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Today I was hoping to put hundreds of miles ahead of us today and get us as close to Mount Rushmore, that way we make our road marker for the day. However, I fell way short of the goal, it didn't help that we were always stopping at either a Bass Pro or Cabela's to wander the store and admire all the amazing guns that we would love to buy in Canada, but can't.

I still can't get over how friendly our cousins to the south are, when I was at Cabela's in Mitchell South Dakota and had a long conversation with a couple of staffers there. They could hear by the twang in my voice that I'm from out of town, out of state. It was nice swapping stories and getting to know a bit more about the way of life in South Dakota.

Roland and I crossed another mighty river today, we passed over the Missouri river on our way to Wyoming. One of the things to note in South Dakota, is every couple of miles you see some mile marker that letting you know about an upcoming store or restaurant to try. We kept seeing a signage for Wall Drug, it's kind of a like an Honest Eds, another mile marker that kept catching our attention was Firehouse Brewing Co in Rapid City. I guess the marketing worked, because we ended up eating there.

Anyway, we didn't make it as far as Mount Rushmore, I was starting to feel run down, and I wanted to get off the road. Roland wasn't going to let me push any farther, Rapid City is where we were bunking down for the night. We stayed at the quaint Hotel Alex Johnson. The rooms were small, but it had beds, and was easy walking distance to Firehall Brewing.

The meal at Firehall Bewing Co, wasn't anything special, and the beers were not that great. After grabbing our meal, we went for a walk around the city, and to our surprise there was a gun store on a few blocks from the hotel, we're going to check them out in the morning fo sho. During our saunter around Rapid City, we came across a hipster bar The Independent Ale House, holy Wha! This place is amazing, the beer selection was outstanding, as good or better then some of the bars I've seen in Toronto and the food was beyond excellent. The Three Little Pigs flat crust pizza was number one!

One of the cool parts of South Dakota, is they have full size casts of US Presidents, we wandered the city meeting some of the Presidents past. I got to tip my hat to one of the greatest US Presidents Calvin Coolidge.

Pics of the day

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