I must admit I was expecting more out of the state of Montana, I don't know why. Maybe I just got off on the wrong foot, no pun intended. I was planning to cap off my AMAZING Wyoming experience by crashing at a hotel in Livingston, MT, but destiny had other plans. First off, the road from Yellowstone to Livingston is absolutely pitch dark, there is nothing, no gas stations, no little towns, no 'Welcome to Montana' signs, NOTHING! Then, when I finally arrived, there were no rooms available, not a good start for your hero.
I decided to just drive on through to Billings that night, an additional 2.5 hours on the road at around midnight. Billings struck me as the kind of place where the local economy is largely driven by crystal meth, don't bother looking it up, I'm probably right. Travel guides don't list many attractions to Billings other than casinos, but they all list Moss Mansion as a top attraction. Visiting Moss Mansion has to be one of the biggest non-sexual disappointments of my life, the place is neither covered in moss nor owned by Randy Moss, WTF?! I was missing Wyoming badly!
Okay, so the open road has to be better, right? This is Big Sky country after all, unfortunately it was raining, so I wasn't able to enjoy the view of the plains, eventually I did get a nice scenic loop. I don't want to completely give up on Montana yet, I should've visited Glacier National Park, next time! :)
I would finally make it to South Dakota in the late afternoon, the long day allowed me to take in all the scenery of the Black Hills, but I wasn't going to stop until Mt. Rushmore. Before I describe my experience, I must give some major props to the attendant at Gate C (or 3, I forget). See there is no way to see Mt. Rushmore without entering the visitor's center, its pure genius! Sadly, they do not accept credit cards to pay for admission, and I don't carry cash, but the dude at Gate C (or 3) told me to go in, get some cash from the ATM and pay him on my way out. Dude totally saved me having to go back and forth to go in, thanks! :)
Seeing Mt. Rushmore gave me this odd feeling, the same one I got when I saw the Eiffel Tower, or the Statue of Liberty. Its like here's this thing that's really famous and you're all excited to see it, and after a few minutes you're like, now what? There are no other exciting activities around it other than watching the monument itself, and don't get me wrong, it is absolutely majestic! So I did the only things I could do, I sat and contemplated the view, I took a TON of pictures, I checked out the many little exhibits, I went to the gift shop, got a Diet Pepsi, and of course I tried to figure out where exactly they would carve George W. Bush's face.
I'm still happy that I went, if you would've told me a year ago that I would visit Mt. Rushmore the next year, I may have slapped you in the face, not because you told me I would be at Mt. Rushmore, I was simply really into slapping people in the face last year.
The 3 States of Kanan:
Cross-Armed
Crazy for America!
and of course, Hook 'Em!
Your American Hero,
-AK
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