After driving 24 hours in the last 36 hours, I haven’t had much time to do a normal written post. After sleeping in the car in a picnic area conveniently marked “no overnight parking”, I woke up at 5am to the sunrise and watched it come up over the Black Hills. It was pretty cool, so we decided to shoot a video while it was happen. Please try to excuse the excessive shaking of the camera. It’s a result of the waking up in a 40-50 degree car and trying to warm up.
Mount Rushmore opens at 8am from May 8th – August 13th. We were there at 5am. While we could still see the monument from the road, we wanted to get closer but wanted to get on the road before 8am. We walked up to the gate and saw it was open…This is what happened.
Pro tip: If you want the easy way to sneak into Mount Rushmore at 5am and the gates aren’t open, just drive up the exit ramp. There aren’t any barriers in the way and as long as there isn’t incoming traffic, it’s actually much easier & shorter route than the official entrance route.
This post is maybe a little different than a lot of the normal blog posts you’ll usually see, but a huge part of this blog is about just having fun and having a life full of meaning & adventure. I’m not doing this to make money, I’m doing this to live a good story with my life. This road trip is a lot of fun and something very much worth doing on it’s own, but still there’s something you can learn from almost every experience you have. Today’s takeaway:
If you want to do something. Try it. See who actually stops you. Chances are, it won’t be anyone. Even if you what you want to do sounds ridiculous…like walking right into a National Monument when it’s “closed”.
I’ll be doing more updates about the road trip here, but if you want to keep up with the road trip shenanigans in real time, you can also follow along on twitter by following me (@joelrunyon), Nate (@whereisnate) and Justin (@justinrunyon) and following our hashtag #wdsroadtrip. Also, be sure to check out Nate’s blog over at NateWalksAmerica.com for his take on what we’re doing. If you’re gonna be in Portland in the next few days, don’t be afraid to say hi.
The Black Hills at Sunrise
awesome sauce!! hey, after your portland adventure…if you go to seattle, do the underground tour. i did it in 2001 (i took 7 trips that year!!) and it was fun. i’ve done the back alley 10:30 PM trip in edinburgh in 1990 too (learning about businesses with my college for 4.5 weeks).
i also highly recommend (although i did it in august) going whitewater rafting at glacier national park in western montana. loved it! i was in the front and actually fell out! haha! another place i loved that was very sporty was sun valley/ketcham, idaho. 🙂 …there were some hotsprings that we biked to (that was also in 1990 so can’t remember specifics).
enjoy your fun crazy driving adventures!! i’ve had plenty driving to and from MN to key west! 🙂
Very cool. We’ve only been on the road a few days and it’s been a blast. Thanks for the suggestions Marina! We’ll check ’em out.
wow, balls to blog about this. awesome!!!
How could I not blog about this? 🙂
I have reported you to the proper authorities. Watch your rear view mirror carefully, they will be approaching soon… 😉
Great pics. I’ve never been there, looks fun.
They caught up to us in Wyoming. I officially have a bone to pick with you Steve :).
Mount Rushmore looks awesome. So iconic!
Hope all’s well with you Joel, what’s your next major challenge?
Dom
Gotta finish this roadtrip first! I’ve got a half-ironman i’m looking to do this fall. Should be fun!
Hahahahaha that shaking footage is hilarious! Great stuff xx
Haha, glad you enjoyed it :).
I’ve tried a lot of things and done things I’m not supposed to but I won’t mess around with National Parks. Did you see what they did to people dancing at the Jefferson Memorial?!
No I didn’t! What did they do? 🙂
Awesome man! I’m glad you get it too. Live life for a good story. Simple and good.
=)
It truly is a great national landmark. Hope you stopped in Wall at Wall Drug when you were up in the Badlands/Black Hills area!
We drove by at night so it was closed. From what I heard, I’m okay with the fact that we didn’t stop 🙂
Awesome job Joel!
Being a trouble maker is actually harder than it looks to most people.
It’s important to get out there and test the waters, challenge authority, and live!
It’s great you’re having so much fun and I can’t wait to see what you do next.
You raided that place like Nicholas Cage from National Treasure!
-Armi
Funny story, we found NC back there. Seems he’s been in hiding after all the bad movies he’s made lately 🙂
Awesome. I’ve found the same message again and again in this world: Most Barriers Only Exist in our Minds.
JSJ
P.S. I just wrote a post about paying off the last of my $30,000 debt. Thanks for the encouragement along the way Joel!
Congrats on the massive accomplishment James! Well done!
I LOVE the Black Hills, but I don’t get to visit them nearly as much as I would like even though I’m just 4.5 hours away.
This summer I should try your way of sneaking into Mt. Rushmore, but I’ll do it by bicycle 🙂
If you want to go to a much more impressive monument which is still in the works, go down toward Custer to the Crazy Horse Monument…this is a truly impossible idea by Korczak and Ruth Ziolkowski which is still in progress. If you want to walk all the way up to the monument, go the first weekend in June, they have the Volksmarch, which takes you a winding 10k up the mountain to the turn around on the hand of Crazy Horse.