As the bartender at Nautical suggested, I drove through Badlands National Park on my way to Keystone. When I visit national parks, I buy a pin and a magnet. In order for a park to count as “visited”, I have to do at least one hike. That’s why I don’t have a pin or magnet for the Smoky Mountains, even though the picture on the home page of this blog was taken there. Since I didn’t have much time, I found the shortest “hike”, which was a 5 minute walk on a boardwalk. Technically, that’s not a hike, but I make the rules and I’m able to bend them as I wish.

After my extremely difficult and exhausting hike, I stopped at a bunch of lookout points throughout the park. The views from all the lookout points were so similar but at the same time so different. I kept looking at the same types of rocks with the same colors, but their shapes, sizes, and arrangements all made for very different breathtaking views at each of my stops. Eventually, I had to convince myself to stop stopping at every lookout point or I’d never make it to Keystone.

I arrived in Keystone at around 6:30 pm. I asked for dinner recommendations at my hotel and they told me that all restaurants in the town were already closed. I was very surprised, but it’s a tiny tourist town and it’s currently the off-season, so it sort of makes sense. But 6:30 pm is still way too early to close, in my opinion. 7 or 8 pm would be a little more reasonable, but no one asked me what I think.

The closest open restaurant was 30 minutes away in Rapid City, so I went to Mt Rushmore first, since it was 5 minutes from my hotel. My original plan was to walk the 0.6 mi trail there, but I was hungry and the altitude had me huffing and puffing just from going up a few stairs, so I quickly looked at the carvings and went to find dinner and get some sleep.

That’s it for my quick drive through South Dakota. Next stop, Yellowstone National Park.