KyleRhea: South Dakota or Bust *** on the Slopes!! 1000...991 to go!

So I’m gonna be skipping around on my trips a little bit. I just posted my Florida January 2010 trip and now I’m jumping to my South Dakota March 2011 ski trip. (There are a few that I’ll catch you up on later.)

I will start by saying that we somehow managed to coordinate four couple’s schedules to meet in Rapid City, South Dakota. We rented a log cabin outside a little town called Lead, South Dakota. The cabin was awesome…heated floors, beautiful kitchen, hot tub, and one little tiny tv with no cable.

We arrived Thursday afternoon into Rapid City, SD and as soon as I heard there was an On the Border, I knew that I had to fight for the right to eat there. It was totally worth it. The rita’s hit the spot and normal tex-mex food was awesome, but I have to admit…thanks to Brandon, this OTB stop was the beginning of a very smelly week.

The next morning we hit Terry Peak for our first day of skiing/snowboarding. We all took lessons…it would have been disastrous if we hadn’t. By the end of day we were all getting the hang of it, except Brandon. Maybe it was his stomach problems that were hindering his snowboarding abilities. So anyways, we all had a good, fun first day of being on the slopes. Too bad we didn’t get a good group picture at the beautiful Terry Peak.

(By the way, I was so totally cool snowboarding!!) (Oh, and pretend there isn't a trash can in the background!)

The next day was site seeing…even though a few of us weren’t near as thrilled about this as I was. We hit Crazy Horse first, then I begged the group to go to Custer State Park. There was a tad bit of tension because some of the group didn’t want to participate in my 1000 Place adventure of getting pictures. After Crazy Horse, I begged the group to go the mere 5 miles to Custer State Park. After getting my pic in front of the Custer State Park sign, somehow we ended up taking the scenic way to Mount Rushmore. It was gonna take longer but there was a good chance of seeing bison. After an hour and half (even though it could have taken just 30 min), two people getting car sick, and A LOT of griping, not seeing ANY bison, sour cream and onion potato chips fragrance…we hit a road closed sign just 7 miles from being at Mount Rushmore. I had minor panic attack. I thought we were going to have to drive all the way back on the same….long….windy road. In the end, we took the risk of taking a county road that wasn’t maintained so it had a lot of snow and ice all over it. Thanks Adam for driving through that mess!!! We finally made it to Mount Rushmore!

Check out our “group” picture!

That night we went the Mardi Gras celebration in Deadwood. We decided to draw straws to see who was designated driver...I'm always the lucky one...of course I picked the short one. So I drove...in the scary snowy, iced roads. I was so nervous about driving, but it ended up being fine. That night there were a lot of beads, gambling, and partying going on.

We went to Mystic Miner (Deer Mountain) the next day for our second day on skiing. This day wasn't so great. Kent dislocated his shoulder. It sucked...for Kent. We had to go to the hospital. There was a tiny fracture too. He's fine though. This is when cable...or internet would have come in real handy. There wasn't much for Kent to do after the injury.

About an hour before the injury!

The last day in South Dakota we all grouped up and went our separate ways. Some went skiing again, some went to the casinos, some went to see the Wild Bill and Calamity Jane's gravesites,and the girls went to Sturgis and a few other fun spots.

6. Crazy Horse/Mount Rushmore