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Mount Rushmore, South Dakota (map)

It’s been quiet around here hasn’t it?  Reality has kicked in, we went back to work, and vacations are too few and far between!  The good news is right before EmSue started her new job we managed to squeeze in one last trip to a National Park I have always wanted to see, but never had an excuse to do so.  Mount Rushmore!

Now here comes the voting part. As some of you may know I started working for the world’s largest vacation property rental website, HomeAway, but you probably know them better as VRBO or by one of the many other subsidiaries they own.  Well, at work we are having a fun little contest to see which employee can generate the most website traffic to their blog post hosted on the HomeAway website.  I thought this is great since I already have tons of blogs they can borrow and copy/paste up to their webpage about traveling.  Well, the trick is in order to show up highly in google search results and generate future traffic for HomeAway it needs to be unique content that is also useful. This is known as SEO ranking – Search Engine Optimization.

So my request for this blog post only is for you to see our fun filled trip to the Mount Rushmore area just by clicking this link and enjoying the pictures and story on the HomeAway website (that is how you vote!) –

http://www.HomeAway.com/info/travelers/travel-ideas/employee-destination-guides/a-badlands-road-trip

Also since it is a contest if you can try and resist checking out anyone else’s blog posts on the HomeAway Employee Destination Guides website, at least until the contest is over on October 19th, that will help me win! 🙂

Thanks in advance!

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Since HomeAway has since taken down the post and replaced it with – https://www.homeaway.com/info/travelers/travel-ideas/destination-guides/south-dakota/south-dakotas-national-treasures

Here is the original submission in it’s entirety.

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The Badlands of American Road Trips

Back to school road trip

HomeAway staffer Dustin Orrick takes us on a  journey through the Badlands:

Why in the World would you drive 21 hours to go on a family vacation?? This was the question my co-workers were asking as I headed out the door from work on Friday afternoon.

It all started just a couple weeks before when my wife let me know that her parents and sister’s family had been planning a pre back to school vacation to see four of our United States presidents sculpted into the side of a mountain.  Having already been to many of the more popular picturesque National Parks the USA has to offer I had been meaning for some time now to figure out how we could make a convenient trip to the southwest corner of South Dakota. Realization is that there is nothing convenient about the southwest corner of South Dakota.  My in-laws had been planning this trip for months now and pre-booked airlines far in advance, still for a substantial rate, but with us deciding just days before to join them it left our transportation options bleak.

For my coworkers I tried to come up with clever responses like “to see the less explored spaces”, “we enjoy car camping”, or “the journey is the reward” but it was too late. I had already been branded as the frugal traveler.  It’s only logical!  Two $550 round trip air fares plus the cost of a rental car once you arrive versus $200 in gas to transport us from Austin, Texas to Rapid City, South Dakota and back…load up the family truckster, we are road tripping north!

I know what you’re thinking, other than Mount Rushmore why in the world would you travel across the Great Plains of the United States just to arrive in an area covered by more plains?  Well, the National Park service hasn’t let me down in the past in qualifying what parks deserve to be conserved at a federal level versus a state level.  So, if the park service says it’s worthy of National status then I have to believe that it is right up there with World Heritage UNESCO sites.  That and a little more googling homework and we came up with a 3 day Mount Rushmore Itinerary:

• Day 1 – The Drive In
  • Badlands National Park & hiking the Notch Trail, Window Trail, and Saddle Pass Trail
  • Visit the town of Wall and Wall Drug on the drive to Rapid City
  • Check-in to Vacation Home in the Black Hills area
  • Grab a $12 Filet Mignon for dinner at the Alpine Inn in Hill City
• Day 2 – Full Day of Tourism
  • Mount Rushmore National Monument, walk the family friendly Presidential Trail, and enjoy the evening Lighting Ceremony
  • Crazy Horse Memorial a little off to the west and privately owned but still quite a marvel
  • Drive the Needles Highway through Custer State Park with views of Sylvan Lake and roaming Buffalo Herds
  • Enjoy an evening of Wine Tasting and Craft Beers at Naked Winery & Sick-N-Twisted Microbrewery or Prairie Berry Winery
• Day 3 – West or South
  • A 2 hour drive West:
    • Takes you to the USA’s first declared National Monument Devils Tower
    • On the drive make sure to take detours through Spearfish Canyon scenic drive and the infamous towns of Sturgis & Deadwood
  • Or in a hours drive South:
    • You can visit the town of Hot Springs and enjoy a dip in the Cascade Falls and Swimming Hole
    • Also in the area activities like the Mammoth Site, Jewel Cave, or Wind Cave
• For more ideas head over to the Black Hills tourism board

Seeing how we tagged along on the family vacation last minute, I was excited to hear that my sister in-law booked the vacation home through a property manager of the Double Diamond Ranch who lists their properties on work’s HomeAway site (job security and all).  We got lucky in that the home we booked was located in the heart of Black Hills country centered between Hill City and Keystone which gave us easy access to the sights and multiple dinner options to choose between at the end of the day.  Plus, with a fire pit outside on the cool nights it made for some fun memory making huddling around trying to cook our marshmallows to just the right point before falling off the wire hangers into the fire.

Memories to build on!
Dustin@WeGoRTW

 

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