SL,UT, etc...

Yet again, we apologize for our lack of blogging. We truly do appreciate all our friends/family/strangers/celebrities (let us think this) who have been following us on this amazing journey.

Since San Francisco & Napa we have traveled 2380 miles and are now at our 3^rd to last destination.

From Napa, we visited our new friend, Rachel:), in Salt Lake City, UT. We found Rachel on couchsurfing.com, a non-profit organization that allows people to offer travelers a place to crash while they are traveling the world. Not to mention, in the end you can make a great deal of friends.

We highly recommend signing up and taking advantage of this website. Rachel was so welcoming and helpful with what to do around the SL,UT area:)

To get from Napa to SLC we drove through the Bonneville Salt Flats. This area stretches over 3000 feet and was formed through the evaporation of Lake Bonneville.  People leave their mark on the salt flats by taking rocks and making formations from their names to symbols to messages to giant penises, swear!

From the recommendation of our friend, Rich, who used to live in SLC we went to Saltaire, a great venue for concerts. Saltaire is located on the edge of the Great Salt Lake, the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi River.

The Great Salt Lake has also evaporated and we were able to walk out almost a ½ mile out. If you are not a good swimmer, this is the place to come because you will not sink due to the high amount of salt content. Actually, the Great Salt Lake is too saline to be the home to any fish or other aquatic species.

That being said, we didn’t quite take a dip in the salty goodness we simply dipped our toes in and headed on our way to Park City. Park City is home to the Sundance Film Festival and is a great place to visit…in the winter. It houses many different restaurants, boutiques, bars, and ski resorts. We ate outside at Easy Street, a French brassiere, and took in the amazing view of the leaves changing.

There wasn’t much going on, but we did stop into a beauty deli to get hand exfoliating treatments and supplies for at-home facials, which we did later that night but will not be posting pictures due to the fact that we looked like creatures from the black lagoon.

That night Rachel and Izzy, her daughter, took us out to Ruth’s Diner. The cool thing about Salt Lake City is that you are either up in a mountain or down in a canyon. This diner was down in a canyon and owned by a lady who cooked with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Food was yummy and we got to try the signature Utah Fry Sauce. The secret to this, and don’t tell anyone we told you, is mixing mayonnaise and BBQ sauce…sometimes even ketchup too! Can’t get it ANYWHERE else!! :)

We bid our farewell to our new friends, who we will be visiting again during Sundance:), and headed off to South Dakota!

PS. Fun Fact—Rachel & Izzy live 3 blocks away from the high school where the classic Disney movie was filmed, High School Musical.

PPS. You can go inside and see Sharpie’s pink locker!! O-M-G!!!!

South Dakota is known for two of the greatest monuments in the country, Mt. Rushmore & Crazy Horse…and an added BONUS-a gigantic sculpture of Dino! @ the Flintstone Campground/Amusement Park.

We were fortunate to see all three! :)

We learned that Mount Rushmore was all started with one man’s crazy idea. He hired a sculptor who hired a crew of 400 and 14 years later, wa-lah!

(we're sending this one into Glamour:) )

The production was close to finish but they had run out of money. The sculptor died before the structure was complete and his son took matters into his own hands. This resulted in Lincoln with only one ear and 3 knuckles.

Each face is 60 feet tall. To put this into perspective, the whole Mt. Rushmore monument can fit into the head of the Crazy Horse monument.

Because these two pieces of art are chiseled in granite rock, they will only wear away 1 inch every 10,000 years.

We were also fortunate enough to see Mt. Rushmore lit up at night. 

It was a touching ceremony, which included a movie about why the four presidents were chosen and a dedication to all veterans that were in the audience.

It ended with a fabulous rendition, thanks to our new girl group, of the Star Spangled Banner and a lowering of the flag ritual.

We headed back to our cabin in the woods…

and felt nostalgic, back to our girl scout days, so we played Spit and Egyptian Rat Screw before hitting the sack.

The next morning required venti Starbucks coffees and a trip to see Crazy Horse. This was pretty uneventful. The Crazy Horse monument, as magnificent as it is (or will be), is yet to be complete. This operation started with a Polish sculptor who was approached by an Indian, Chief something something Barefoot something who wanted the American people to be made aware of the achievements of the Red Man as well.

The first five years of the project was done solely by this Polish sculptor. Then him and his wife bore 10 children, 5 of which were boys and immediately recruited to work hard shoving dynamite into the drill holes. This was perfectly safe, since no one was around to say otherwise:)

Today the project is run by the family still and is funded only from visitors and donators. (which is why it’s $27 a car load to get in and is a bit of a rip off, just saying). However, it would be worth going to Crazy Horse at night because they have a laser light show where the mountain is decorated with native art and what the Crazy Horse will look like when its finally completed in ten billion years, possibly.

After looking at the model of Crazy Horse (the famous white structure we all know of) we took off on our 12-hour drive. We then turned into crazy horses ourselves.

We have now come up with new ways to keep us amused. One of which is reading Texts From Last Night (www.textsfromlastnight.com) to entertain the thought that other people’s lives suck more then ours.

We also have learned all the 50 states capitals and yes, we are now smarter then a 5^th grader. This new skill has sparked many of conversations and not to mention puzzled looks at the bars.

Thanks for being the dedicated readers that you are!

We will have an update tomorrow of our last three stops.

xxoo

the X Country Girls:)

PPPS. If you are ever traveling between South Dakota and Wyoming, stop at the Corn Castle. It’s awesome. But really, only if its on the way, don’t make any special arrangements.