This trip took us to six new states and 3 new presidential gravesites! My grandpa swore there was no way we would get this trip done in less than two weeks. He doesn't pay attention to our travel times very well! If you follow along this travel route, you will see that we drove through every state that touches Nebraska, but we have yet to make it to Nebraska!
We are usually giddy and slap happy on our drives, especially long road trips like this. We kept laughing about "Kans-ass" as we drove through the beautiful rolling hills and sunshine. Our first stop was the Harry Truman Presidential Library and Museum with his burial site behind the building. Our next stop was the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. Eisenhower's home was also at this location. We kept driving into Colorado and stayed the night in Limon. We kept saying "Limon pledge" like from Family Guy (although I'm sure we were saying it wrong).
The next morning we drove into the beautiful Colorado Springs. We saw many herds of Colorado pronghorns. We had to research to figure out what animal we were seeing. We went to Garden of the Gods and did some hiking. This was such a wonderful hike, and we loved trying to identify the different rock formations such as 'Kissing Camels' and 'Balanced Rock'.
Our next stop was Pike's Peak. This mountain is over 14 thousand feet to its peak with a 19 mile drive up. As we paid to get in, I noticed signs that stated you need at least a half a tank of gas for the drive. I told Evan, and of course he wasn't concerned with our 1/4 of a tank because the car told him he had plenty of miles left on what gas we had. We drove past a gift shop with lots of Big Foot 'sightings'. As our car continued to climb, our gas levels quickly dropped. In retrospect, the gas was just hitting the back of the tank as our car went up, so it was reading as the tank being emptier than it actually was. In the mean time, I was panicking. There was nowhere to pull over and nowhere to stop. What if we ran out of gas? About when my anxiety was at its peak, we heard a loud pop. It turns out, a bag of chips exploded open in the backseat from the pressure changes with the elevation. That sure didn't help my nerves! We finally reached the summit! We went into the gift shop for me to calm my nerves as Evan asked about gas (according to our car, we were sitting on empty). A park ranger told us that the descent only takes a teaspoon of gas (thank the lord)! After our trip, Evan's mom pulled out pictures from her visit there. We realized we were standing at the exact same spot 50 years later!
We drove into Denver for some places to visit. We stayed at The Double Tree Hotel for two nights. We went to the Museum of Nature and Science. We also went to the Denver Zoo, where they had really neat pumpkin displays for Halloween. We rode on the Georgetown Loop Railroad (Evan wasn't a fan) where we saw bison and bighorn sheep. Then we went to the Denver Mint. Although we couldn't take pictures inside, it was so neat to see how coins are made. We even got a blank penny to bring home. We also got to see gold bars worth $1.3 million!
We drove through Wyoming to see many of the buttes. We stopped at the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is amazingly being built by private funding. The family refused to take government assistance to help pay for the build. I would love to see what it looks like today! Next we went to Mount Rushmore! It was smaller than what I expected, but it was so amazing to stand in front of such an iconic American landmark. We decided to stop for the night in Rapid City, SD at a Holiday Inn.
We decided we needed something else to do on our route, so we found an unplanned stop. I'm so glad we decided to do this, because it turned out to be our absolute favorite- Bear Country, USA! This is a drive through wildlife park. This was the first time we had done something like this, but they had animals very different from the usual drive through parks. There were elk, wolves, mountain goats, Bighorn sheep, bison, foxes, bobcats, racoons, skunks, and of course, bears (brown, black, and one Grizzly)! We were cracking up because the pamphlets stated if you have car trouble, stay in your car and honk your horn for help. As we drove through, the workers honk their horn to signal to the bears that they are dropping off food. So wouldn't the bears think we were bringing food if we honked for help?? Oh my gosh, seeing all of the bears walk out at the same time to go eat was such a unique experience! We sat there for what seemed like forever to watch the bears. One of the last bears was older and was definitely not in a hurry to get anywhere!
We drove into Badlands National Park. We saw so many bison and prairie dogs! I was all for taking one of the prairie dogs home until I saw signs that they had the plague! The views of the park were so cool! We didn't do much hiking while we were there. It was so windy that day!
Our next stop was The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. This stop was definitely one of my choices. Haha! This building is covered in corn. They also frequently change what the display is on the outside of the building. Can you imagine how much corn that uses? After we got pictures and I ran in to get my smashed penny, we were ready to move on to the next place. This town must produce fertilizer, because that's all we could smell! It was horrible, but it's still something we talk about today!
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