aj & sarah: We Now Take You to....ALL OF WESTERN SOUTH DAKOTA!

Hey gang. It's Sarah. We're in Chicago (or, SheCawGo) now. And boy, do we have some bases to cover before I can say anything about this handsome city.

So after leaving the loving arms of Boulder, Colorado, we headed a little east and a little north to my homeland of South Dakota. The drive took us through a bit more of Colorado, a lot through Wyoming, and finally dropped us off in the Black Hills of good ol' SoDak.

Wyoming was quite pretty, in my eyes. It was desolate. I mean really, really desolate. The landscape consisted of rolling hills covered in thick light brown grass. Once in a while a jagged cliff or rock would jump out of the smooth 'scapes. It was rather nice.

We hit the Black Hills in record time, partly because of the empty roads in Wyoming, partly because we are just down-right CHAMPS on the road at this point.

Once we hit the Hills, we checked into our camp site. Now, I know what you're thinking. And yes, we planned on camping again. Only this time, we not only found a camp site PRIOR to arriving, but we also were COMPLETELY confident that we'd sleep in our tent (despite the Boulder boys' warnings of grizzlies in SoDak).

So we got our tent set up in the nice and friendly Horse Thief Campgrounds, with more than enough time to spare until nightfall. We decided to kill some of this time by checking out this little monument called Mount Rushmore. No big deal.

Mount Rushmore was exactly as I remembered it. You know, four giant faces of famed old men carved into a nice granite rock. Impressive, yes, but to be 100% honest, not nearly as impressive as most of the other sights we saw in South Dakota. I think the Black Hills themselves are gorgeous, and the Badlands were beyond incredible, and the whole of eastern South Dakota is just my heart's pride and joy. So Mount Rushmore was...nice, but not as nice as some other things.

ANYWAY, gotta keep this moving I suppose.

We saw Mount Rushmore. We bought some groceries and some whiskey (what's camping without whiskey, I ask you?). We started a fire back at ye ol' camp site. We cooked up some beans (of the baked variety), some condensed soup (for Miss Aj), and some hot dogs (for me). We drank some cocktails. We took some night photos. We talked. And then guess what? WE SLEPT IN THE TENT THE ENTIRE NIGHT WITHOUT PARANOIA OR BEAR ATTACKS OR WINDSTORMS!

Here are some pictures from the nice camping experience: