Road-trippin'! Part IX - Dakotas!

Great faces, great places.  That about sums up Tom and me and our road-trip, but it's a motto I saw for South Dakota.

It's always interesting to see how a person will act when they are in desperate need of using the bathroom.  Tom began our trip through the Dakotas with a little law breaking: we'd been on the road a couple hours, mostly in a rainstorm, when Tom says he needs to use the restroom.  So we start looking for exits.  Now, very rarely does a person speed up when they're coming down the offramp to exit the freeway, but Tom sure did.  He ran the red light squealing his tires around the corner at freeway speeds, does and illegal U-turn, and pulls up to this restaurant.  I think he was in and out before I registered just how awesome that all panned out.

Lunch at Hardee's

Anyway, to pass the time on the long, flat, seemingly deserted roadway, we decided to get out the pull-and-peel Twizzlers, and, because boys will be boys, started fighting with them.  They surprisingly sting quite a bit.  Who knew? :)

That didn't last long, but it did get us all the way to lunch.  We ate at the Rusty Spur to continue our tradition of eating the local cuisine.  I ordered a nice, juicy steak, and, just to see if I could down it, also ordered a large order of chicken fingers.  Yet again, I ask the waiter how often someone orders like I do, to which he simply replied, "Doesn't happen."  We took in some billiards and had a nice chat with a biker, who told me I should make it out to Sturgis for the ride, and that I should get a tattoo.  Nice guy, but I think he was offering to ink me up :/

So... on to the Badlands.  K, this place was cool - I couldn't believe how amazing it was!  Badlands just wasn't the name for it this year; the grass was green, the flowers were in bloom, it wasn't stiflingly hot... And it was remarkably beautiful!

We wanted to make Mt. Rushmore before sunset, so we hauled out of there, and made it just... a bit late :/  But we made it for the flag presentation there at night.

Had to come back in the morning and were able to take the scenic route through the Black Hills, due to a scheduling conflict at Wind Cave National Monument.

We saw Vettes all throughout the area, it was cool.

Crazy Horse

Throughout the Black Hills there were tunnels you could see Rushmore through.

And the main reason we couldn't stay long was we had to make it on time to the morning showing of Harry Potter! :)  Yes, I am that nerdy, but I had to see it opening day.  I admit, I was pretty excited, just ask Tom.

Sure, the movie saga may have ended, but Pottermania will never end, and we proved it as we drove off into the sunset listening to LeakyCon radio, official XM Radio station of all things Harry Potter. Station 142 I believe :)

Road-trippin'! Part VII - Church sites (a few, anyway)!

Eastern New York and western New York are so different!  Eastern is filled with the big cities, the craziness of the New-York minute, the hustle and bustle of the fast life, and the western part is full of huge fields, small towns, and is just peaceful.

It was great to get the small town feel as we came up to Palmyra.  We first stopped at the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center, where I was told I had to give the missionaries a referral, so I dutifully did so.  We watched the wonderful short film of the Restoration, and as I was sitting pondering in front of the Christus, I was cornered by a lady that was informed I was a teacher.  She rattled off a few places I "absolutely had to visit" so I could be authorized to teach U.S. History.  Well, we didn't visit any of them, and I blame Tom, since he was the driver. :)  Anyway, walking around the Hill Cumorah was exhilarating, especially looking down from the top at the thousands of chairs set up for the Hill Cumorah pageant.  Sadly, we were there on their day off, so we didn't stay around long.

We made sure to visit the Palmyra temple grounds and feel of the spirit there.  The whole area just demands a sort of quiet dignity, it's an amazing feeling.  And that was even before we went to the Sacred Grove and the Joseph Smith homestead.

If I thought it was cool BEFORE we visited the Sacred Grove, I was severely underestimating the word, 'cool'.  Wow, it was a transcendent moment in time, so tranquil and full of love that place is.  Take away the mosquitos and I could walk around the grove for days, just pondering on the things of eternity.

As with practically all spiritual experiences, it made me crave ice cream, so we went into town to the local ice cream parlor.  I looked at the prices and said, "I'll take a large."  "That's 8 scoops," replied the server.  "Nevermind!" It took over 30 minutes to pound through my 'medium', which was 6 heaping scoops of awesomeness.

The ice cream held me over almost to Kirtland, where we took a nice tour of the Kirtland temple.  It was a beautiful day, so that made up for the tour guide's 'umms' and 'likes'.  Yikes, it was bad - I couldn't even pay attention to the girl giving the tour, so I snuck in some pictures :)

I'm glad we got in some good spiritual experiences on our trip, cause heaven knows we needed it :)

Road-trippin'! Part VI - Niagara!

Okay, I like waterfalls.  I've dragged some people ridiculous amounts of miles just for a view of a good waterfall.  Well, Niagara has put them all to shame.  If you've never been, the pictures just don't do it any justice - it's humongous, it's grandiose, it's simply flat-out phenomenal!

Canadian Falls at night

After 2200 miles of our road trip spent winding up along the coast, we finally started our way west, and before we got to Niagara, we had to visit the Ben & Jerry ice cream factory (the only reason we went to Vermont).  The factory was closed, due to it being the weekend, but we still got the ice cream at the end of the tour, yummy :)

We look better than the original guys!

We wanted to drive a good section through Canada, but we had to cross Lake Champlain first, so we took the ferry, which added to my modes of transport in New York on this trip (walk, drive, take a taxi, bus, train, plane, boat, and now ferry).

I didn't feel very welcome on my first trip to Canada, as we were detained at the border.  They didn't believe that we just wanted to "drive through Canada to Niagara Falls." They questioned us a ton and it seemed like they were trying to get us to cross ourselves from our answers to previous agents.  I guess a U.S. Government employee and a bearded fellow are now on the top of the Canadian terrorist lists.  Moral of the story? Canadians get bored, since no one wants to visit their country, so let them have their fun..

We wanted to make it to the Falls by sunset, so we were booking it through Canada.  Well, I needed a 'rest stop', but I didn't want to get off the highway, so I just pulled over..  After I was ready to drive again, I got back in the car when an ambulance stops right in front of us and two fire trucks blockade the road behind us.  I'm so scared, I didn't have any clue if what I just did on the highway was illegal or not in Canada, so I'm all nervous.  The guys in the ambulance come running out to us, and I'm just waving them off, saying, "I'm fine, I'm fine, nothing to worry about sirs!" They still came right up to the window and asked, "So are you okay?  Were you the ones that called for us?" Of course not!  I didn't need an official Canadian escort to take a quick rest stop!  So they ran off, whew - crisis averted.

We get to Niagara at dusk, and park within view of the falls.  Some old lady, ya know the type that has to make sure everything around them is all going according to how they view life, comes up to us and yells that we're going to get a ticket for parking there!  We could see tickets on all the other cars, but we just sat in the car.  Soon, a Canadian police officer comes up and I play dumb, asking where we can park to view the falls.  This guy was as Canuck as they are in the movies, it was awesome!  The conversation went something like this:  "Excuse me officer!  Do you know where we can park to view the falls?" "Oh sure, eh, you'll want to find something pretty soon, cause they do fireworks over the falls tonight, so eh, you could park here.  I wish that lady hadn't say you'd get a ticket, but I tell you what, I didn't ticket those last three cars cause I just don't feel like it.  You could park, illegally of course, here, or down where the buses park, but my boss will be there in like 20 minutes, so you'd have to hurry, ya know eh, so you could just tell the lady I gave you a ticket and stay here.  And ya know, during the fireworks, all we cops prolly aren't gonna be watching parking - we'll be doing traffic, plus, if ya do get a ticket, you don't really have to pay it wink wink ;)"  "Thank you sir!" "No problem!  Enjoy Canada, eh."
The lady gave us a mean crusty as we walked by but we were all smiles.  Plus, the falls at night are all lit up and cool, so it would've been worth a ticket we didn't really have to pay, anyway.

The next morning we woke up and viewed the falls a bit: view from Skylon tower, right at the falls, then from Maid of the Mist:

Canadian horseshoe falls

American falls

After Maid of the Mist, Tom took off his poncho and I wanted to hike right up close to the American Falls, and he should put on his poncho for the hike.

I kept mine on :)

He said, and I quote, "What's a little water?" Well, needless to say, but I need to rub it in, he was soaked to the bone before we even made it near the top of the stairs, lol.

I chased a rainbow and actually stepped on the end!  I may have squashed the leprechaun, though, cause I didn't see him :(

Next time I go I'm taking a barrel :) that looks fun!