If you haven't seen Bra-Ventures, Bras and Roadtrips Part 1, be sure to read it first.
<Back to Part 1
Day 4:
Since it had been a bit chilly the day before, I decided to wear my Comexim 3HC Sonia. Now my Sonia is a bit special in that i believe it has been mislabeled. I bought it secondhand off Bratabase and the measurements matched up to my other 3HC's. My Sonia is a 75G, I would say it fits like an in between of 75F and 70G. The band is a bit loose and I wear it on the tightest setting, it doesn't seem to ride up any. Again I did get a bit of the wires resting on my ribs but not as bad as in Irish Coffee. I think when I have taken measurements of all my 3HC's I did notice Irish Coffee to be a bit wider than my others, making it most likely shallower so that might be the issue with that.
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| Comexim Sonia |
We hadn't really had any stops planned out for our drive through Wyoming, my boyfriend had tried searching for things to do before we left home, and hadn't found much. I had picked up some brochures at the hotel though and found a few interesting things we could check out. We stopped in Buffalo and visited the Occidental Hotel and Saloon (after seeing photos of the rooms, really wish we could have stayed here). After stopping, we had wished we went a bit further and stayed at the Occidental Hotel, it is beautiful and at least this time of year the rates were pretty decent. It is a historical hotel and was frequented by Butch Cassidy, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Calamity Jane. In the Saloon there are even bullet holes in the walls from the wild west days. There is also a more upscale restaurant where you can eat in the old bank vault.
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| Occidental Hotel and Saloon |
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| The Bank Vault you can dine in. |
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| Part of the lobby at the Occidental hotel. |
After our stop in Buffalo, WY, there was one other place that I had come across in a brochure and that was Devils Tower. Devils Tower was the first declared US National Monument, done so by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. After entering the park, there are Prairie Dogs everywhere, I love animals and find Prairie Dogs to be adorable, they make crazy squealing/squeaking noises to alert the others and are quite fun to watch.
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| Devils Tower from afar. |
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| One of the many Prairie dogs we saw. |
We make our way to where Devils Tower is and somewhere along the line we realized that they allow rock climbing among the boulder level without having to register or have equipment. We were very excited about this and spent some time climbing the boulder pile at the base, going up to the highest point allowed without needing to register.
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| From the top of the boulder pile, the Tower itself goes up much higher. |
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| Me making my way back down. |
After having a great time climbing the boulder pile at Devils tower, it was time to get back on the road. We crossed into South Dakota and made a quick pit stop in Sturgis, just to check it out, nothing much going on there this time of year. Then it was on to Rapid City where we grabbed some dinner, and figured out where we wanted to stay for the night.
We decided to head into Keystone which is where Mt. Rushmore is located. We tried to stay at the Roosevelt Inn, but they are doing some remodeling and all their open rooms were booked up so we went over the White House Inn, it was a decent little room, but we had liked the look of the Roosevelt Inn more at least from the exterior. We only had a few options for hotels in that area as it is the off season and almost everything is closed for the season. The hotel clerk did inform us that they light up Mt. Rushmore at night so we headed over to check it out. There were only a few other people there, its odd being at a historic site at night, almost feels like you shouldn't be there.
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| Mt. Rushmore at night with the state flags. |
We headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit before getting some sleep. The next day we had a lot planned.
Day 5:
Since I was wanting to try to wear each of the 6 bras I packed, I went ahead an wore my Curvy Kate Ellace (see full review here). The Ellace has been my favorite unlined bra for awhile now although I haven't worn it much since last summer. During the winter I've barely touched my unlined bras with the exception of when I would get a new one. When I put on the Ellace I noticed the gore was just softly tacking, and now I can't recall if it has always been this way or if this a recent occurrence. Throughout the day it did periodically feel like the wire was coming up from my IMF and on tissue a bit. The wire marks were mostly in my IMF that evening when I removed Ellace, but I did feel like I was lacking some depth. I might order a 32E and see how it does.
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| Curvy Kate Ellace (not a photo from during the trip) |
After Mt. Rushmore, we headed over to the Crazy Horse Memorial. We had planned to just take a photo from the road to save some money, but we couldn't really see it well from the road. We went ahead and paid admission and went in. We watched the video about the memorial which was quite interesting. Not to go into too much detail, but they have refused federal funding since the beginning and it started with just one man, he married after starting the project and had 10 kids and it has since become a family project. It started in 1948, and it isn't finished yet, but still cool to see, you can see construction equipment around as well. Also the original sculptor had worked on Mt. Rushmore as well.
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| Current progress on Crazy Horse Memorial |
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| Scale model of what the final product will be. |
From the Crazy Horse Memorial we headed to The Badlands. If you aren't familiar with The Badlands, the terrain is almost other worldly, you really almost feel like you are on a different planet. Unfortunately the camera didn't pick up the colors as well as we had hoped, it's not bad but it really doesn't showcase the intensity of the colors.
While we drove the loop we did see various wildlife, mule deer, pronghorn, and prairie dogs mostly, in a section we didn't make it to there are supposed to be bison as well.
We primarily drove the main loop around the park and stopped at the overlooks. We did venture around a bit on foot too, but didn't stray too far. There are hiking trails, but it would be extremely easy to get lost. It is recommended to bring plenty a compass, extra clothes, and food/water if you hike. We roamed around mostly within eye shot of the where we were parked because we didn't really have proper hiking equipment for a longer hike when there is a good possibility of getting lost.
While we drove the loop we did see various wildlife, mule deer, pronghorn, and prairie dogs mostly, in a section we didn't make it to there are supposed to be bison as well.
After we finished exploring The Badlands, we hit the road once again. I had one more place I wanted to try to stop, but we weren't sure if we could make it happen. We knew it would most likely be dark and rather late. I did a quick search and visited the website and found out that our next stop was open until midnight.
We drove for quite some time and made it to Sioux Falls, SD so we could visit Falls Park, we arrived around 11pm. I came across a brochure for it at a hotel and it looked beautiful so I really wanted to see it. It worked out that it was mostly on the way, just a few miles off the highway and open late. It would have been nice to see it in the daytime as well so we could venture around the area a bit more (there are some interesting structures surrounding it, but being so late we didn't want to go too far out of the lit area, and we still needed to make a bit more progress down the road if we wanted to get far enough to possibly make it home the next day), but I was still quite satisfied with seeing it even at night. The sound of all waterfalls is very nice as well.
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| Falls Park, Sioux Falls, SD |
Even with everything we did in South Dakota, I feel like we could easily go back and have a lot more to see. We drove a little bit further after leaving Sioux Falls before finding a hotel and getting some sleep for the night.
Day 6:
Final day of our trip at least that was our goal, we hit the road and our goal was to try to make it back home, so it was going to be a long day. For our last day, my final bra was Curvy Kate Madagascar (discontinued, but can find it a few places, it is similar to Florence). Which after my issues with Ellace I was unsure if I wanted to wear it, but since I had coincidentally packed 6 bras and it looked like day 6 would be our last day, I decided to wear it anyhow. Since it had been so long since I had worn Ellace I wasn't sure if I had a bit of growth or if the bra had always fit like that and I was just more aware of the issues since I was sitting and on a long trip. Anyhow, the Madagascar fit quite well and actually may have been one of my top bras for the trip. The wires didn't bug me at all and it remained quite comfortable, my only little issue was the upper cup section my occasionally get a little scratchy (almost more of a tickle than itch though), otherwise it was about as perfect as I could ask for.
We were going to spend most our drive on I-80, and that stretch through Iowa is notorious for not having much to do. Our hotel didn't even have any pamphlets or brochures to grab. We did detour a bit to drive to a bit of Nebraska, since we had never been (we intend to visit again and actually find something to do, but for now we added it to states we've been to).
Any time we stopped for any reason I checked to see if there was any information so we could try to find something to check out, I never did see anything. I resorted to searching the internet (which I don't like doing as much because sometimes searches leave out cool stuff unless you know what you are looking for). The only thing I found was the I-80 Truck Stop, which is "The World's Largest Truck Stop" (I did find a few other things, but we had already passed them). What the heck, we are on this road trip because we bought a car, and we've already been to a couple garage themed restaurants, why not a truck stop.
So the I-80 Truck Stop is no joke, it's huge. There are 3 semi trucks inside, as well as a couple other vintage trucks. There's a vinyl print shop that also does embroidery on site, a theater, barber shop, dentist, truck parts and accessories, and a variety of merchandise from clothes and toys, to housewares and blu-rays.
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| This on is on a turn table. |
In addition to the truck stop there is also a trucking museum. Much to our dismay the museum is closed Monday-Wednesday and of course it was a Monday. There was a cool Dodge Powerwagon welcoming us into the truck stop that promotes the museum though. We finished checking out the truck stop and grabbed some food and went on our way.
While we were here we almost forgot we had one final stop in mind. At some point one of remember ed that the show American Pickers has their first location in Iowa. We searched and figured out we could easily make a quick stop in, it's located in Le Clarie, IA right near the Mississippi River.
We had already visited Antique Archaeology in Nashville, and figured we should see the original store. We made it there around 7 and the store had closed at 6,but we mostly wanted to get some pictures in front of the store. While it is cool to see all the items they've "picked", most of that stuff is pricey. Since they have a TV show, I think their primary sales source now may be branded merchandise, at least that's the feeling we got when we browsed the Nashville location.
After quick photo shoot we got back on the road. We drove for quite a ways and we did manage to make it home. It was quite late we made it back home to Ohio around 3am. We did see one surprising thing on our way over the border from Indiana though, the welcome sign into Ohio had changed. I get using a slogan, but I feel like it should still welcome people.
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| New Sign, with new Ohio Slogan "Find It Here" |
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| Old sign "Welcome to Ohio" |
Let me know your thoughts on this blog, since it is a bit different for a bra blog, I'm interested in feedback.
