Stuck in Rapid City, South Dakota

Shortly after Jimmy posted his last blog, we crossed into South Dakota. It was late in the afternoon and the road was empty so it was a breeze to pull over to snap this picture...

After crossing into South Dakota, it was a quick hour to Mount Rushmore. Soon we were staring George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the face and it was pretty neat. When we first pulled up, I was surprised by the size of the monument. It's pretty big, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting it to be even bigger than it was. Still to read about the history and sculpting process was rather interesting. We walked around the area for about 30 minutes and snapped lots of photos......

Us at Mount Rushmore

Sebs at Mount Rushmore

Daisy at Mount Rushmore

Ab gets a kiss on the cheek

We drove off into the sunset and got to our destination for the night with enough daylight to get our barings. We had decided to stay at Happy Holiday RV Park in Rapid City, South Dakota since it was one of the only RV parks we found to be open. We didn't check in right away, but grabbed dinner in town first.

The owners of Happy Holiday greeted us when we arrived after dinner and showed us to our spot, #49A. We're right across from the bathrooms which is always a bonus, especially when its cold like it is here. Its not fun running outside with wet hair when the RV is far from the bathrooms.

We settled in for the night and decided to watch the latest episode of Entourage on the laptop. Its the first TV show we watched in the RV and its a favorite of ours. I won't spoil anything if you're an Entourage watcher and haven't caught up, but I like where they are taking this season. In my opinion, its one of the better seasons I've seen from this show!

This morning at 5am I woke up in a frenzy thinking someone was trying to tip the RV over. I'm not kidding either. The RV was rocking back and forth and it took a few minutes for me to really wake up and realize it was the wind. And, it was some wind.

I eventually feel back to sleep until our alarms went off to alert us that it was time to start the day and get to our next destination. However, the wind was still at. It was a steady wind blowing at 40 mph with strong quick gusts up to 60 mph. When those gusts would hit, I would try to convince myself that its highly unlikely that the RV would flip and tumble away, but at times, I wasn't so sure....that's how windy it was.

Then the discussion began. Should we really get on the road and try to head a bit east of Sioux Falls, SD? Its clear across the state and would take about 6 hours to get there. We figured the road would be flat the rest of the way and if it stayed gusty the entire time, it'd be a scary drive.

Jimmy headed to the RV office to ask about the weather conditions of where we were going along Interstate 90 and came back with the news that I saw coming. We're staying put. The owner didn't advise us driving with the 60 mph gusts on the highway. In fact, it would only get windier as we got east. Four other RV's had decided to stay another night because of the wind and even though it wasn't in our original plan, we decided to stay tonight and welcomed an 'off' day.

We took the RV out locally for some food and an activity which turned out to be a bit scary. The gusts tossed this 10,000 lb vehicle around the road, but going slow helped. I don't think we went over 35 mph the entire time. We went to Walgreen's, grabbed some lunch and decided to check out an attraction that was only a few miles from our RV park.

Bear Country USA was advertised on billboards all during our drive from Mount Rushmore. When we checked into this RV park, it was listed all over the tourist brochures we got so we decided we should go there. It was described as a 3 mile drive through a Wildlife park that held over 25 species. I was skeptical whether we'd see any animals because of the high winds, but the woman on the phone assured me the wind didn't phase them much. She was right!

It was $15/person to drive through and it was totally worth it. We got to see some amazing animals up close like....

Rocky Mountain Elk

Reindeer

Artic Wolves

Bull Horn Sheep

Dall Sheep

Rocky Mountain Goat

Black Bears

Mountain Lion

Red Fox

Cub

Lynx

Bobcats

Grizzly Bear

Pretty impressive, huh? We definitely thought so!

After driving through the park area, we went to the baby animal area. Our favorites were the baby cubs. They were adorable! Watching them run and romp and play almost made you forget they were aggressive animals and not what you want to cuddle up with. They sure did keep us laughing.

On the way home, we stopped off at Starbucks to get some beverages to help warm us up. It was a bright sunny day despite the wind. The temperature was 38 with a wind chill of 26. The coffee and tea we got hit the spot.

We decided to do some laundry when we returned and have been relaxing ever since. I imagine we'll venture into town for dinner again tonight and then get to bed early. We want to get on the road at a decent time since we've got a good 450 miles we want to cover tomorrow. We hope to end up in Fairmont, Minnesota for the night on Monday. Our next planned stop is Madison, WI to see our friends Travis and Jen, but that drive definitely needs to be split up. Minnesota counts as another new state for both of us, so we're happy to stay there. Though, tomorrow is also Jimmy's birthday. Neither of us would have ever imagined we'd be spending his 33rd birthday in an RV park in Fairmont, Minnesota!

All of the latest pictures from Mount Rushmore and the Bear Country USA visit are up HERE!