South Dakota Road Trip

It's been over a week since we've posted, so for all the avid readers, our apologies!  The good news is that we have LOTS to write about.  We'll try and space it out over a few days.

Last weekend, Mary and I drove (yes, drove) out to South Dakota.  One of my best friends from college was getting married in Spearfish Canyon.  The drive one-way is just under 1000 miles.  Fortunately for me, Mary and I did a pretty good job of splitting up the driving duties.  We left on Thursday morning and drove through Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota all the way to Mitchell, SD (about 630 miles).  On Friday morning, we went to the world's only Corn Palace before hitting the road again.  The first really cool scenic view was crossing the Missouri River.  Shortly after that we drove through the Badlands and stopped several times to take pictures.  At the end of the loop through the Bandlands, we stopped at the famous Wall Drug in Wall, SD to pick up a wedding card, then we headed into the home stretch for the last 115 miles.

Surprisingly, the drive out went by pretty quickly, although that could have had something to do with the fact that whenever Mary drove, I slept!  Good thing she had her iPod for company (she's such a good sport!).  We arrived at the Spearfish Canyon Lodge just in time for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  It was great to finally meet my friend's fiance, as they had previously lived in Montana together.  We also got to catch up with some other good friends of mine from college, who will be at our wedding next month!

The wedding ceremony was perhaps the shortest in history at just under 10 minutes.  It probably would have taken about 20 minutes, but being an outdoor wedding and due to the storm that rolled in just before the bride was to walk down the aisle, it had to be cut short.  Fortunately, she was very calm and easy-going, so she seemed to have not been phased by the turn of events at all.  We finished the ceremony indoors with a hymn and a sand ceremony before having cocktails and moving to the reception across the street.  It was another great opportunity to relax and enjoy a fun wedding and get even more excited for our big day!

Sunday morning, we went up to see Bridal Veil Falls, went to mass, then stopped in Deadwood to have lunch with friends.  Afterwards, we hit as many sites as we could!  First we stopped at Pactola Lake for some pictures on the way to Mt. Rushmore.  Mt. Rushmore is just amazing.  Mary commented that it just didn't look real.  It's hard to imagine anyone being able to create such a realistic representation of four of our great presidents on the side of a mountain.  We had a quick bite to eat there before driving further south to the Crazy Horse Memorial.  This mountain carving is not nearly as complete as Mt. Rushmore, but the story behind it is equally impressive.  The last part of our scenic tour was through Custer State Park.  The park was really amazing, and while we didn't see any bison, we did see several Pronghorn Antelopes, which didn't seem to be bothered by our presence.

After our tour of southwestern South Dakota, it was back to Rapid City to drop off the tuxedos.  By the time we were ready to hit the road again, it was already 5:30pm and we still had 400 miles to go!  We finally arrived in Worthington, MN around 1:30am.  Since we were on the road so late, we didn't get started on Monday until around 10:30am.  After another 500 miles, we made it into the city just in time to pick up Bentley at the kennel at 7:00pm.  Phew! 

Although we were really looking forward to this trip and had a great time, we were both very relieved that it's now in the past.  All the big items for our wedding are done.  We have no more vacations or out-of-town trips planned (except for a work trip next week for me).  We should just be able to take care of the little things and enjoy our time before our own wedding is upon us!

Due to the large number of pictures we took on this trip, I posted several on our South Dakota Road Trip page.