点评:My son and I drove up the road from our campground to check out Rapid City on one of the evenings on our recent visit. I had read about the City of Presidents statue tour and wanted to check it out. We ended up walking around several city blocks and were pretty impressed. The presidential statues are cool and interesting; there are QR codes on each statue if you choose to do a self-guided visual tour on your phone. We also sort of accidentally stumbled onto the Main Street square plaza, which features a nice big water fountain and splash pad area for kids to play in which my son enjoyed. Also has a lot of outdoor seating/picnic benches to sit and rest. We also treated ourselves to ice cream at the Silver Lining Creamery adjacent to the square - delicious locally made ice cream! Reminded me a lot of our eCremery or Coneflower Ice Cream in Omaha so it was a nice reminder of home. I had coffee flavor with a waffle cone while my son enjoyed his fruit sorbet cone.
There appears to be a nice variety of restaurants in downtown Rapid City as well, though we did not partake other than the ice cream. There also seemed to be a good variety of bars, antique/collectible shops, book stores and a tourism information office. The coolest thing I was NOT expecting to see in Rapid City of all places was the "Art Alley" in one of the alleyways downtown featuring graffiti/graphic art on the sides and backs of the buildings, on dumpsters, electric poles etc. that was actually quite cool. The art is allowed with a pre-approved permit from the city.
Overall if you want to spend a nice evening out after a day in the Black Hills or Badlands in a more urban setting without a lot of crowds and traffic, downtown Rapid City is definitely a hidden gem!
翻译:最近一次旅行时,有天晚上我和儿子开车从露营地出发,去看看拉皮德城。我之前读过关于“总统雕像巡礼”的介绍,便想去实地看看。结果我们沿着街区走了一圈,印象十分深刻。这些总统雕像既酷炫又有趣;每座雕像旁都设有二维码,如果你想用自己的手机进行自助导览的话,扫描即可。我们还算是无意间发现了主街上的广场呢。那里有一个很大的喷泉,还有供孩子们玩耍的水上游乐区,我儿子玩得乐不思归。此外,这里还有很多户外座椅和野餐长椅,可以坐下来休息。我们还在广场旁的Silver Lining Creamery买了冰淇淋——都是当地制作的美味冰淇淋!这让我想起了奥马哈的eCremery或Coneflower Ice Cream,真是一种对家乡的美好回忆啊。我选了咖啡味的冰淇淋,配的是华夫饼筒;而我儿子则喜欢水果雪芭口味的冰淇淋。拉皮德城的市中心似乎也有各式各样的餐厅,不过除了冰淇淋外我们没品尝其他食物。那里还有不少酒吧、古董/收藏品店、书店,以及一个旅游信息中心。最让我意想不到的是,在拉皮德城的某条小巷里竟然有个“艺术小巷”——街道两旁及建筑物背面、垃圾桶甚至电线杆上都布满涂鸦和图形艺术作品。真的相当酷呢。只要获得市里预先批准的许可,就可以进行艺术创作。
总的来说,如果你在黑山或恶地游览了一整天后,想在人群稀少、交通也不拥堵的都市环境中度过一个愉快的夜晚,那么拉皮德城的市中心绝对是个隐藏的宝藏之地!