One of the items on my life bucket list is to travel to as many national parks as possible. I was able to travel to South Dakota where in the western part of the state are the Badlands, Black Forest, Mt. Rushmore, and Crazy Horse Monument. South Dakota didn’t disappoint as every mile of it was beautiful.

It is easy to forget when visiting any popular national park, site seeing city, or beach ,that even though it is for tourist, people live around those spots, some of them their entire lives. As we were leaving the town of Custer just past Mt. Rushmore I spotted a small quiet place off the road, a small cemetery. There were no giant statues, or handmade water features. There were, however, plenty of trees, unique and individual headstones, small winding dirt roads, flowers spotted throughout, and it was beautifully maintained. The cemetery was in a small valley off the mountain and it was a reminder that this is a community of people who live their entire lives in the midst of Mt. Rushmore and were laid to rest with much less fanfare.