My cousin Brent continued on with me for one of the last stretches of my trip. It was his first time camping and I couldn’t wait to show him the ropes. But good old mother nature had other plans for us. And those plans included rain. And a lot of it. I mean it barely stopped for 5 days. Our plan was to camp in the Badlands National Park, but since the weather would have made that extremely unpleasant, we opted for a mildly crappy hotel in Sturgis, South Dakota. On our way there, we were super excited for a stop at Mount Rushmore! I thought it was pretty impressive and learning about the reasoning and the time it took to create was also quite interesting. And poor Lincoln! Funding ran out before they finished his face.

We rushed to the Badlands in the morning, hoping to make it there before the rain started up again. We were able to explore a bit and it was really neat. The badlands were formed by varying changes in climate, which deposited and eroded layers of rock. These layers are easily seen in the unique landscape of the park. This area of South Dakota, including Black Hills National Forest, is really stunning. Motorcyclists flock here for its winding roads, not to mention the annual Sturgis gathering. I must say, I didn’t think much about South Dakota before this trip, and now I can’t wait to get back.

We decided to keep driving in an attempt to stay ahead of the rain and made it all the way to a little state park in Minnesota, with a stop at the country’s only corn palace of course. Weird and wonderful. We ended up getting rained on overnight, but at least my cousin got some camping experience. The next day we sloshed all the way to Cleveland, in what became my longest driving day by far. With the rain though, we just kept wanting to push on and I was so pumped up to reunite with Kevin the dog, and my parents of course. It was great to do some bonding with Brent, doesn’t happen often enough. Hopefully next time, we’ll stay a little drier.