Friday's Recap

I am back! This past weekend was tons of fun. It was pretty much the first time that Brian and I have taken a trip together where we weren't rushed to get somewhere or with anybody else. It was a pretty fun little getaway and planning out our days and making changes to those plans was really exciting. We're both usually tagging along with our families so to be able to be on our own and making our own choices was great.

Before I get started on the weekend recap and TONS of photos, I want to add in here that my little brother Dustin is feeling pretty icky today so keep some positive thoughts for him, please. Here's the text my sister sent me earlier "Just letting you know, we have Dustin at the clinic in Viborg. He has influenza. Not doing good at all. I have never seen him this bad. Temp was 103.4 when we got here." She also said he was shaking uncontrollably and had a headache and was so weak he couldn't walk from the bathroom to the living room without stopping to rest. I know you all have seen his photos on here and can tell that that's a pretty big deal for this active guy. He rarely gets sick so to get this message today scared the crap outta me! But it sounds like he's home from school for the week now, so hopefully he can rest up and get better soon!

Anywho....In an attempt to keep these posts somewhat at a reasonable length, I'm going to break them up by days. Today I'm posting everything from Friday, and tomorrow I'll post twice - for Saturday and Sunday. So you'll just have to keep checking back for the full effect!

Here goes....Friday, March 11, 2011

We left Madison at about 7:30 AM. This time, I'm sure you know if you know us, is incredibly early. But we wanted to get there early to have time to run around on Friday. So we got up super early, packed up, stopped at the school to use their printer, got some drinks and a donut and a full tank of gas, and we were off!

So we started driving and the roads were kinda slushy so the windshield got SUPER dirty SUPER fast....And, of course, Brian had no washer fluid so we had to drive all the way to Salem before we found a gas station that had water out.

YAY ALL CLEAN!!!

So then, clean windshield and all, we drove alllllll the way across SD and decided to stop at Wall Drug on the way. I had (surprisingly) never been there and Brian hadn't since he was a kid. So we listened to all the billboards (If you haven't driven across SD, you wouldn't understand the emphasis I should put on the word "all"...goodness.) and made the stop.

Brian out front. He's such a goober.

Ginormous dice. That's Brian's hand, if you want to imagine the actual scale of these things. Ha.

Boots. I decided if I was a cowboy (er, cowgirl) I would have never left this little shop.

Brian found a new girlfriend while we were there. She's rather pretty. But lucky for me, she was kind of a couch potato so he left her. I win. =)

Here's this guy. I would have invited him along on the trip, but I'm not a fan of smokers. Sorry, dude.

We were a little disappointed because we didn't get any of the famous free ice water. Maybe next time. And then we kept driving. I must say, the drive out there seemed much more scenic than I remember. I think it might have to do with the fact that there's snow on the ground so it added an extra element to the hills and trees and grass. I couldn't get enough of it.

So pretty!

We finally arrived in Rapid City where we found our hotel and then realized we still had a few hours til check in so we made the trip to Keystone and visited Mt. Rushmore. It was EXTREMELY windy so we didn't stay outside or get many photos of us because our faces were all windburned and red and my hair was ridiculous. So we got a few and then grabbed some ice cream and then went back to Rapid.

Here's this guy.

Hooray sunlight!

This is possibly my most favorite photo from the whole trip. Haha! It was cookies & cream, by the way. I had mint chocolate chip.

From inside. The windows made an excellent frame. =)

And, on our way out.

Good stuff. Mt. Rushmore is one of those places where it's cool to see, but there's really not much to do so you can't spend your whole day there. Specially this time of year, when none of the trails or presentations are open. We still had fun, though.

Then we went back to the hotel and lounged around for a bit. We ended up eating dinner at the Firehouse Brewing Co. Really awesome place. Brian had a bacon cheese buffalo burger and I just had a regular bacon cheeseburger. He let me try his and I thought it tasted pretty much just like a regular burger.

While we were there, we witnessed a proposal! It was pretty cute. The whole restaurant started cheering and the girl was crying and it was just adorable. Ha. Sadly, I didn't take any photos while we were there. We will definitely be eating there again, though. Pretty cool place.

After dinner we went to see the Adjustment Bureau. Or, as Brian calls it, "Matt Damon vs. The Gov." Great movie!

Then we headed back to the hotel and zonked out. Had to be up early the next morning for our free breakfast! (My personal favorite thing about staying in hotels.)

Whew! Day one is covered! Come back tomorrow for a recap of Saturday and Sunday!

I've yet to take today's photo. I had class this morning and then we went for a run. Came home and edited all these photos and went to get some food. Now Brian's at work and I'm here updating this. Sorry, I made that sound extremely boring. I think it's time to end this post before all my readers leave (if they haven't already.)

Check back soon!