Day 3

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Hello All from Mount Rushmore, today’s drive was the longest drive yet today we drove for approximately 11 hours between Kybo and me. We spent the night at my ‘cousin’ Ellen Parmesec’s house in Highland Park Chicago, and had a wonderful time. Once we had arrived in Chicago we made sure to check the tire pressue once more but everything was looking just fine so we drove out to meet a few of Kybo’s friends who lived in the area, however by the time we got our act together it was late and almost everything was closed and we were worried the night would be wasted, luckily Kybo’s friends knew of a Steak n’ Shake which is a west coast fast food restaurant which is open 24 hours a day.
We all got shakes at the restaurant I got a black cherry frozen yogurt shake, and Kybo got a strawberry shake the truth about the restaurant is that they had so many flavors and combination of shakes and smoothies that me and kybo were both a little overwhelmed with the variety. After the shakes we talked for a little bit but exhaustion had started to set in from the driving so we headed back to Ellens house. After getting a little misdirected we ended up finding our way back to the house and let ourselves in and went to sleep planning to wake up at 6:30 AM so we could make most of the 13 hour drive ahead of us to Mount Rushmore in the light. 6:30 came and passed, as did 7:30 and 8:00, and at 8:30 I woke up to Kybo yelling at me to stop sleeping right through my cell phone alarm. 2 hours late and already behind schedule we were still groggy from the night before and instead of leaving straight away Ellen took us both out to a local Restaurant called Country Kitchen.
While eating at the Restaurant, which is located in a lush and lovely area, Ellen pointed out to us some locals whom we might have heard of. The first was one of the Ghostbusters (the skinny guy with black hair) who apparently is still very active and had a part in the direction of the movie Knocked Up. Next we found out that our host who had seated us is a multi-billionaire who owns his own island in Greece and about half of Highland Park which is the area in which we were staying, located in the suburbs of Chicago. We also found out that Michael Jordan owns a house in the area and occasionally comes into the restaurant, in addition we found out that Ellen’s son used to play basketball with Michael Jordans son which I thought was pretty cool and exciting. Country Kitchen itself was a lovely local spot with tons of hometown charm the waitress was very generous with coffee which was very helpful later on in the day, and the food was spectacular.
After breakfast we got into the car in order to go on a very abridged tour of Highland Park when Ellen asked us “have you heard the cicadas?” because apparently they had come out of their 17 year hibernation and were loose in the area throughout our stay we heard a few people comment on the cicadas but truthfully did not meet very many of them. We then took off on the most lovely tour you can imagine, there were incredible parks we passed with stunning foliage, beaches on the shore of Lake Michigan with a sky so clear that you could see all the way to the other edge of the clear blue water with only the slightest breeze to cause only the slightest ripples in the water. After the parks and beaches we drove around for a while and passed a botanical garden and another park both of which were huge and since we were running short on time we didn’t really get to explore. We did however drive past some enormous mansions/houses while getting some great information about the houses and their residents from Ellen who is not only a 40 year resident of the area, but also a real estate agent whose job it is to know all about the property in the area. Everything in Highland Park was incredible from the food we ate to the people we saw Chicago is not going to be a forgettable stop on our journey.
Our next stop as mentioned above was Mount Rushmore a 13 hour drive according to google earth. After an agonizing 20 minutes of arguing with the printers we left Highland Park with Directions for the next 2 days to all of our destination because Ellen’s house was our last chance to use the internet and printers for a while. As we walked out of the house as had now become our habit we checked the rear left tire to make sure there had been no major drop in the tire pressure, the tire was as flat as it had been at the gas station in Ohio. At this point we were really late a theme that seems to be recurring on this odyssey of ours, but we knew that this time we actually had to get the tire looked at because there was probably a nail in there or something.
After getting off at the next stop and making a few important-but-not-urgent calls to the mechanic and getting directions to the local Firestone we got the tires inspected and patched up for 25.21$ it turned out that there was in fact a nail in the tire. 3 hours late at this point we got on the road feeling that really things hadn’t turned out too bad because even though we were 25$ poorer the tires were fixed we felt much safer, better and there was less of a possibility of a flat which would slow us down even more.
As we were merging onto 94 west Kybo pointed up to the sky to some lovely huge storm clouds, which were rapidly approaching. Although the storm itself wasn’t too bad in terms of wind and rainfall it was very annoying because it prevented us from making quite as good time as we would have otherwise, however we persevered and about 6 hours later the storm cleared up.
Soon after we entered the lovely deserted state of South Dakota, after about and hour and a half of driving we pulled over into a gas station to fill up on gas and buy some food for the journey. While I was waiting in line to buy my food Kybo turned to me and asked me for the keys to the car so he could wait for me there, I reach into my pocket and let loose some foul words. Sure enough when we went outside to check I had locked the keys in the car in the middle of South Dakota with absolutely no visible population centers for at least and hour in each direction. After 5 minutes of trying to use a coat hanger and failing miserably we called AAA who actually got there pretty quickly and opened up the car for us. After that slight hiccup in the timetable we were even further behind schedule so we began driving through the night. As I was driving during my shift I noticed a sign for the Mitchell Corn Palace, something my mom had called me about earlier when she found out where I was and left me a message about telling me she had heard about this where they use corn husks to make the signs and over the building with. Apparently little cities are not very crowded at 3am; in fact the only traffic that we really ran into consisted of police cars, one of which was so courteous he pulled us over. As he walked up to my window the first words that came out of the policeman’s mouth were “I pulled you over because you were going 41 in a 30 but I’m gonna let you off with a warning just come into my car for a minute and I will write it out”, god I wish there were more cops like that in Maryland. Anyway the cop had me in his car for a little while, a car which by the way did not even have a computer, all that was there was an outdated radar speed checker and a radio, the policeman later told me that they were working on getting computers in some of the squad cars. After a nice talk with the law enforcement agent I was on my way with a sternly worded warning, the rest of the drive was fairly uninteresting we arrived at Mount Rushmore, in the wee early hours of the morning and tried to take picture of the suns rays when they first hit the statue but it turned out to be a cloudy morning which was a little bit of a disappointment but we endured, after a little bit more of looking at the statue and hoping that the sun would peak out from behind the clouds we left the memorial and headed down the windy slope, only to discover that what we thought was simply a monument was really a stunning reservation and park, with lots of scenic stops along the way down. One stop that particularly stuck me was a little clearing about half of the way down the mountain where there was a lake sprawled along the clearing with water so clear and crisp you could see the entire sky’s reflection in there as well as the bottom of the pool. The lakes borders were defined by 4 pieces of land all of which were unique. The first viewpoint was a bridge on which cars could travel and from where the entire breadth and width of the lake were visible the bridge did a good job of being the central most point in the area. Then on the far shore there was a whole bunch of huge evergreen trees, because we had gotten to the park so early we also got to see some of the animals especially deer prancing around in there, the trees themselves were natural pieces of growth that had not been negatively affected in any way by humanity. The 3rd shore was my favorite it was at the bottom of a slight hill sparsely populated by greenery but mostly was a dirt hill with a little tiny gravel path leading to the bottom of the hill where there was a dock over the water and a bench where I could see myself sitting for hours and enjoying myself. The 4th side of the lake was based on a rock which protruded from the water the rocks face had been eroded away into the most interesting gnarly shapes that formed the oddest designs, and on top of the rock there were some scattered tree’s growing, very serene and lovely. After a 15 minute picture and nap stop there we went to see the crazy horse memorial right after which truly was a little bit of a let down, all we could see was a big state with a hole in it. After about and hour of schmoozing, and eating we departed on our way to our next destination, Yellowstone National Park.