gotta love "national treasure"

we spent a good bit of our easter this year in the car.  after we packed up and headed out of our room at the hotel monaco, we found this fun little hot cocoa bar set up on our way to the lobby:

breakfast came courtesy of the starbucks drive-thru just before we gassed up the ol' hyundai and hit the road.  we had a good 9-hour drive in front of us, so we were anxious to get started.  and then i remembered that i'd brought some stuff to give to the bean for easter.  of course, i wasn't completely prepared and ended up presenting her with it in a super classy target shopping bag.  heh.  luckily, she didn't care one bit as she dug right in to look at it all.

i hadn't really bought a ton of stuff, but i think i managed to hit all her favorite things - slime, fun-smelling hand lotion, a book, peeps (which was really the only thing she'd been asking for anyway).  going through everything kept her occupied and entertained for a good amount of time before she decided to take a nap.  the hub was happy to drive and drive and drive while she slept and i read books and magazines.  and we enjoyed all of the scenery we drove through as we made our way out of utah and through wyoming on our way to south dakota.

i somehow missed getting a decent shot of the "welcome to wyoming" sign (just like i'd missed the one for utah, and arizona, and nevada), but i at least got this one:

did i ever tell you where we were actually going?

my love for the "national treasure" movies had led us here.  despite the fact that no one else shares my affinity, the hub and the bean were just as excited to see this landmark as i was.

it cost us $10 for a parking pass, which is good for a full year but is tied to the car you drive in.  so even if we were ever planning on coming back within the next twelve months, the pass wouldn't do us a bit of good since we were in a rental.  womp womp.  oh well, no biggie.

we stopped in the gift shop first, and while the hub took care of the pesky business of paying for our items the bean was happy to go outside and play in the snow.

and then...there it was!

we sat there and gazed up at the mountain for awhile, and then the bean said "so do you know who all of the presidents are up there?"  the hub and i were both quick to answer with "washington, lincoln, roosevelt..." and then i'm super ashamed to admit that we were totally stumped on the fourth one.  muahahahahaha.  we actually ended up looking it up on our phones and then dying with laughter over the ridiculousness of it all.

and then we were kind of over it - you can really only stare at it for so long.  and i was actually kind of surprised at how small it was.  it always looks so much bigger in movies and on tv - rather like my thoughts on the mona lisa a few years ago.

as we headed out towards our cabin for the night, i got the hub to stop so i could take a picture at a sign we'd passed on the way in.  except that we somehow ended up stuck in the snow as he tried to make the u-turn, and couldn't get out of there until a good samaritan happened to pull up behind us to help out.  he and the hub pushed and pushed at the front of the car while i put it in reverse and tried to ease our way out of there.  and luckily, it didn't take too long before we finally pulled it out of there.

all that just so i could get this shot:

our cabin wasn't too far away.  it was part of the KOA campground:

and it was here that we caught our first glimpse of the deer that roamed the grounds.

home for the night!

the fun continues...