Road Trip Post #5K - Rapid City

Thursday, June 18th

We started the day by sleeping in as late as possible. My mom and dad went on a lovely drive on US 14A - Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway instead of sleeping in. They highly recommend this drive with its wildflowers, waterfalls and beautiful nature.

Part of the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. Photo by Karen Rasmussen.

We took advantage of the hotel's pool and spa. We checked out at 11 am at the last possible minute.

The girls enjoyed as much of the spa as we'd let them get into the super hot water.

We all met up at Taste of Chicago on Lacrosse Street in Rapid City for lunch. My parents had been here two years ago, but the location and management had changed. From the manager, he stated that Rapid City wanted more authentic Chicago food and this new place was the answer to that call. The decor was all Chicago sports teams. Every wall hosted a different team. Side note: they had not updated that the Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup.

My mom, sister, niece, Six and Eight waiting for our lunch.

The food offerings were authentic Chicago fare, according to the manager. I was surprised to see that there wasn't a pizza, deep dish or otherwise, offered on the menu. The menu mostly consisted of hot dogs, bratwurst, chili, and nachos. There were also tamales. The special of the day was tamales with chili on top, served with an individual bag of chips and a fountain soda for $5. However when I walked in, the one man/manager working the lunch shift stated that there was no soup and no chili. I had wanted a chili cheese dog, but that wasn't possible without chili.

A view of the other direction with Six, my dad, sister and mom. There was one other family and one single person in the restaurant. Maybe that should have been my first clue at noon on a Thursday.

I ordered a kid's hot dog meal of a plain hot dog, bag of chips and a fountain soda for Six. Eight wanted a tamale. I settled on a bratwurst and ordered us both drinks. All of this was only $12. Because there was only one man working, the food took forever. He kept saying that we needed to have patience and he'd get to us in order, giving each order the attention it required. Which would have been fine, except everything was premade and just reheated, and still a bit chilled. The rest of my family ordered the special - tamales with chili. Amazingly chili appeared. Turns out it was frozen and he was reheating it slowly, but in time to get to my family's order.

To say I was not impressed is an understatement. The service was slow, even with his assurance of quality, the food was only warm, and I'm not a Chicago sports fan for any of their many teams. I also do not associate Chicago with tamales, but I do associate Chicago with deep dish pizza.

Somehow I knew that even though we got to Taste of Chicago at noon, we would not make it across town to take a tour of the Black Hills gold Mount Rushmore Jewelry factory by 1 pm. We got our tickets for the 2 pm tour, and just made it with little time to look around before the tour started. Unfortunately they did not allow us to take pictures inside the jewelry store and factory.

I'm sporting my new Black Hills gold necklace with a Montana sapphire just outside the factory.

The factory is a fascinating place! Traditionally Black Hills Gold was only made from gold mined in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Now that the mines are starting to run dry, the term Black Hills Gold only legally applies to pieces made in the Black Hills. The designs including grapes and grape leaves came from a French jewelry designer who decided to try his luck at becoming a miner. He got lost looking for gold in the Black Hills. While lost he had a dream that he was back home in the vineyard and when he awoke, he was saved from starvation by finding grapes. He showed his gratitude by giving up mining, and only dealing with designing gold pieces and he used the grapes, leaves and vines in his designs, calling it "Good Luck" jewelry.

A few things not mentioned in the video attached to the link above: this is their second location. There were so many gold shavings trapped in the carpet of their old location that they sent the carpet to the gold refinery and received enough money to completely pay the mortgage of their new location. They also vacuum every day and send their vacuum bags to the refinery to reclaim the gold shavings.

Image taken from a Bing image search. This is Miss Rodeo America 2014 with the beautiful Black Hills Gold tiara.

We enjoyed looking at all the jewelry the factory had to offer. The tiara made for Miss Rodeo America was on display and is absolutely gorgeous. I think it's even more beautiful seeing it for myself. I couldn't decide between two necklaces, so I got both since they were 30% off. I also got the girls necklaces for their birthdays, so don't tell them if you read this before them!

We left the factory and headed downtown to see the City of Presidents. There are life size statues for every US president on a city block corner, except for Barack Obama. His statue will be added after his term in office is complete. The girls were still full of energy and decided to take pictures with most of the presidents and climbed on a few to get better pictures and burn energy. Here are a few of our favorites (yes, a few, I think we took pictures with all 43 statues):

My dad and girls with Teddy Roosevelt.

My niece and girls with Abraham Lincoln.

I'm way taller than James Madison.

The girls with Lyndon B. Johnson. We toured his ranch near Fredericksburg, TX in March.

We enjoyed pretending to feed the birds with Benjamin Harrison.

Howdy! with Calvin Coolidge

Grover Cleveland looked like he just wanted to sit and chat, kind of like Santa.

George W. Bush was president when both girls were born.

George Washington gets a hug.

Thomas Jefferson was the last president in our loop.

We decided to have an early dinner before we left Rapid City to drive 4 1/2 hours to the family reunion in North Dakota. We went to Perkins, which is yet another chain, but a favorite from my college days. I decided we had to go there because they had peach muffins! Other than that, dinner was what you would expect in terms of food, service, cleanliness, etc.

The peach muffins sang their siren's song and I had to eat at Perkins.

We left Rapid City and started heading north. We got to Belle Fourche, SD, the geographical center of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. Two years ago we stopped to eat lunch here, not realizing its significance nor the cool monument. So we had to stop for the photo op this time.

My dad and mom looking at the large compass monument depicting the geographical center of the United States.

The girls decided to roll down the hill after being cooped up in the minivan.

My monument selfie.

Smile like you like each other! I'm trying for a Christmas card photo here!

Monument angels.

We got back in the minivan and continued our caravan to the family reunion at the Assumption Abbey in Richardton, ND. We arrived at 11:30 pm and collapsed into our dorm room beds.