Feeling Patriotic

For Syd and Mark, the "All You Can Eat Pancake Breakfast" lived up to its billing, and we left satisfied. In the morning, we rented a car (for a nice change of pace and to get through a few low tunnels around here) and headed over to Bear Country USA. There we drove through their park among all sorts of wild animals: Elk, Mountain Lions, Arctic Wolves, Reindeer. The highlight though were the (you guessed it) scores and scores of bears -- just wandering across the road, scratching their belly, laying around. Very cool and very fun.

From there we headed to our ultimate destination in the Black Hills and the reason we made the effort to come here at all. Winding our way, it was Syd who first noticed the faces carved into the mountain. Truly majestic! The park is modest in size (especially compared to our recent stops) but well set up. It is very reminiscent of key Washington landmarks. And walking through the court of flags, where every state is represented and viewing our presidents atop the mountain is breathtaking.

And of course, there's the gift shop!

Tomorrow starts our slog through the rest of the country -- long drives to make it on schedule to New York.