South Dakota Trips Tatistics

Places Visited:
-4 National Historic Landmarks: The Mammoth Site, Deadwood, Gordon Stockade, Center of the USA
-2 National Parks: Wind Cave, Badlands
-2 National Monuments: Crazy Horse, Jewel Cave
-1 National Forest: Black Hills
-1 National Memorial: Mt Rushmore
-1 State Park: Custer
-1 Experimental Forest: ?
-1 world's largest rocking chair
-2 of the world's longest caves (#2 and #4)
-3 old west graveyards
-10 historic tunnels and bridges
-30 abandoned old cabins

Wild animals seen:
-3 turkeys, 3 burro, 15 mountain goats, 40 antelope, 150 deer, 200 buffalo, and 20,000 prairie dogs
-Things we mistook for buffalo: rocks, roadsigns, cows
-Animal we're most afraid of, even though it's extinct: short-faced bear

Annoying thing about SD: the entire state shuts down Sept-May.
Cool thing about SD in March: you have the entire state to yourself.
-# of "closed for the season" signs: 90
-# of businesses open in the town of Keystone: 2? a hotel and maybe a store.
-# of evenings we did anything outside our hotel: 0
-# of books read: 4.5
-# of times we ate out: 1
-average # of people we interacted with each day: .85

Best Purchases: cowboy hat, sarsaparillas, a buffalo burger, a leotard, and a camera cord
-# of camera cords in all the stores of Custer: 1
-Grossest Purchase: microwaveable pork rinds

Other good moments:
-Meeting up in Denver airport for 30 minutes before getting on separate flights again
-Singing along to "Bad Romance", "Party in the USA", "Glory Bound" and the Glee soundtrack (which we found in the rental car) whenever we were driving
-Talking to an old cowboy that we asked for directions. He managed to use "gals" "shootin' iron" and "injun" all in one sentence.
-Eating lunch in a dilapidated old log cabin we discovered along a hiking trail
-Claire eavesdropping on 5 guys for 40 minutes trying to figure out if they're Mormon
-Taking videos of us squeezing through the spelunking test
-Claire getting stopped in the airport because of her liquor bottle filled with suspicious dirt

# of miles driven: 800