*Life. --[pt4]
In the end, it all boils down to a series of moments.. that's all... 86400 seconds make up a day, and 27,375 days in an average lifetime.. it's what you make with these small increments that build a monumental..
*Life.
continued from part three...
The open air was amazing, but I wanted to soak it up, I wanted to take everything in at once. I also had made plans to meet up with a friend who was living in Rapid City. Minneapolis was cool, very awesome architecture. Sioux Falls was quaint. I really liked whittling the day away by Falls Park. Finally, I got to the meet up in Rapid City. We did the normal city stuff.. hitting up the batting cages, and then a few bars. On the final day I was there, we headed out to Mount Rushmore.
Mount Rushmore is one of those things, like the Statue of Liberty, that seems enormous whenever your see it in a photo or on TV, but when experienced in real life seems small and relatively uneventful.
After the trip, I bid my friend farewell and set of, for the first time the whole trip without any set destination.
Being at the foot of the Rockies, I headed northwest up towards Montana, .. via some back roads that took me past Devil's Tower. I highly recommend the detour. The rock formation impressed, and it was nice to get off of the interstate for a break.
I wish I could say the same about Billings. I know there must be some famous people from Billings, and I assume that there is something to do there.. but not for me. Most of the establishments seemed to shut down by 5pm, leaving only the scant pubs open for business.. At least the waitress was cute :)
From here though, my trip started to get exciting. The endless miles of rolling plains had given away to flat expanses of nothingness, but now I was approaching the foot of the Rockies on my way to Yellowstone National Park. The mountain range was ominous and gorgeous and the drive was breathtaking and terrifying. At 11,000 feet elevation, oxygen is hard to come by, and it's possible to make snowballs in the middle of July!
Everyone seems to have an unspoken respect for the mountain, the nature around it, and each other. People stop, wave, get out of their cars, take their time. Time stands still. a 360 degree view of eternity. It's easy to feel infinitesimal up there. But it also makes you feel part of a bigger picture. In tune with nature and the world around you.. alive!
