Day 20, Rapid City Rest Day?

Best: Seeing the Big Heads again.

Worst: Not visiting the Crazy Horse monument center

Most Unexpected: Stopping at Naked wines for wine, Tasting wine in South Dakota?

Last nights Dinner at the Firehouse Brewery was good except for the beer.  This doesn't work too well if the main reason for the business is to make beer and food is secondary. We stopped at the Armadillo ice cream shop for my second sundae of the day.

This morning after cleaning the bike, biking downtown for breakfast, doing some catch up on chores, we loaded up a van with 12 of us and headed downtown to the Kathmandu restuarant for lunch paid for by a doctor friend of Kennys.  It was all you can eat Nepalese/Indian buffet but I was still partially full from breakfast so I didn't do the buffet justice.  We then took off for the big heads, Mount Rushmore.  I drove a van of very scared passengers and we took the usual pictures, cruised the museum, watched a movie, and then headed out to see the Crazy Horse monument.  After driving 17 miles to get there, nobody wanted to pay to get in, so we drove past the ticket gate telling the ticket taker we were going to turn around, took a picture of Crazy Horse, and drove back.

The group decided to stop at a winery/brewery for tasting with a pretty even split between beer tasters and wine tasters.  I was a little skeptical of wines made in South Dakota, and the beer didn't sound great, so I went with the classic orange creme soda from Colorado.  

We drove back to downtown Rapid City where I disembarked for pictures and another trip to Armadillos where I had my third sundae, again Peach.  Lest you think thats all I eat, I did have a chicken panini which filled me up.  I had an interesting interaction with the clerk. You order at a window and then they call your name.  I hear 'Rob' from three feet away, look at the clerk who has my peach sundae, but it is really really small.  I reorder the medium, and sure enough three minutes later, the clerk looks right at me and says "rob' once again loudly so everyone in the store can hear.  I walk the three feet to him and get sundae.  Three minutes later, the clerk again stands at the counter yelling my name for my panini so I just look around the inside of the shop looking for this mysterious rob who the clerk can't seem to figure out is me.  It should be noted that the ice cream was once again good, but I had a bit of dilemma figuring out how to eat a hot panini while my ice cream was melting.  Being a eating professional, it all worked out.

I walked the rest of the way back from Armadillos in the 96 degree heat and got organized for tomorrow, took a shower which will be most appreciated by the rest of the riders, and started this blog.  We did receive a new shipment of Marich Chocolates and I got a new t-shirt from them to help promote the chocolates which of course are excellent.  We also received jelly beans which are better than jelly bellies because the owner of Marich actually invented the original jelly bellies before starting this company.  Even better than the shipment of sugary items, I received three letters  from  home making me feel very special.  

On the way back from downtown I did find art alley which is completely covered in grafitti including the trash receptacles, phone boxes, basically any permanent fixture.  Fortunately, not the cars.

I also took pictures of some of the presidents statues downtown.  They are all there, even the obscure ones.

I put the two pictures above in order just to show the difference that lighting makes on the expressions of the presidents.

If you can, blow up the picture above and read the rather unusual names for the beers that they tasted at the Naked winery.

Final picture is just a pretty house I saw on my walk back from downtown.