Whirlwind/ Day 55-60

To write a blog post for each of the last couple days I had on the Reservation was almost impossible. As soon as I ended my time with the SNETP, it quickly hit me that I really only had four days left to see people, as Wednesday was going to be spent debriefing and Thursday would be spent driving home.

So most of our last couple days on the reservation were spent in Saint Francis. We hung out in SF all day on Saturday, we went to Amanda Arcoren's birthday party on Sunday, then on Monday and Tuesday I split my time between building a porch with Greg at his house and spending time in Saint Francis. It was such a great last couple days. 

On Wednesday we spent all day cleaning, packing, and organizing, then around 4pm, we started debriefing. Debriefing was just a time of reflection for the interns as we considered how well we met the areas that we were required to be conscious of during our time in our professional, communal, and spiritual areas of development.

Wednesday was a great way to end our summer as we all spent the day together reflecting and encouraging each other in the ways we had seen God working this past summer. It ended even better as we all headed over to Greg's for some ice cream to finish out the night.

By the time we were ready to leave Greg's it was already around 2:30am, so Emily, Jonny, and I decided we should just finish packing up our belongings and head home. We were already planning on being up by 5:30am so we could be on the road by 6am, and it was 4am by the time we were finished packing, so we really didn't see the point in staying another night just to sleep for 2 or 3hrs.

We had an awesome drive home, and we are all back in Minnesota now for a couple weeks before school and other jobs start up again. So I guess that's that. My blog has officially come to an end, as my time on the rez has as well.

We are all very thankful for the support you gave us in our ministries this summer, even in something as little as reading my blog posts throughout the week. And now that we are back, please ask us about our experiences out on the Rez, because there is still so much I couldn't fit in the blogs.

You are all wonderful!


God bless,
Brenden and the Interns 

The Lakota People Don't Say Goodbye/ Day 54

Friday. My last day of working with the crew. Since I started working with the crew, I obviously knew this day would come, but I never really knew how everything would play out. I had ideas of how I would say "bye" (although the Lakota people don't say goodbye, so I would say "See you later"), and the different thoughts or ideas I would want to leave the guys with, but it didn't really play out how I had thought it would.

I woke up early this morning. Earlier than I have all summer. I had an alarm set for 6:30am and 6:45am, I woke up at 6:45am. I ate breakfast and did devos while I was waiting for a call from Fergie. He was supposed to call when he was headed into Mission, so I could meet him at RBP and help him load the new attachment onto our trailer. 

He hadn't called by 7:30am and he said he was going to be coming through around 7:15am, so I went over to check everything out. I gave Fergie my number, but he hadn't given me his, so all I could do was wait. I waited until 7:45am and still nobody had shown up. I wanted to be at work on time (8am), especially since I hadn't been at the office at 7am like everybody else, so I left. On my way out, I actually saw Fergie pulling in, but he had a passenger to help him, so I kept driving towards the office.

When I got to the office, I was one of the first ones there. Once some of the directors showed up, I was able to get into the building, grab the keys to open the sheds, and get everything ready for when the guys got back with the new attachment. 

The guys got back and had to leave again to grab another tool that we were going to need at the pow-wow grounds, so while they were picking up that tool, I put some air in one of the tires on the tractor and one of the tires on the trailer so that both would be ready to go as soon as we were ready to move everything over to the grounds. 

We got everything moved over to the ground around 8:30am, and we got to work! We spent the morning raking the pow-wow grounds with the landscaping rake, moving the dead grass/weeds and excess dirt off the pow-wow grounds (I got to drive the bob cat for this--pretty sweet!), unloading the dirt from the trucks/trailers at a dump site, then doing it all over again. I had a ton of fun. Not gonna lie. 

Around 12pm, Nixon called me and told me he wanted the whole crew back at the office for lunch. We had to finish up what we were doing so we didn't get back until 12:45pm, but when we got back, I saw a kitchen full of Indian Tacos, and the bosses told me that they had made all of these tacos for me! 

They treated me so well on my last day! When we were done eating, my crew and I were sitting around a table, and the bosses came in and told me how much they appreciated the work I had done these past eight weeks and they gave me a certificate of appreciation along with a sweatshirt from the office! 

They also told me that they wanted my address to send me a jacket after I got back home, and they wanted me to give them email addresses for my coordinators so they could send a letter to them as well. I was so thankful for them! 

After I thanked them for allowing me to work with them over the summer and trying to tell them how thankful I really was, we all went outside and took a picture together! Words just can't express how incredible that time was for me. 

When we were done with lunch and the pictures, I headed out with Marky to deliver a picnic table for Percy. We had to drive out to Spring Creek which was 1/2hr-45min away, and we had to pick up Nixon's son on the way so we had a lot of time just chilling in the truck. 

While we were driving back from the house that we delivered the picnic table to, Marky, Eric, and I had an awesome conversation about God, Religion, and the Bible. I was really happy that God led our conversation in that way, while we were just cruising around. 

When we got back, we loaded some dirt and hay onto the trailer and went back out to the Rosebud Pow-Wow grounds. We had to start seeding, laying dirt, watering, and laying hay on top of everything in the last couple hours of our day. 

We ended up only having enough seed for half of the fair grounds and we barely covered that area with hay. Nixon stopped by and told us that there was going to be a meeting on Monday for all of the crew, then he said we could pack everything up and call it a day. 

I ended up giving Ernie, Ferg, and Kels a ride back to Ernie's house, then I went home to take a shower and change before heading over to JC's house to hang out with him and Nixon for a little bit before my last day with the program was over. 

The rest of my night was very interesting. I had a ton of good conversations with some of Nixon and JC's friends and I was really thankful for the fact that they invited me to hang out with them, and that God used that time through me to be a witness for him. 

Thank you for reading! 

Things I learned today:

1. I didn't need to make a big deal about leaving the program. Goodbye's don't need to be said, because I will see them all again next year!

2. God can use any situation for His glory. You just have to be ready and willing to let Him use you.

3. Romans 2.

Unprepared/ Day 53

This morning I woke up and wanted to make the absolute most out of my day today. My last day at the Sicangu Nations Landscaping Enterprise is tomorrow, so I was so excited with what God was going to do with my day today.

I ate breakfast-- a peanut butter sandwich-- and started my devotions. Since I finished Acts yesterday and enjoyed reading about Paul so much, I decided I would start Romans today. I read the first chapter, then headed out to work.

When I got to work, the first thing I noticed was Percy walking into the office. That was pretty crazy. I wasn't very confident that he would be coming back into work after 4 days of absence. It's cool though, because he does really good work and he's a hard worker, so it was nice having him back in the office building picnic tables and whatnot.

I sat down in the office, and as people started to show up, Nixon started going over the jobs we needed to get started on and where he wanted our crews today. Our two big focuses were still the Rosebud Pow-Wow Grounds and the fence job in Mission. So it was decided that David would go out to the Pow-Wow grounds to finish tilling the arena; Ernie and Kels would go to do an estimate; Marky would take some youth workers to mow; and R.J., Fergie, and I would go to Mission to finish up that fence.

We left almost immediately for the fence project, but when we got out there, we realized we left a lot of stuff in the other truck, when we switched trucks with Ernie. This was really unfortunate. Ultimately, we legitimately couldn't continue work on the project because we didn't have a string line to make sure everything was being set up straight. We called Nixon to ask him a couple questions and he said he needed us to come back, so we did.

When we got back, we picked him up and grabbed all of the tools we needed, except for the string line. That was still in the other truck. Since we really needed that string line, we met up with Ernie and Kels to grab the line. Nixon needed to go with Ernie to get gas for David at the Pow-Wow grounds and go to RBP, while RJ, Fegie, and I went out to the fence, so Kels jumped in with us to help us out. Oh and we couldn't find the string line.

Again, since the string line was integral to our project, we too had to stop at RBP too, but we got there way before Nixon did. We found string line and fence pliers (we needed those too), but I knew we had a pair of fence plier, because I was there when they were purchased. We called Nixon to see if he could check around the truck for the pliers, and he told us that he had found the string line, but couldn't find the pliers. We bought the pliers then waited at RBP for Nixon to show up.

It took a while, but Nixon finally showed up. He had some bad news about an accident that had happened on one of our projects and he said that the bosses were angry. They almost called a mandatory meeting for us, but since there was admin leave for the day so everyone could go vote, they left it alone until tomorrow.

We ended up discussing the bad news for a while, then we got the string and headed out. When I got back to the fence site, Jonny and Greg were they to check out what kind of work I had been doing, because they had never seen one of my fence projects before. It was good to see them. We chatted for a few minutes then they took off.

Since we had some pretty crazy delays, we only ended up working on the fence for a couple hours that afternoon. We strung the line, dug the last two corner post holes, put in the smaller wall posts (these alternated between steel and wood), then we leveled everything off, filled them in and called it a day.

We got back to the office around 3pm, and most everyone was ready to take off for admin leave, but Nixon was worried about the Pow-Wow grounds. He didn't want to have the work we did tilling wasted by waiting too long to lay the seed, so we loaded up equipment and headed out there.

When we got there, we realized we should probably get a landscaping rake attachment for our tractor that we were renting, because raking the entire arena by hand would not be very enjoyable. Plus it would a waste of the little time we had left in the day. We tried to call Ernie and David and have them go pick up the other attachment, but the trailer we were using had a flat and Nixon didn't think it would be too big of a deal to wait until tomorrow to finish this up.

We all met back at the office and talked about a game plan for tomorrow. We wanted to get out to the grounds as early as possible, so Ernie said we should all get to the office by 7, then we can pick up the new attachment and get out to the grounds by 8ish. Nixon agreed, so that was that.

I got back to the house around 5:30pm, ate something for dinner, then decided to try to get some more of my blog written. I knew I had to wake up super early and I was super exhausted already, so I ended up going to bed around 11pm. That is the earliest I have been to bed in a very long time. I guess all this landscaping has finally caught up to me.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this blog and support me in my ministry!

God bless,
Brenden


Things I learned today:
1. Kels loves to dig holes. He hates carpentry.
2. If you're going to till the ground to get ready for seeding, you need to seed within 24hrs of the tilling.
3. Romans 1

Let's Dig Some Holes/ Day 52

Today was going to be a good day. I wasn't entirely sure how my day was going to go today, but I did know (for sure this time) that I was not going back to the shed. We were done. And it was a wonderful feeling. Now we can finally get moving on the other projects we have fallen behind on.

I woke up, ate breakfast, did my devos, and was at the office by 8am. When I got there, we sat around for a while discussing the jobs we needed to do and how Nixon wanted to split us up for the day. We had two major jobs that needed to be started. First we needed to work on the pow wow grounds to get them ready for new grass, and second we had a fence project that needed to get started in Mission.


Nixon decided to split us up into a couple different groups today. Some of us were to focus on the pow wow grounds for the first half of the day, then go out to Mission to start that fence, and the other half of us were going to the new jail. 


Marky, some youth workers, and I were on the crew that was supposed to go to the pow wow grounds then start that fence, so we loaded up and headed out there. This time around, we had a tiller that we were going to use for the patches of weeds, which were still going to be difficult to pick out from the grass, but at least we had a machine instead of hoes and shovels. 


We spent a couple hours out at the pow wow grounds. I primarily mowed the entire arena so that the tiller wouldn't get tangled up in weeds and such, while David worked the tiller and the other two youth workers switched off on the other lawn mower. 

At 11am, we had finished mowing and finished two patches with the tiller, so we decided to head back and talk to Nixon about getting some equipment to start those fences. Last week he had talked about renting a Bob Cat and an auger attachment that we could use to dig those fence post holes really quickly. When we got back I talked to him about that, and he said to give him until 12pm and he would let us know what we were able to do.

We ran an errand, then Nixon told us to just go out to the fence with the manual tools and start the project. I really didn't have a problem starting the project by hand. I was actually looking forward to digging a couple holes and building a fence again. Back to the basics.

After we got into Mission, we stopped at RBP quick to grab an extra post hole digger, and a tape measure. I had fallen asleep somewhere in between the office and RBP, so I remember I was rudely awakened by a youth worker at this point. That was funny.


We finally made it out to the fence site around 1:30pm or so, and we started work on the fence. Yesterday, we had already dropped off the materials, but nothing else had been done up to this point. Most importantly for today, we needed to get the corner posts put up around the yard. We needed to dig 10 holes altogether for these posts, but we only made it through a couple posts before we had to leave again. 
  
One of the youth workers that was working with us today had to go to some sort of meeting this morning, so he needed to be picked up from the office again around 2pm. We had just gotten started on the fence and we had to leave again, but I was pretty confident that we would be able to finish all of the corner posts by the end of the day. 

When we got back to the site, after picking up the youth worker, we hammered out 8 fence posts before the end of the day. We had to dig a 2 1/2 ft hole with a post hole digger, put the post in, level the post, and fill it with dirt to make it solid, so it was actually pretty impressive that Marky and I were able to almost completely finish that up in the little time that we had left in the day.

We all got off around 5, and I headed home because we had a team dinner and team discussion tonight. When I got home, Laura was just starting dinner. We were having tacos, which was pretty exciting, because that is one of my favorite foods!

After dinner, we had our final discussion as an intern community about a reading that had to do with the upward mobility of our society, and the downward mobility focus of Christ. It was a super interesting reading and a great last discussion together!

When we had finished our discussion, Jonny headed out to SF, and I stayed behind to catch up on my blogs. I actually made it through three blog posts, which was super impressive for me because I get really bored of writing really quickly. I was pretty happy with my progress!

As soon I was finished with my blog posts, I decided it was time to hit the hay.


Thank you, again, for reading these posts and supporting me in my ministry out here!  


God bless,
Brenden


Things I learned today:
1. I would build a fence over a shed any day. I appreciate jobs that don't require angles and constant chopping to complete.
2. I really, really admire Jonny for his love for the children of SF and his ability to spend every spare second with them. What an awesome guy!
3. Acts 28 (I finished Acts today!)

I Hope I Never See This Shed Again/ Day 51

For a while, it was pretty cool that I was helping in the construction of a 16 x 16 ft shed. Despite the frustrations and random issues we had, I was still hoping that I was learning something. Unfortunately, those feelings slowly wore off after 2 1/2 weeks on the job. I hope I never see this shed again.

I woke up and went through my morning routine. I got to work and was on the verge of praying that we wouldn't get sent out to that shed again. Percy didn't show up to work for the third day in a row now, so that left us to continue to screw around with these doors.

The entire process was frustrating, and the facts that led up to us having to put the doors on ourselves was even more frustrating. And the worst part was the fact that we were getting more and more behind on other projects while we continued to run into issues with this one.

I don't remember what time we actually got out to the shed today, but when we got there, we really didn't know where to start. The home owner came out while we were trying to figure out what to do with those doors, and started questioning us asking where Percy was and whether or not we knew what we were doing. We really didn't know, but we assured him that we would take care of his doors, since Percy neglected to show up for the past couple days.

He left us feeling satisfied, I think. Then we spent the next couple hours working on getting the doors to fit together. We stripped everything and focused on the frames of the doors, but there was too much uncertainty and not enough motivation to make this work. We were feeling pretty hopeless.

We decided we needed to head back to the office to talk to Nixon about those doors and tell him that we needed more material and we needed percy, because we really didn't understand Percy's vision for those doors.

When we got to the office, Nixon wasn't there, so Ernie encouraged us to grab what we needed and get back out there to finish the job. I really respected him for that, because he was just as lost as I was, but he was still willing to jump back on his feet and try to figure this thing out!

After we got back out to the shed, I knew there was going to be an easy way to do this and a hard way to do this. Most of my time on the shed job had consisted of doing something one way, hoping it worked, then starting from square one again if it didn't work. I didn't have the patience to work that way anymore, so I started talking to Ernie about what needed to happen and how we should go about making those things happen.

At first this was super difficult, because we were coming from two different points of view and it was really hard for me to get him to understand what I was trying to say. More importantly it was hard for me to get him to do what I knew would be the most efficient thing possible at this point.

It was slow going, but I was able to explain all of the reasons we needed to do everything in a particular way, and we were finally able to see eye to eye. Towards the end of our building the doors, I would just say we needed to do so and so next and he would say "Okay cool. What's next after that?" This was pretty sweet for me. It was cool that we had communicated so well, and that my ideas were working so well that he respected me enough to listen to my opinion towards the end of that construction process.

After we were done with those doors, it was almost 4pm and since it was so hot outside, we just went back to  the office about to call it a day. It had been a good day after all. We had finished building both doors, gotten them to fit, and hung both doors. Pretty awesome.

When I got home, Emily J. and the interns were just about to the leave for our friend Melony's house because she had invited us over for dinner and a movie. I changed quick then went with them, and I'm glad I did! Melony went all out on our dinner. We had pork and chicken, noodle salad, fruit salad, chips, vegetables, and some sort of juice and she prepared all of this for us! It was absolutely delicious!!

I wanted to be able to stay for the movie that night, but I ended up going back to Mission with Greg and Kelly because I had to be up early the next morning, I didn't want to sleep through my alarm again, and I really had some stuff that needed to get done before the morning.

I got back and started working through everything I had to get done, Jonny put in Rambo, and I ended up making it to bed at a decent time. The rest of the interns got back around midnight, so I was really happy that I made the decision to come back before we had started the movie.

That's about it! Thank you so much for all of your support!

In Him,
Brenden


Things I learned today:
1. Communicating with somebody to the point where they can respect your thoughts on a particular subject is super hard, but entirely worth while if you can do it correctly.
2. Melony is a super good cook!
3. Acts 26-27

Building Doors/ Day 50

I woke up this morning wishing I had more time to sleep. That's not unusual these days, but it's kind of a weird feeling to have, because I remember being super excited last night when I was thinking about getting up and going to work with my crew. 

Despite the fact that I longed for more sleep, I didn't wake up late. I was up, done with breakfast and my devotions, and at work by a little after 8am. The funny thing about this morning was that the parking lot was almost empty when I pulled in. Not a single guy from my crew had showed up, aside from a youth worker, David and my boss Nixon. The rest of the admin staff wasn't even there. Weirdest thing. 

Since Nixson was there, he got us working right away on moving some wood and reorganizing some of the wood we had because it was pretty badly warped. We probably did that for about an hour, before some other guys from the crew started showing up. 

The other funny thing about today was the fact that I thought our shed project was done, and that Percy would go out there to touch up whatever needed to be touched up. Well it turns out that Percy didn't even show up to work that morning and he still had all of our tools in his car. This meant we had to go find him and get our tools back. 

We spent probably a good hour and a half looking for Percy, loading up our tools, and getting back to the office, which was kind of annoying, because we had better things to be doing, than driving out to Spring Creek when he should have been at work with our tools. After we got back, our day got a little more annoying. 

Since Percy wasn't coming in to work and that shed still needed doors, it was now our job to get out there and put those doors up. I really didn't want to deal with this, because on Friday, the crew had  tried to hang the doors but the frame wasn't exactly square so the two doors Percy had made wouldn't even fit. Now it was our turn to try to measure out and cut door frames to match the crooked shed frame. I really wasn't sure if I could handle all of this. 

The nice thing about our day at the shed was that some other little things needed to be done to the shed to make it look nicer, so while the boys worked on the shed doors, I got to work on the other stuff. I had to pull down the flashing that we had put up the week before and replace it with wider cuts to cover up the soffits, then I had to replace some of the trim on one of the corners because two different lengths had been cut and it didn't look good. 

It actually took me a while to finish all of those things, and it was getting hot out, so by the time I was done, we were just about ready to head back to the office. The boys had worked on the doors all day long, but they just couldn't figure out what the problem was or how to fix the doors to make them fit. I guess we'll have to look at it tomorrow! 

After work, I came back to work on my blog a little bit, and have some dinner. Then Jonny and I went out to SF to see Susie, Echo, and Keoni. When we got there, we stopped at Susie's house first, which was so cool because I haven't seen her for a while and I really have missed talking with her! She was super excited to see us and the first thing she said was "I missed you guys!" Super cute. 

We stood outside her house and talked for about an hour or so, then a couple guys came up and started talking to Jonny about how much they wanted to start a basketball or softball tournament. The conversation was a little less awkward than I made it sound, but I came in in the middle of them talking. He seemed like a pretty cool guy and he seemed to really care about his community and their involvement in activities going on the SF. I respect that. 

Jonny and this guy talked for a while, then they asked if they could get a ride down the street to Out West. I didn't care and Jonny was cool with driving out there so we took them out there real quick. It turned out they wanted us to pick up one of the buddies, which I didn't realize, but I was totally cool with because on the way back into town, Jonny and I had the opportunity to talk to these guys about why we're out here doing what we're doing. We live for Jesus, and that's basically what we told them. I didn't get a lot of feed back from them, but they  thought we were cool enough to shake our hands after we drove them around. 

We were going to stay in town at this point, but we hadn't realized how late it had gotten so we decided to go check out  Out West before it got too much later. When we got Out West we stopped at Eric and Romero's house, before heading over to Echo and Keoni's place. 

Jonny and I had a ton of fun Out West. Romero was pretty chill, but Echo and Keoni were all wired up! I don't know what it was, but they never stopped running and Jonny and I could barely keep up. It was so good though. I love those kids! 

When we got back, I sat down to try to work on my blog some more, but I ended up falling asleep where I was sitting, and trying to get back up to move to my bed was absolutely miserable. I wouldn't recommend falling asleep in anything other than your bed. 

That's that! Thank you so much for all of your support!

God Bless, 

Brenden

Things I learned today:

1. Sometimes you have to fix a problem that somebody else caused, and it is in those moments that it is so important to remember to be Christ like. 

2. Pretending to drive to Chicago can be a blast when you're with Echo and Keoni. 

3. Acts 25

Adventures/ Day 48-49

This is going to be a two-day post, because Jonny, Greg, and I spent the weekend together doing a bunch of crazy stuff, so it really doesn't make sense to split these blog posts up. Here we go.

Since we already had inner tubes and we had already spent money to patch the tubes and do other general maintenance, Greg, Jonny, and I decided that it was absolutely necessary that we tube on the Niobrara again.

I was going to wake up early that morning to do some dishes that I promised Laura I would do the night before, but I ended up waking up only a half hour before I was supposed to be ready to leave Mission. Greg got here at 10am, but I didn't get done with the dishes until around 10:30am.

When I was finally done with the dishes, we rushed to get some water and snacks together before we headed for Valentine. We got into Valentine, and we decided to hit up McDonalds for lunch. I know it's gross to some people, but I love McDonalds so much. It was already a good day for me!

While we were at McDonalds, Greg opened a door and Jonny was looking back at me and giving me attitude, so he ended up running straight into the door. That was pretty entertaining. Also a random elderly lady stopped Jonny and told him that he reminded her of her grandson from back home. That was kind of sad because she said she gets homesick sometimes, but it was kind of funny because Jonny always seems to get stopped by random people in Valentine. Random side notes, but they make wonderful memories.

After McDonalds, we ran across the street to fill up the inner tubes with air from Casey's, and get gas. Then we headed out to the river! I was following Jonny and Greg on the way out, and between the two of them, they decided to try to take a short cut. It wasn't a short cut, and we had to turn around.

We got on the right road to head out to the river, but instead of going to Berry Bridge where we usually go, we decided to go to Fort Niobrara and start our trip there. By looking at the map, we figured our trip from Fort Niobrara to Berry Bridge would be about the same length as our past trips that started at Berry Bridge. It was uncharted territory, but we were ready for the challenge!

When we got on the river, everything was sweet! We got on right after the dam, so the current was solid and the depth of the river was pretty decent. Overall we really enjoyed our time on the river! It turned out that our estimates were a little off, and we ended up spending about 5 or 6hrs on the river.

Despite the unexpected length of time we had to spend on the river to reach our end point, we spent the day having conversations about a million different things, laughing together, and watching a fire that had started in the Niobrara Canyon (which was miles away from us but we could see the smoke). Basically we had a blast!

After getting off the river, we decided we wanted to do something crazy. A lot of debate ensued regarding what kind of crazy things we should do, but we finally settled on making a trip up to Rapid for the weekend. This will probably go down in the books as one of the most spur of the moment things I've ever done. I'm stoked.

Jonny and I stopped by our house quick to change and pack some clothes and water and stuff, then we headed up to Greg's to unpack the tubes and repack his stuff. We had water, a tent, sleeping bags, our Bibles, and that was just about it. Time to head to Rapid!

It was probably around 9pm when we left for Rapid, so we were planning on driving through part of the night and getting there around midnight, hopefully sooner. What was cool was that we had forgotten about the time difference in Rapid, so we actually got there an hour ahead of time! Boom.

When we got there, we hit up Applebees for half priced apps. Unfortunately, they don't do that on the weekends, but food was super satisfying nonetheless! We hadn't really eaten since McDonalds and it was midnight our time.

After Applebees, we needed a place to sleep. We half-heartedly considered a hotel, but we decided against that and hit up a KOA. We set up our tent in like 10min flat (like rockstars), and we were in bed and sleeping in the next five. We wanted to be up early so that we could make the most of our day in Rapid.

We ended up getting out of bed around 6:45am Mountain Time, and we quickly packed up our tent so we could get a start on our day! After a quick stop for gas, we started driving straight for Mount Rushmore. I've been to SD, specifically on the rez (like two and a half hours away from Mount Rushmore) at least once a year for the past five years and I haven't once seen Mt. Rushmore. Needless to say, I was SO excited to actually see this national monument for the first time in my life!

When we got there, the monument was even cooler than the pictures make it out to be! It was pretty majestic driving around the monument and seeing the faces turn as we drove the curve around the mountain. So fantastic!

After we stood in awe of the monument for a while, we decided to go hiking for a little bit! Hiking was a lot of fun, especially because there were opportunities to leave the trails at different point in time and climb up rocks and stuff.

We hiked for about an hour, then we decided to go find the Crazy Horse monument. When we got there, we didn't have enough cash to get through the gates, but we were able to see the monument and the markings of the planned work from where we were, so that was pretty sweet!

On the way back from the Crazy Horse monument, we saw a antiques shop on the side of the road, so we stopped to check it out for a little bit. We met the owner-- a very crazy old man, who isn't afraid to say what's on his mind-- so that was interesting. We found a couple cool little things, and Greg found a free golf ball collector, but other than that we didn't leave with anything more than we came with.

Instead of going back through Mt. Rushmore to get back to Rapid, we decided to try to go swimming at a lake we had seen a sign for on the way to the Crazy Horse Monument. Unfortunately, after about 15min of driving down a winding road, we found out that the lake was in the middle of a State Park, and we really didn't have the cash for a day pass. Lame.

Although we didn't have enough cash for the pass, we talked to a sweet old lady who let us drive through the Park in order to get back to Rapid city. Driving through the park was incredible. Not only was it a beautiful drive, but we got to a point where there were close to a hundred buffalo crossing the road causing a traffic jam! It sucked because it was hot, but it was amazing to be driving down the road right next to a buffalo!

We made it out after probably an hour, and pulled into Rapid pretty ready to be back in the city. Now that we were back in the city, we wanted to check out Art Alley, which is an Alley in the city where it's actually legal to graffiti and it is absolutely full of spray paint! There was some pretty wicked stuff in there, so it was cool checking that out. And Greg, Jonny, and I left tags of our own before we left. That was a ton of fun!

After our trip to Art Alley, we made our way back towards the highway stopping at Wendy's quick to get something to eat. We hit the highway and made really good time coming back towards the rez. Before we got back to the rez, we stopped in the badlands and had a ton of fun climbing those hills. Then we finished the last half of our trip home.

When we got back, we dropped Greg off at his place, then Jonny and I got back home pretty exhausted from the day. Time for bed.

Thank you so much for reading my blog!

God bless,
Brenden


Things I learned today:
1. Fort Niobrara to Berry Bridge is quite a bit longer than Berry Bridge to Brewer's Bridge.
2. Tubing down the Niobrara with Greg and Jonny is an absolute blast. So much craziness.
3. No plan? No problem! Sometimes doing something completely rash and spur of the moment is one of the best decisions you can make in life.
4. Mt. Rushmore is so much more beautiful in person, than it is in the pictures.
5. Acts 22-24