Day 7: Missing Shoes, South Dakota Sighseeing, Cows Galore, and Colorado

On day 7 as we were getting ready to head out for the day, I heard the hubs start saying a few shall we say not so nice words when he was in the hotel bathroom.  I was sitting in the bedroom so I thought perhaps he'd seen a spider or gotten hurt or something.  Nope.  My parents had flown out to Colorado and per usual overpacked so Mom asked us to bring a small bag with shoes and a purse in it for her.  The hubs had taken some bags out and moved some bags around at our last stop.  As he was getting ready, it suddenly dawned on him that he didn't think he'd put Mom's bag back in the car and he was freaking out--because you know it's always fun to tell your mother-in-law you did something wrong.  I told him to calm down and go check the car when he was dressed.  He did--no shoes.  I texted my friend to see if we'd left them at her house.  She wasn't at home, but promised to look later.  So as we're trying to decide how to explain this to my mother, I go out to to the car, look around, and find the shoes and purse in a bag UNDER another bag. YAY!
With that settled, we could get the hotel breakfast, pack up, check out, and head to Mt. Rushmore.  We drove over there, waited in a short line of cars, and then for the first time I saw , Mt. Rushmore.  I was pretty excited.  It was great, we took some pictures in a few different places, but then it was like, um, okay, what do we do now?  If we'd been there at night, there was a light show, but we had plans to be in Colorado that night so we were all "um, I guess we should go to the gift shop???"  So we went to the gift shop and then left.
Then it was off to Custer State Park--via some crazy narrow windy roads.  At Custer State Park, we did the Wildlife Loop Road where we saw burros (donkeys) that come right up to your car and buffalo--the buffalo made me a little nervous, but the hubs LOVED them.  I had no idea he liked buffalo so much prior to taking this trip with him.  From Custer State Park, we headed to the Crazy Horse Memorial--not my favorite spot.  It was cool to see, but I didn't think we got our $22 worth.  We only stayed there a 1/2 hour. I guess if we'd had more time, we could have watched the movie and spent more time walking around, but I just think for that price, there should be more to do.  We left Crazy Horse and began the 5 1/2 hour drive to Denver.  We saw lots of cows--and not a whole lot else. Once in a while we'd go through a small town.  We saw some storms in the distance, but thankfully, we only got hit with a little rain.  We made one rest stop in Wyoming and later one gas stop.  The hubs and I wondered what life was like for some of the people out there.  You'd see a house with nothing else really around--besides cow and hay of course.  I wondered how far they have to go for groceries, school, etc.  Just so dfferent than what I'm used to in my neck of the woods.  Not much traffic until an hour outside of Denver--UGH!
  We finally checked into our hotel in Denver around 7:40 then drove to my brother's house.  We hung out with hin, his fiance, and my parents for a little while--got a tour of his new house--then my brother, his fiance, my husband, and I all went out for dinner and drinks.  We left the car at my brother's house since parking was ridiculously overpriced and my brother drove us back to the hotel after dinner/drinks.  It was a long and busy, but fun day. 

Speaking of busy, I have a few busy days coming up so it may be a few days 'til I blog again, but we're getting there with the trip.  :-)