Westward Vacation - Day 1

HOLY. SHIT. THAT WAS AMAZING. I MEAN, IT WAS JUST--- Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning:

My mom woke me up at the ungodly hour of 4:30. It was painful. I staggered around for a while until we finally climbed into the car at 6. Let me tell you, Minnesota at 6 in the morning is not one of the most amazing sceneries you have ever seen. After an hour or so, I gave up on trying to stay awake and finally gave into the sleep.

While my parent's let me sleep, they did wake me up once so that I could see The Jolly Green Giant. No, it's not as amazing as it sounds. It was a billboard. Yeah. Even though they felt that I needed to be woken up to look at a billboard, they didn't feel it was necessary to wake me up for Minnesota's Largest Candy Store, with 56 different kinds of licorice alone. Great choice, huh.

On our way out of Minnesota, we did stop at Walnut Grove. When we arrived we got excited because there were people outside, meaning that it had to be good! No. You had to pay to go into the gift shop. No thanks. So we piled back into the car and left.

Our next stop was at some wind turbines. My dad was wondering what kind of sound they made, considering many people have complained about living next to them because of the noise. All I have to say is, 'What noise??' It was beautiful. And tall. SOOOO tall. When I stood underneath it and looked up at it it made me nauseous.

The next stop along our way was at De Smet, which is where the surveyors house from Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was really cool to see the house and think of little Laura living there. The house was very nice, and gorgeous along with the house that Pa built. There was also a beautiful gray cat with ice-blue eyes who ran away from me every time I tried to go up to it.

We also stopped at a place called Wall Drug, which is pretty much just a giant drug store/souvenir shop/restaurant/clothing store. In the store there was a mechanical gorilla playing the piano and a cowboy marionette band, along with a water park out back. It was hilarious. And confusing. They had a map so that you knew where you were going.

At this point, our trip sort of blends together, but here's a list of things that I saw:
-A boat being pulled by a trailer
-Hundreds and hundreds of hay bales. They were EVERYWHERE!
-Perfect clouds. The kind of clouds that you only see in pictures and paintings. They were beautiful, and i took many pictures of them
-A camel. Oh yeah. A camel. I don't know why, but in one of the pastures along the way, there was a camel. So there.
-A dinosaur metal skeleton cutout being led by a human metal skeleton cutout

Then we went to the Badlands (please look at beginning sentence). It was beautiful. And amazing. It stretched forever, and then stopped suddenly. The mountains (or hills) seemed like they were completely fake. They were too big and too beautiful for my brain to comprehend. I could go on forever talking about them, but I won't bore you.

Finally, after 14 and a half hours of driving, we reached our hotel. Which is more of a motel, than a hotel. It's not the best place in the world. Except for the view. The view at night is of the entire city of Rapid City. It's great. Our dinner matched the view. We went to this little restaurant called "Tally's Silver Spoon." My parent's had a Peanut+Beef+Vegetable soup that was amazing. Then my mom and I split a burger that was good, but not amazing. And then we had desert. Oh god. The desert was the best food i have ever eaten in my entire life. It was a flour-less chocolate cake with an avocado fluff around it, drizzled with a key lime syrup. Oh. My. God. It was SOOOOO good. I feel as though my stomach is about to explode, it's so full, though I would make room for another one of those chocolate cakes. I'm seriously considering how I can move Tally's to Saint Paul...

Well, that was a long post. I plan on doing a diary/journal/vacation log for everyday that I am on vacation, so beware:Long posts ahead. But for now, I'm exhausted and feel as though I cold fall asleep at any moment. I'll post more tomorrow!!

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