zimmers in texas

This weekend we decided to take a look at the presidents carved out of the mountains so at 6.30am on Saturday we took off to Rapid City via Denver. The flight to Denver was uneventful but it was a bit of a shock to get out the plane at the "mile high airport" to find everything was covered in snow and it was about minus 2 degrees. We bought pretzels for breakfast and waited to board our flight to Rapid City. This was in a very small plane and only an hour flight and again it was snowing when we landed. We picked up our hire car and headed off for Mt Rushmore to visit George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. It was snowing on the way out which is about 25 miles south of Rapid City. The houses looked just like a scene from a story book. There was a lovely Christmas shop with snow coated pine trees out the front. It looked great.

We visited the presidents and they were quite impressive. We had buffalo for lunch and headed off to see the carving of Crazy Horse, the Indian who was murdered while under treaty. This carving will be bigger than the presidents when it is finished but it will take years and years. It was first started in 1948 and so far they have only carved his face and arm and they have a really great museum with the Indian history and the timeline of the carving. We then started out to for Deadwood which is a small town where Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill or someone like that died. It was about 50 miles away and we got to about 8 miles away but it was snowing too much for us to feel safe so we turned back for the hotel. The snow was starting to pile up along the side of the road and there were patches of black ice on the road so I think we did the right thing by turning around.

We arrived back at the hotel and stayed there for the rest of the day as it was too too cold to venture out.

The next day we had breakfast and headed off for the Badlands and Wall. The Badlands was named by the Indians because of the spooky landscapes and the area has been used as movie lunar settings or other sci fi settings. This area was absolutely fascinating and it was all snow capped just to make it look extra spooky.

We then headed off to Wall which is famous for its drug store. We saw about a million billboard advertising the drug store as we drove in to the town and the store takes up a whole block. Wall only has about 800 people so athe drug store is the big tourist attraction. It was a great weekend and it was really different driving in the snow, too bad it was so cold.

We made it safely back to Austin even though it was a very bumpy flight from Rapid City to Denver. Our luggage missed the flight back from Denver and so it didnt turn up until the next day.

We arrived home in time to hear the end of the Rolling Stones concert and watch the fireworks from our balcony.