Adventures with Liz

Learnin' How to Smile

Road trip day 13: Mount Rushmore, SD to Fort Dodge, IA.

There's really not much that sleep, coffee, and sunshine can't cure. My hatred for the Black Hills dissipated this morning asI drove back to Mount Rushmore in the sun. Mount Rushmore was ok... it was smaller than I thought... all the pictures make it look really big, but it wasn't as big as I expected. Still, it's cool to think that someone carved it out of a mountain and was able to figure out the proportions and make it look so realistic.

I had a long drive to Fort Dodge, Iowa today. South Dakota and I are still not friends, because they decided it would be a great idea to have almost their entire stretch of I-90 under construction at the same time, which made the drive slower and less tolerable. I made some fun stops along the way, recommended by my mother, such as Wall Drug, which is an extravaganza of "Americana," whatever that is... mostly it means it's full of junk and a giant plastic Jackalope. Oh yes, I said Jackalope. I also stopped at the Mitchell Corn Palace, which is exactly what sounds like.

Tonight, I'm hanging out in the lovely Fort Dodge, IA with Jackie and her mom. A fun and easygoing way to spend the last night of my trip. I'm kind of glad to be done, because I'm getting sick of driving and I'm looking forward to my bed and sleeping and my mom making me real food for dinner. But at the same time, I'm not looking forward to being thrown back into the real world and all the work I have to do to get ready to move. Hopefully I can take what I've learned on this trip and apply it to my new life to make my transitions a little easier. Talk about a life changing summer, huh. Trip, moving, new school... oy. Well, for now I'm just going to enjoy my last night.

posted by Liz @ 11:21 PM