Jason Lancaster

We are currently at the Holiday Inn Express in Oacoma, SD 57365. After a rewarding long drive we made it all the way from Edmonton, AB to SD without stopping. The drive was long, hard, and exhausting… but we are running out of time to get back. According to our best calculations we are looking at a solid 22-24 hours of driving remaining.

Today did have some high points though. We stopped at the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn. For those of you who are a bit rusty on your history, this is the site of Custard’s Last Stand against the Indian Chief Sitting Bull. Unfortunately, to even enter the parking lot you are faced with a $10 fee before you can even evaulate if its worth it. Luckly (in my humble opinion) it was a worth while stop. The primary focus of the park was this 5 mile drive-through tour of the battle site. It was a self guided tour in which we stayed in the van and followed along with the posters of each important marker along the way. It was a powerful presentation between the realism of actually standing there and the military style graves.

Our next stop along the way took us to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. We made our way up Route 16 to the carved out mountain side, to be greeted yet again by a pay-to-park type of deal. This time the fee was $8.00, but we decided not to pay as we could see very well from the road and took a few pictures there. The most astonishing part of the area is how OVER-CAPITALIZED it is. There are more shops and places to eat than Ocean City. I could have never fathomed that a National Park could spawn such a town. The town was nearly deserted because most of the “activities” do not reopen until May 1st. Which wasnt a bad thing, after all I came to see Mount Rushmore not play mini-golf .

I just got out of the shower here and Jason is already asleep. At the very least I got the basics of the day here and should probably head of to bed myself. Busy day of driving ahead!! Stay tuned…