider understanding of the sculpture’s creation - this is something that Wikipedia can help with so hopefully we leave at least a little educated.
It’s such a nice day and we’re essentially in a national forest, we decide to hike in the surrounding hills - we park up near another frozen lake, complete with somebody ice-fishing, and walk up into the forest. The mix of the bright sunlight, towering rock outcrops, crystalline snow flakes glinting in the air and the fresh powder on the trail makes this one of the most beautiful walks we’ve had, all the more so by how unexpected it is. We’re out for a few hours, and despite getting lost a couple of times, we return to the car reinvigorated - if you’re ever in the area, I’d really suggest spending a few days in the area as I suspect there are other great walks to be done.
We’ve spent a little longer on this diversion than we might have intended, so we decide to stop in Rapid City, one of South Dakota’s major centres, as it’s just an hour or so away and it’s been a pretty tiring day. I pick out a hotel in Rapid City’s downtown, the Hotel Alex Jackson, which turns out to be a pretty cool hotel in an old building right in the middle of the downtown, so after a quick rest we head out for some dinner. As has become par for the course, availability of places is slightly restricted, so we head to Tally’s Silver Spoon - it’s another more upmarket restaurant, and we have some really good food. My braised bison is tender and rich, and we leave after three courses probably a little too full - we decide to go to a nearby pub, the Independent Ale House, which is pretty quiet.
We manage to get a seat at the bar and strike up some fun conversations with the bar staff - after catching that we’re from the UK they quiz us on the difference between fries, chips and crisps - which keeps us drinking for a few hours. As we’re getting ready to leave, we get caught up with the table behind us - a group of eight or so volunteer firefighters from Rapid City - and this leads to us all going back to the Irish pub under our hotel for some Irish Carbombs (Baileys and Guinness) as well as chewing tobacco (my companion cannot recommend this - I’ll leave him to explain why), arm wrestling and a huge range of conversation topics. It’s by far our best evening of the trip so far and I have to give a shout out to @UndercoverDirtbags (IG) for such a fun time.
Thankfully, we don’t have far to go to get home and we crash in our beds early in the morning. Tomorrow is going to be tough.