Exploring Rapid City, South Dakota: Art Alley, Chapel in the Hills, food, & presidents!

This week we're exploring South Dakota with South Dakota Tourism to show y'all the best hikes, things to do, places to see, and delicious food to eat all across this beautiful and diverse state. For the last few days we have chased waterfalls and spearfish canyon, hiked to the highest peak east of the Rockies, walked among crazy rocks at Custer State Park, made some furry friends, and finally saw the iconic Mount Rushmore. But today we're trading our hiking boots for a city adventure in Rapid City. So far on this trip we've been hanging out in the Black Hills National Forest region of South Dakota and just to the east is the city of Rapid City which is the second largest city in South Dakota. And there's quite a few unique things to do here in Rapid City including some things from both Berlin and Norway. So today we're going to check out the popular sites and eat some delicious food. Rapid City is nicknamed the City of Presidents. They have life-size statues of every former president scattered all around downtown on street corners and on the sidewalks. I'm with my guy Thomas Jefferson and I'm helping him sign the Declaration of Independence. We're playing a fun game where we try to guess which president it is from like across the street. It's really hard but Adam's doing a really good job so far. We found a fellow Texan here in South Dakota. LBJ. Who do you think that is? Gerald Ford. We've only seen three or four of them and I've gotten LBJ, James Madison. I'm pretty sure that's Gerald Ford over there. Oh and Eisenhower. I got Eisenhower too. So I think I've only missed one so far. So I got this one wrong. I thought from across the street it looked like Gerald Ford but William Jefferson Clinton. Okay I think this one's Ford. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's the OG George Washington. Or OP. OP. The OP. That was wrong. Dude was he really that tall? He's a tall man. Now this one's gonna be tough. It's these ones in the 1800s that I'm gonna get lost on. Oh you'll know. You know who this guy is. I do know? Yeah you know this one. He's a big time. Can you give me a hint? His name starts the same letter as your name. His first name? His last name starts with a J. AFJ. Oh Andrew Jackson. Nope. Andrew Johnson. What a history buff. I was gonna guess Ronald Reagan on this one but I doubted myself. I'm gonna guess Herbert Hoover. Nope. William H. Taps. Wrong. All right we found one of the more famous ones. Another one on the Mount Rushmore. Teddy. Something really cool to check out in downtown Rapid City is Art Alley. It started in 2003 when people started just putting canvas artwork on the walls and over time it evolved. People actually painting, spray painting, doing graffiti on the walls and now it's this whole strip of alley with just tons of really cool artwork. Kind of reminds us a little bit of Freak Alley in Boise and we always just love when cities have graffiti and artwork. It just adds a cool pop of color against like all the brick buildings. So if I had to pick which artwork was my favorite in this whole alley I think I'm gonna have to go with this one. I'm not sure the significance of it or anything but I think it's just really well done and the tree's cool and I guess these are moons and stuff. I don't know it's really pretty and just speaks to me I guess. So shout out to Pope Christopherson. You did a really good job and then these two are really nice too. I really like those as well. I think this one's my favorite. I just love how colorful it is and I just love the flowers and the design. If you watched our vlog yesterday we had a very big day and we had a very late night and this morning we're up early for sunrise so coffee is much needed and it's actually our second one of the day. So we came to this spot called Pure Bean. It's a local roaster located in downtown Rapid City. I got a cardigan latte which has cardamom, vanilla, and black sea salt. I got what's called a dirty south so this is a cold brew. It has coriander and chicory syrup with cinnamon and brown sugar. Oh that's good. This is good. I was afraid it was gonna be too sweet but it's like the perfect level of sweetness. But then this has these other little spices in it. Good choices. We're gonna drink our coffee as we drive because next up we're gonna go see a little piece of Norway here in Rapid City. Just 15 minutes from downtown Rapid City is the chapel in the hills which is the exact replica of the Borgen Stavkirk church in Norway. The original version of this church was built in the 1100s. That's what 900 years old? Crazy. And part of the reason why it's lasted so long is the way it's built. I think I read that the only parts in the whole building that are metal that are not wood are the hinges and the door handles on the doors. So they keep together all the joints and everything. I'm not sure if you can tell with with wood. It's all wood so the wood expands and contracts with the weather so it can breathe and exhale as the weather changes and it'll all stay together and sturdy. This building behind me that has a grass roof on top which is really cool is called a I think that might be how you say it. So the chapel is an exact replica of a chapel in Norway but this building was actually built in Norway and then brought to Rapid City and reassembled which is really crazy. I would have never thought that there would be like something's from Norway here in Rapid City of all places. There's also a little museum you can check out. You can't go in right now due to COVID but normally you can. It's pretty small on the inside. There are a bunch of mannequins and when I first walked up I thought they were real people and it really scared me. So if a Norwegian church in Rapid City isn't unique and random enough there's also a couple pieces of the Berlin Wall and two tank traps. So the story I read behind this was there was an exhibition going around the United States with some of this and a local businessman saw it when it was nearby so he thought it would be cool to have in the city so he bought it and here it is. We're continuing our international experience here in Rapid City by eating Indian food for lunch. When you think of South Dakota or Rapid City you probably don't think of Indian food being like the go-to cuisine but when we were researching where to eat in Rapid City the best food we kept seeing this place called Everest Cuisine coming up. Everyone was saying don't judge a book by its cover. It's kind of a little bit of a hole in the wall spot. When we got there you easily could just drive by it. We couldn't even really find it right away off the road but everyone said they have amazing Indian food and we love Indian food. We rarely eat Indian food on the vlog so we figured might as well just try it. Oh man I am so hungry and this is torture. This is smelling so good. Oh it's like a flavor explosion in here already. So we got chicken tikka masala which is a creamy like tomato based kind of a sauce. We've had this before and we know it's gonna be pretty good so we've got high expectations and then this is a lamb curry and so this is an exotic blend of curry spices, onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, and like a medium thick sauce. Looks so freaking good. You get a ton of rice with it but then what we're also super pumped about is this garlic naan bread. You can't you know get Indian food without getting some naan bread. Oh my gosh. We also want to point out that the food is still piping hot. Normally when we're vlogging and we're trying to film the food by the time we actually get to eat it's not that hot anymore but the container burned my hand when I took it out of the packaging. It also was the heaviest bag of takeout food ever so I'm so pumped. They give you a boatload of rice. First of all you take your rice. It's like that long grain rice. Heck yeah. All right I'll go with the lamb curry first. Oh this is like big chunks in there. We're gonna need to just just go for it. Oh yeah. This looks so good. Wow that is so freaking good. You can really taste that exotic blend of spices as they say. You can taste the curry, the garlic, everything else that's in there that I can't name right now. But man the sauce is so good. The lamb is nice and soft and stewed. It's got a little bit of chew but it's very nice and tender. It tastes really great. The rice is of course great and then also when Catherine was ordering the food I heard her say uh medium and so I was like what is that and she said the spice level and she said that they uh they bring the heat so I hear. So we got the medium like you said and it's kind of spicy. I'm kind of feeling it. Oh yeah that has really really good flavor and the lamb just breaks apart super easily. It's so soft. I had read we didn't know what to get. We really struggled figuring out what to get. We love tikka masala so that was kind of a given but I read a lot of good reviews about this lamb curry and people said the lamb was just really soft and they were totally right. This is absolutely delicious. I think before covid they actually have like a lunch buffet. I don't know exactly how that works but that was kind of the process at Everest Cuisine but now they're just doing takeout only but I would love I don't know if you just pay like a flat fee then you get to eat whatever but a buffet of this would be the dream. This is so hot and my hand is on fire. Oh that is so good. Kind of a warm day so eating a hot meal right now is a little warm but wow that is so creamy and delicious. I love tikka masala. I just love the creaminess of it and the chicken it's in these like huge chunks but it's really really soft. You can just easily like break it apart into smaller pieces. Oh it's got the heat. I think the medium is the perfect level for us. You get just enough to feel it but not enough to overpower the food. Alright let's get a shot of this naan. Oh that looks so good. If you can smell that man. So good. Nice and chewy. It's gonna be really good to dip in this sauce but it's got you know like a toasted like garlic on it and I'm sure kind of butter and I don't know if that's basil or parsley or cilantro or what. This is so good. Here we go. That's the way to do it right there. I feel so full. Me too. Despite our best attempts with our giant appetite and our bottomless pit we call our stomach we could not finish the food. It was just a lot of food so we'll just save some for later. But it was a really fun day getting to explore Rapid City and kind of get a change of pace. We've been doing a lot of hiking and outdoor stuff so it was nice to give our legs a little bit of a break and just kind of see the sights in the city. Similar to our experience in South Dakota so far Rapid City was very unique. Unique is kind of our word of South Dakota. Everything just is different than you'd expect kind of takes you by surprise just kind of like huh I would have never thought that would be here. And with like the Norway Chapel and the Berlin Wall and the awesome Indian food I don't know it was just a really fun day. It's also really close to the stuff that we've been doing last couple days so if you wanted to come here to have some more amenities or stay in like a small town kind of a feel this would be a great home base for that. But that's going to do it for us here in Rapid City. We are going to continue our journey east through South Dakota and tomorrow we're going to visit Badlands National Park. It's going to be bad. Sorry I had to do it.