Mt. Rushmore National Park

Mt. Rushmore
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We couldn't even stop for a 'closed sign' photo at Mt. Rushmore. Constant patrols of (furloughed?) rangers kept everyone moving along the road leading to the mountain. One enterprising photographer appeared to have hiked all the way up the mountain so he could set up his tripod unmolested. 

All photos below are from the iPhone, taken by Shannan as we drove by a few (too many) times. 

Poor Lincoln, they ran out of funds before the project was complete, he's only starting to emerge from the rock. 

Drive-by of Mt. Rushmore. No time for fancy photos here!

Our driveby of the monument. We couldn't stop and look due to the government shutdown, and the nefarious use of traffic cones.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

badlands
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We sneaky sneakied onto the Badlands Highway, a section of road that remains open to the public during the shutdown as it services houses at the end. The parking areas were cordoned off with traffic cones but with no rangers about someone had already barrelled through those clearing us a path, and besides, we had an engine light on that I was suddenly very interested in fault finding.

Credit: Shannan, from a moving car no less!

Failing at National Parks

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First, a gallery of Fail courtesy the United States government. For those who don't know, we have been greatly effected by the US govt. shutdown which has closed access to all the National Parks (a huge chunk of what we had planned). In addition to the parks being closed all the national camping areas are shut down as well which has made finding somewhere to stay for the night more difficult. 

That said, we didn't let a little thing like the United States Federal Government put a crimp in our style. Plenty of good scenery to be had, and we can probably write a book on how to do the national parks on the cheap now.