Of course, a trip to Rapid City, South Dakota wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Mount Rushmore National Memorial… at least that’s what you’re supposed to think, based on how popular it is. So, for one of my Rapid City tourist activities, I drove my way up into the Black Hills National Forest to see the faces of four of our past presidents carved in stone.

And that’s it. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. You can’t really get much closer than how close I got for that photo, and that’s with my point-and-shoot camera zoomed in all the way. Washington is prominently visible and Lincoln is pret­ty clear, but Jef­fer­son is sometimes obscured, and Roosevelt is practically only visible from certain angles.

The path up to Mount Rushmore was nicely decorated with all the flags of the 50 states, as well as a few of the territories.

At the end of the path was the entrance to the museum and the auditorium. The museum wasn’t particularly large, and it was pretty text-heavy, but there were some exhibits showing smaller models of the stone and how the stone is most effectively carved at that height and at that kind of scale.

Apart from that, there was a short hiking trail around the area, and that was about it. The trail was called the Presidential Trail, and it had a lot of places where you could stop to read about the different presidents and look at Mount Rushmore from various different angles. One of them allowed you to walk into a cave-like structure and peep at Washington through some rocks.

Partway down the trail, there was a nice view back towards the entrance where you could see the flag display, entrance to the museum, and seating for the auditorium.

Further down the path was the Sculptor’s Studio, which was unfortunately closed due to being off-season. From there, I took the scenic route back to the park­ing lot.

I think for someone who is a huge Mount Rushmore enthusiast, you can get through everything there is to see (including all the museum exhibits and the videos that play in the miniature theater) in about 2-3 hours at most. I personally took about an hour and a half starting from when I entered the park­ing garage to when I got back to my truck.

This is definitely one of those places where you would go just so you can say that you’ve been there before, but isn’t something majestic or breath­tak­ingly stunning like some other national parks or national monuments. I think the most impressive thing about Mount Rushmore is just the fact that a man decided to carve gigantic faces into the side of a mountain, and then pulled it off.

One thing to note for America the Beautiful Annual Pass holders is that admission to Mount Rushmore is still going to cost you US$12.00. They man­age to get away with doing that because they charge that amount for using the parking garage, not for actual admission to the memorial. This means that, if you walk to Mount Rushmore, you could get in for free… but that isn’t exactly a viable thing to do, considering Mount Rushmore is fairly deep into the mountains, and there are no other free parking areas from which you can safely walk to the memorial.

Being a little disappointed at how quickly that went, I decided to continue westbound on South Dakota Highway 244 and came across a little parking area where I could take a photograph of the profile view of Washington.

Continuing even further westbound led me to an intersection with a dirt road that takes you to Horse Thief Lake. There was nobody else around, so this was an amazing opportunity to take in the view, enjoy the tranquility of the water, and watch squirrels scurry around up and down the rocks.

Would I recommend a trip to Mount Rushmore National Memorial? Absolutely not. However, would I recommend a trip to the Black Hills that includes a stop at Mount Rushmore? Definitely yes.

My stay in Rapid City was unreasonably, unmanageably windy and cold, so I didn’t have much of an opportunity to go out and do everything I wanted to do. However, what I did manage to do in the Black Hills was great.

If you plan a vacation around Mount Rushmore in addition to stops at places like Crazy Horse, various hiking trails in the Black Hills, the scenic drives around Sylvan Lake, and maybe even some of the mines or the Presidential Wax Museum in Keystone, then that would make for a far more complete day than just going to only Mount Rushmore.

I’ve been looking at a lot of rocks and mountains lately from all my hiking and visiting national parks and monuments, so I decided to switch it up a bit and go to the Reptile Gardens south of Rapid City, South Dakota to look at some animals.

Apparently the Reptile Gardens is in the Guinness World Records as having the largest reptile collection. I remember the Dallas Zoo in Texas also having a lot of reptiles, but I didn’t count the number of reptiles on display in either one of the locations, and the Reptile Gardens did indeed definitely have a lot of reptiles.

It’s still considered off-season (and it’s still pretty cold outside), so not all the exhibits were open. Apparently, Reptile Gardens has a lot of interactive areas where you can pet reptiles, but those weren’t available during my visit—the only animals I were able to safely touch were the giant tortoises that were just peacefully lying around (and even then, I only pet their shells).

Reptile Gardens is composed of both an outdoor area and a few indoor areas. The largest indoor area was the Sky Dome, and the mezzanine level had a ton of snakes. According to the labels next to the exhibits, the Sky Dome is home to some of the most dangerous snakes, both under the metric of the number of people who die to the particular species of snake per year, as well as the species with the strongest venom. And of course, there were plenty of non-poisonous snakes on display as well.

Of course, snakes weren’t the only reptiles on display; there were some lizards, dragons, toads, and frogs too, among other reptiles and amphibians. The bottom floor of the Sky Dome had a loop around the main vegetative area that housed crocodiles and alligators as well, including a sixteen-foot-long giant saltwater crocodile named Maniac, but that area had very poor lighting and none of my photos came out that well.

Taking a quick detour outside, there was a bald eagle named Cheyenne; she has apparently been a resident of the Reptile Gardens for over a decade now.

Back inside the central area of the Sky Dome where there was more vegetation, there were also some parrots. They were out in the open just perching on branches, and I was a bit confused as to why they weren’t just randomly flying around and away.

When I researched it online, I found out that a lot of zoos clip their wings as to inhibit their ability to fly. I’m not sure if the Reptile Gardens also do this, or if I just happened to get really lucky and saw the parrots when they were staying put for some rest—I wasn’t able to find a staff member nearby at the time to confirm.

And last but not least, my favorite section of the Reptile Gardens… had nothing to do with reptiles. Instead, it was the Prairie Dog Town, which housed a bunch of black-tailed prairie dogs running around in their enclosure and munching away at some hay.

The Reptile Gardens was a surprisingly pleasant trip. It had more of a small-town zoo kind of feel to it (which makes sense, because Rapid City is a pret­ty small city), but it definitely wasn’t at the cost of quality.

I actually liked this zoo a lot better than some of the other zoos I’ve been to, because I noticed that Reptile Gardens seems to put a lot more care and attention to detail into the animal habitats. I’ve seen a lot of other zoos build comfortable and compatible enclosures and environments for the animals, but I noticed here on many occasions that it looked like Reptile Gardens wanted to go beyond that and give the animals a luxurious home instead.

Another thing I noticed was how hilariously large the gift shop was. There was a lot of pretty decent and unique merchandise, and I felt like it acted more as a general Rapid City gift shop, rather than just a gift shop limited to the Reptile Gardens. The staff there was nice as well; I had a nice con­ver­sa­tion with one of the employees there who asked me about my travels and told me some stories about Rapid City that she’d experienced from over four decades of her living there.

I stopped by here because I saw that the general consensus from previous visitors was very positive, and I agree with that sentiment. The outdoor grounds were also still under active construction and renovation, so if you decide to visit, it’s possible that you might be able to see a lot more than I was able to this time around.

After a nice hike in the sizzling hot sun, I decided to stop by the Palm Springs Air Museum for my second major tourist activity of the weekend before heading back to Orange and Los Angeles Counties.

I’ve been to a few aviation museums at this point, but I’m still not very well-versed in aircraft, so I still don’t have too much commentary to add to my photos—I mostly just snapped a photo of everything that looked nice, then picked out my favorite photos to feature here.

However, I do have some more information about my first two photos. The Air Museum obviously had general admission tickets, but it also allowed peo­ple to purchase extras called “Warbird Rides.” These were rides in aircraft ranging anywhere from US$99 for a C-47 Skytrain to US$4,995 for a T-33 Thunderbird. While I was at the museum, I was lucky enough to see someone purchase a ride on a T-6 Texan for $495.

The first photo above shows the pilot and the passenger in Heave Ho GQ 286068, and the second photo above shows the plane taking off into the sky. The rest of the photos below are just interesting things I saw at the museum.

At the end of my museum tour, I went upstairs into the library, which had some flight simulators that I tried out. I discovered that I am an absolute ex­pert at shooting bullets where enemy aircraft used to be, no matter how much I try to lead my shots…

Although I’m still nowhere near competent at aircraft, I’m starting to learn and remember things from these museums I’m visiting, and it’s always sat­is­fy­ing to see a few recurring themes across these museums that I can recall from past visits to different museums.

I always like living in the present and looking towards the future, so I would love to see some displays of modern-day commercial aircraft that I per­son­al­ly take through major airlines, so that I can learn more about the big metal tubes in which I fly thousands upon thousands of miles per year. I think it would also be pretty neat to have prototypes of advancements in aircraft technology soon to come, sort of like how other museums in other fields of study will spotlight what scientists are currently working on.

However, until then, I still appreciate taking a look at the evolution of aircraft, and seeing just how quickly things have advanced so that I can hop on a plane whenever I want for a few hundred dollars and be wherever I want to be in a matter of hours.

For my first tourist activity of Albuquerque, I decided to visit the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. The museum officially lies in an un­in­corporated area of Bernalillo County, but still holds an Albuquerque address.

A bulk of this museum was fairly traditional, with a mixture of some interactive exhibits, objects on display, and plaques with text. The museum opened with an area called the “Pioneers of the Atom,” which introduced notable figures who paved the way to discoveries and advancements of the atom.

Next up was a section about World War II. It started with an overview of the countries involved in the war, as well as the creation and use of the atomic bomb. It then dove deeper into things like the Manhattan Project and the assembly of the atomic bomb, and provided video footage of interviews con­ducted directly with some of the scientists and soldiers involved with the atomic bomb during the war.

There was a section off to the side of the World War II section that was dedicated to the temporary exhibit of the season. When I went, it was an exhibit showcasing the cruelties committed towards the Japanese during World War II, and how the United States reacted very harshly and aggressively towards the Japanese in response to their attacks. Similarly to how I got a lot of the timeline of the civil rights movement mixed up, this section made me feel par­ticularly ignorant when I learned that this forced relocation of the Japanese-Americans happened as recently as the mid-1900s.

The next section focused on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First it showed the bomb casings of the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities, then it explained the Japanese post-war recovery process, and how the atomic bombs affected the Japanese for a very long time.

Next up on the timeline was the Cold War. Again, not having been much of a history enthusiast throughout my youth, a lot of this information was pret­ty new to me.

The most amusing piece of information I saw was about the concept of “MAD,” which stands for Mutually-Assured Destruction. This doctrine states that, if one side attacks the other with a nuclear weapon, they functionally guarantee the destruction of both parties, because the defending party will re­taliate with equal or greater force. Thus, it is in everyone’s best interest for all parties to have extremely powerful nuclear weapons, because then, no­body will attack each other in fear of getting destroyed themselves.

At this point in the museum, there was a door leading outside to Heritage Park, which held a lot of planes, rockets, missiles, and other military equip­ment.

Looping back inside, the exhibits started getting closer to modern day, with nuclear medicine and radiation being the next sections. I took a little in­ter­ac­tive quiz about radiation exposure, and apparently, my exposure is very average. Right beside it was a look back at atomic pop culture and the dawn­ing of the Atomic Age.

The end of the museum had what looked like sponsored exhibits, and covered things like nuclear waste transportation, green energy alternatives, and the uranium cycle.

The exhibits were interesting and the military planes and equipment were nice to look at, but I think the most memorable takeaway from this museum is the overview of the historical events.

This is a continuation of something I’ve been realizing lately while going to a lot of museums during my road trip, and something I’ve been regularly men­tion­ing in my blog—the American education system is absolutely horrible at teaching history, and somehow finds a way to make it seem as boring as pos­si­ble. Now that I’m actually learning about it in a compelling way, all of these events feel much more consequential and relevant, so I’m much more interested and invested in knowing the logic behind why things happened the way they did, and how things ultimately ended up playing out.

For our second tourist activity of Dallas, Monica and I went to Reunion Tower.

When we traveled together to Seattle a little over a year ago, we went to something similar—the Space Needle. Reunion Tower wasn’t quite as tall as the Space Needle, but I still got some good views of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.

We intentionally timed it so we went right around sunset, so we would able to see the orange sunlight flooding across the city, as well as the night lights from the buildings downtown about half an hour later.

You might have noticed that some of the photos have bars in them. In case you would be curious, I took a photo of what the bars were from—Reunion Tower has a bunch of lights circling the observation deck that are held up by these bars, and they illuminate for some light shows on special occasions.

As a bonus piece of content, I managed to capture a marriage proposal, acceptance, and engagement between an unknown couple out on the outdoor portion of the observation deck.

I have no idea who they are, but if you do, then let them know—they had a videographer already recording, but I’m sure they would appreciate the ad­di­tion­al photos I captured as well.