The City of Presidents

Did you know Rapid City is known as the City of Presidents? I’ll get to that in a bit! We are moving West at a fairly rapid pace – but SO MUCH is still closed due to Covid-19. Right now, we want to get out of South Dakota and Wyoming and away from these strong winds!

Since we left Mountain Lake MN, we have gained 2,340 feet in elevation! By the time we get to Missoula, MT, we will gain another 3,700 feet! We got to Rapid City about 1:00 and stopped in at Camping World to inquire about parts to repair the slide cover that was destroyed in the high winds. They were of little help as we wanted to order the parts to be delivered to a store that we would be near to by the time the parts were shipped and received. They wouldn’t take an order for parts they couldn’t sell from their location which kind of made sense. We later discovered that the parts could take some time to be made and then shipped, so we will figure that out later. Jim ordered the end caps from the manufacturer to be shipped to Montana and held for us — and he can put the parts on the outside of the RV and get them off the floor inside where it is quite inconvenient to have them!

We left The Badlands area on Wednesday June 10 just after 8am {Acey 63,278, Thor (the Jeep toad) 66,678} and stopped in at the Minuteman Launch Control Delta-01 for a tour, then went 11 miles down I-90 to see the Delta-9 Missile site. This was all part of the ICBM missiles that we had ready during the Cold War and, fortunately, never had to deploy.

We stayed at the Sacora Station Campground which had a decent nightly rate but is another “parking lot with hookups” which really is OK since we are not spending much time here except to sleep! They do have a pretty cool sign and had live music in the evening. We went grocery shopping and came back to Acey to make dinner.

Thursday, we drove out the see Mount Rushmore. We packed a lunch, not knowing if anything would be open. We were very disappointed that the Rushmore Borglum Story Museum is closed until NEXT YEAR and the Founding Father’s Exhibit was closed – as well as Wind Cave National Park. BUT Mount Rushmore opened last week, and what a treasure it is! Gutzon Borglum was the sculptor and “mastermind” of Mount Rushmore, an undertaking he began at age 60! We were surprised to learn that a lot of dynamite was used – but this is granite and its pretty tough stuff! Over 400 men worked on the carving, and no one died: another incredible fact! What a remarkable piece of work this monument is!

Another project of similar magnitude that is still underway, and will be for years to come, is the carving of the Crazy Horse Memorial not far from Mount Rushmore. It may never be completed; the stone here is not the hard granite of Mount Rushmore.

OK on to “The City of Presidents”! Downtown Rapid City has life sized bronze statues of the Presidents on many of the street corners. Some are seated, some standing – all showing some of their personality; some with their dog or child – very well done. As we approached each statue, we tried to guess who it was and did guess several correctly. We walked around downtown on Thursday and Friday. Here are some of the Presidents we took photos of – you’ll have to Google to see them all. We saw Obama, but Trump is not there yet since he is still in office.

Friday, we biked around Rapid City and found an interesting display about the Berlin Wall at a park.

Saturday, we biked around Deadwood and also hiked to this Friendship Tower and a few nearby waterfalls.

We ended the afternoon stopping in Sturgis at the Harley Davidson store to get a t-shirt for Linda’s brother Rob. 2020 is the 80th Anniversary of the Sturgis Rally – apparently Sturgis is a BIG worldwide motorcycle “Mecca” We headed back to Acey to have dinner and prepare to leave in the morning.