When visiting the downtown area of Rapid City, South Dakota, be sure to check out the US Presidents statues. You will find them along a ten block downtown loop. Guessing who’s who, (before getting to them), can be great fun and educational. This month, Visit Rapid City has launched a free service providing two minutes of audio information at each statue. While downtown, I noticed that some presidents had hats or scarfs placed on them. My Lyft driver explained that local residents leave winter gear, on the statues, to assist the homeless.

I had mix feelings about visiting Mount Rushmore. Friends had warned that there wasn’t a lot to do or see. Rather than booking a formal tour, I simply hired my Lyft driver. My hotel was a fair distance, from downtown, so I booked a ride share. Once in the car, I got to chatting with the driver. He was OK with dropping me downtown and then coming back, in a few hours, to take me to Mount Rushmore. Once downtown, I was able to visit a few shops, have lunch, and do some banking.

The Native American Art Gallery is part local trading post and part “must see” tourist attraction. Either way, it was a major highlight, during my short visit to South Dakota. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to visit the Chief Crazy Horse Monument. Its construction begin in 1948. When completed, it will be the largest mountain craving in the world. The Indian Museum of North America is on the site. Next time, I will definitely add more days to my stay. This time around I was all about visiting my 50th state.

I had no idea about the Avenue of Flags, representing the fifty states, one district, three territories, and two commonwealths, of the United States of America, at Mount Rushmore. Could there have been a more fitting way to end my bucket list challenge of visiting all fifty states? Being able to see a flag from each place visited, on my way to the Mount Rushmore lookout site, was simply amazing. The Avenue of Flags was established, in 1976, for the US Bicentennial. The idea for the project came by way of a visitor’s request.

The next day, I said goodbye to Rapid City. I caught my flight to Dallas, for my connection to Bogota, Colombia. I can now mark another bucket list item as completed. Colombia is my sixty-fifth country visited. It’s my first stop, on the sixth continent that I have visited. This year, I have plans to travel to Central America, The Caribbean, and a few more counties in South America. My new goal is now 50 US States and 100 foreign countries. So, thanks to South Dakota, I’m halfway done!

I’m currently seated at my hotel in Bogota. Today is my seven year retirement anniversary. “I love it when a plan comes together!” XOXO—-GGT