Hey Actifitters,
I guess the title and cover photo made it clear, the main event yesterday was a visit to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. But the day started much earlier with the Mount Rushmore half marathon. I had to wake up at this ungodly hour to catch the shuttle in Keystone, and get to the starting line for a 7am gun time. I'll post more details in Exhaust, but the race went better than I expected considering I didn't train much, if at all. 2h15min is not a very good time in absolute, but under the circumstances I really didn't think I'd be able to reach such time. Anyways, we picked a good breakfast spot after that, Shirley's Keystone Cafe. It's a little outside, but I think it's worth it, less of a tourist spot than other places in Keystone.
I hadn't planned much for the post race afternoon, but I felt okay, and after hanging out a little more in Keystone, we decided to go to Mount Rushmore right away. I mean why not, it's really just a couple miles out of Keystone. From the road, you start to get views over it.
But when you get to the actual Mount Rushmore National Memorial, it's just so cool!
With the Avenue of Flags!
It's just massive, obviously.
And yet, so much details.
I admit, even though I had a pretty good idea, I wasn't entirely sure about which presidents are up there, especially the first two. So for those who don't know, from left to right, it's Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.
In spite of heavy legs and painful knees, I decided to walk the Presidential trail. It's an easy loop, not even a mile, with quite a few steps though, over 400 if I remember correctly. It brings you closer to the faces and allows different angles on the giant sculpture.
Including this very interesting one in my opinion.
And plenty more.
I made a quick stop at the Sculptor's Studio. It was pretty cool and the ranger talk was informative too.
One more for the road.
And yes, you can see parts of it from the road after you leave, and it's yet a different angle.
It was time to head into Custer to check in at our hotel. Drive was easy and uneventful. We rested a bit but once again didn't want to just do nothing. So we looked for sunset spots. And the best nearby options were in Custer State Park. We first stopped at Stockade Lake, apparently the largest lake in Custer State park. The North side wasn't bad but obviously not the best for sunset.
South side was much better!
We walked along the shore for more views.
And finally, we drove a little further to Legion Lake. Probably a bit too late for the best sunset shots, but a really beautiful lake.
Even caught some great reflections. Once again I kept the best ones for a dedicated post, but will it ever be published, that's a good question.
We were hoping to eat right there at Legion Lake Lodge, but it closes at 6pm. Surprisingly most places close quite early in the area, catching a late dinner can be a challenge. But it wasn't that late, so we found a decent restaurant in Custer before calling it a day.
And what a long day it was, with a somewhat successful race in the morning, a nice visit to Mount Rushmore and a couple lakes to close the day. I often heard Mount Rushmore wasn't worth it if you weren't already in the area. So far, I tend to disagree, the Memorial itself is very cool, and the Black Hills also offer a lot (samples in my next report).
On a different note, it was my first 40k steps day in quite a while. Only 5k Actifit steps, but I cannot blame the app this time, my actifit phone stayed at the hotel or in the car most of the day. Too bad they still didn't offer a solution to sync my galaxy watch (even though it's supposed to work).
As always, thanks for stopping by and see you tomorrow.
[//]:# (!pinmapple 43.8789 lat -103.4598 long d3scr)
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