You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

You can see all of my pictures - well, at least all the ones I uploaded, which is almost all of them - right here. But several of my favorite pictures are under the cut.

And here's as concise a summary as I can muster. :P

SUNDAY, JULY 29
Was dad's birthday, and we all went out for Sunday dinner. Packed in rather a hurry and got to the airport way earlier than I needed to - even if the plane HAD left on time. Which it didn't. My flight, scheduled to leave at 5:55pm did not take off until after 11:00pm. Thank goodness for my portable DVD player, a socket to plug it into, and my copy of the 4-hour lush Bollywood epic Lagaan. I still love Gauri/Bhuvan, and it still sets off my H/G bells.

And, speaking of H/G, I managed to read a few more chapters of DH during my wait, including *hearts* chapter 7. :D

SUNDAY/MONDAY
I had a reservation in Chugwater, WY, which I did not intend to forfeit, but after a very late arrival in Denver and all the steps of renting a car (a small black SUV, which served me quite well), it was 4:00am by the time I got there.

MONDAY, JULY 30
It's official. I wake up at pretty much the same time every day no matter what. Despite not getting to bed until just after 4am, I was up and very much awake at about 6:30. Discovered, to my dismay, that the shower in my room wasn't working, so had to get creative with the bathing situation.

Breakfasted in Wheatland, where I doodled a bit on a script idea, and drove for quite a while more. The grass in Wyoming looks almost chartreuse, and it makes a gorgeous contrast with the deep green trees. Made a pit stop in (I think) Newcastle, and went on to what my map called a "scenic route" in the direction of Devils Tower. And boy was it...


This was taken on the side of the road. I saw this view, gasped, and couldn't keep from stopping the car.

Got closer to Devils Tower and noticed the concentration of motorcycles was getting more thick as I went on. Turns out the week after I was there was the Sturgis biker rally. Was very excited to get my first glimpse of Devils Tower in the distance.



Had my first of two gasoline scares when I hit the neighborhood around Devils Tower, meaning that I almost ran out. I got $10 worth at a general store type place, which wasn't much because the price of gas was EXORBITANT. Drove into the park and got a bajillion pictures of the Tower up close. Here are just a few...






Yeah, that's not the Tower, but it's still pretty impressive.

I went around Tower Trail, which is apparently the easiest walking trail, and decided that I definitely need to be in better shape. The trail was about half a mile - but there were HILLS, I tell you! - and it nearly killed me. In retrospect, it was probably dumb of me not to have taken some water with me. But, just when I thought I couldn't take another step, I saw the sign pictured below.


At which point I almost said aloud "YOU'RE KIDDING ME!"

After seeing my fill of the Tower, I refreshed myself with some ice cream and Gatorade, at one of the local shops, and made my way on to South Dakota. I had my second and final gasoline scare here. Word to the wise - if you ever travel out to Wyoming and South Dakota, GET GAS WHENEVER YOU CAN. There are too many long stretches of nothing for you to think half a tank will be plenty or be frugal and try to look for the best price.

Finally, I got to Custer, SD, and the KOA campground. I had a rather cute little cabin to stay in.



Having not had a real shower for a couple of days now, I made haste to the public facility and got the funk off. Next, I intended to go into Rapid City and look around, and probably have some dinner, but changed my mind when I saw how close the Crazy Horse memorial was. The new plan was to have dinner in Rapid City and then come back to Crazy Horse, but RC seemed too far away for me to get there and get back in time to actually see anything at Crazy Horse, so I took what appeared on my map to be a path back to Custer.

But oh no, dear reader. It was a 90-minute preview of Purgatory. I had landed myself in Custer State Park, on the longest, curviest road known to man, and there was no way to get off. I don't do well in situations like this, and I must confess that I was in tears and screaming at one point, wondering if I was dead and this was hell. Because I could NOT. Get. Away. From. The road. FINALLY, I found a place where I could ask "How the hell do I get out of here?!" and was given a nice map of the area and an assurance that if I kept going the direction I was going, I'd be where I needed to be (which was OFF THIS DAMN ROAD) after about 15 miles.

Eventually made it back to Crazy Horse, and it was very impressive. It's still nowhere near being finished, but they have a nice big visitor's center, gift shop, restaurant, lots of exhibits, and a laser show.



Below is the model, and what the memorial is supposed to look like when it's finished.



The carving strikes me as kind of creepy, actually, but I think it's incredible that the Native Americans will finally have a monument of their own, and that it is on an even bigger scale than any American monument that exists right now.

The idea of a laser show intrigued me, because the last time I saw one, I was young enough for it to seem cool. Now, it just seems tacky. Or maybe it was just *this* laser show. What is it about Americans that we have the greatest knack for taking something meaningful and turning it into the cheesiest of the cheesy?

TUESDAY, JULY 31
Woke up and had a huge breakfast served by KOA cooks - one of whom looked remarkably like Emerson Spartz (it was kind of scary, actually). While I waited for my food, I looked over the map and tried to figure out the best way to get to Badlands National Park from where I was. Sadly, there was no easy and direct route, but I managed to get there with no trouble.

On the way to the Badlands, I stopped off in Wall to visit the famous Wall Drug - there's a stretch of I-90 where every half a mile you see another sign advertising something you can find at Wall Drug. This was a really cool place - rather like a flea market, where the different departments are in adjoining buildings that open up on one another - and I'm glad I had time to stop and see it.



Just past Wall was one of the entrances to Badlands National Park. My plan was to travel the Badlands Loop and do one of the walking trails near the Visitor's Center at the end of the Loop. But I eventually abandoned that plan. It's a beautiful area, but I couldn't have stood more than a few minutes out in that heat at a time.

And I had several "few minutes" out in the area just driving down the loop anyway. It's about a 20 mile stretch, but it takes at least an hour or so to drive it. Not just because the road is curvy, which it is, but because you HAVE to stop every mile or half-mile and take pictures. There's such a terrible beauty about the place - Coleridge should have come here and written a poem about it. Just when you think you've seen the most beautiful view you could possibly see (and taken a hundred pictures of it) you drive another mile or so, round another bend or two, and you see and even MORE gorgeous vantage point.









I got back to the cabin and freshened up for an evening at Mount Rushmore and a most memorable screening of North By Northwest.



It occurred to me, as I entered the park, that as screwed up as America sometimes gets (and it's definitely screwed up at present), I really do love my country.





It also occurred to me, looking at Lincoln's face, that as horrible as things seem right now in America, I don't think they could ever be as bad again as they were during the bulk of his presidency. It may seem like we're having our rights stripped away one by one (to me, anyway), but at least we're not at war with each other. Yet.

I dined at the famous cafeteria, featured in North By Northwest, and loved that you could still see the faces on the monument through the window. Next, I did the Presidential Trail, and - true to form - I started at the wrong end and had to to walk UP all the stairs, while everyone else was going DOWN the stairs coming from the other direction.

At 9:00 it was time for the nightly lighting ceremony, and there was a park ranger who thought he was an actor (but so totally wasn't) giving a schpiel about the flag and how the presidencies of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt had affected (or been affected by) the flag. Then there was a 20 minute video, after which we all sung the national anthem and several veterans came forward and helped take the flag down and fold it for the night.

And then my little geek heart was filled with glee when the ranger introduced Tim League, owner of the Alamo Drafthouse and coordinator of the Rolling Roadshow Tour. Tim gave a nice introduction to the film, and what followed was nothing short of incredible. You should HEAR how amazing the Bernard Hermann score sounds in that setting. In fact, here's a short video I took during the screening. You'll have to turn your head sideways to watch it, but it will give you at least a small idea of what it was like to watch that climactic chase scene in that place.

I was too pooped to attend the after-party in Keystone, so I headed back to my cabin in Custer, noting how absolutely eerie it was to drive that curvy park road at night.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1
Woke up fairly early and had another big breakfast cooked by the KOA hands (it must have been the Emerson lookalike's day off from the kitchen). I left a bit earlier than I had originally planned, but I felt better having the extra time, in case something should happen on the six-hour drive back to Denver.

It was a fairly uneventful drive, save a lot of construction - construction, by the way, is a whole 'nother animal out west on those little two-lane roads - and about the most exciting thing that happened was passing a place called "Boner Ranch," which left me laughing for several minutes. I got to Denver in one piece and found my way back to the airport, grateful that the people of Denver had seen fit to build a last-minute refueling station for folks returning rental cars.

I spent the remaining time at the airport feeding an HP plot bunny and watching what seemed like Armageddon on CNN (moments after I sat down, the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, and there had already been an ominous story about a toy recall). I was pleased to see several people reading Deathly Hallows, and that reminded me that I had missed the JKR webchat that had happened the day before. So I caught some of that as I stood in line to board the plane.

Thankfully, the plane left on time and arrived in Nashville not too much later than expected. (Side note: Why didn't I text redwood7 when we stopped over in KC?!) It was a quick trip, but a memorable one, and I'm glad I decided to do it. I think having that to look forward to took some of the sting out of the End of All Things HP.