Saturday was the day we headed to Mt. Rushmore, about 30 miles south of Rapid City, SD. With a stop for gas, it took us about an hour to get there. On the way we saw this neat bridge and couldn't resist a picture.
Shortly thereafter we spotted George Washington through the trees and knew we were close. There were lots of people so we took some pictures, looked around in the visitors center, checked out the gift shop, and left. When we got back to the van, we discovered the small crack in the windshield (due we believe to some gravel in one of the construction sites in E. Wyoming) had now grown to almost two feet in length! That repair will be one of the first orders of business when we get back to PA.
After leaving Mt. Rushmore, we headed towards Custer State Park via the Iron Mountain Road. That has to be one of the most interesting roads in the US because it has many switch backs both ascending and descending the mountain, so-called pigtail bridges, and narrow, low-height tunnels. Signs tell you to sound horn, so the entire way through the tunnel we kept honking, even though in some cases it was clearly evident no one was coming from the other direction. This road is clearly a favorite of the motorcycle riders!
On the ascent and decent, we noticed many, many piles of brush. We later learned that, unlike Yellowstone where things are left to Nature's devices, in South Dakota they clear out the underbrush and dead/dying trees to hopefully reduce the spread of fire. What we thought were firestarters are actually fire preventers.
Shortly after we got to the bottom of the mountain, we saw a number of cars stopped along the road and some were basically surrounded by burros. The info we had was the burros have learned how to get food from the tourists. One or two will stand in the road and block traffic while the others "beg" for treats at the car windows.
Not much further along we came to the Custer State Park sign and the ticket booth. With hopes of seeing mountain goats, we decided to drive the wildlife loop which required a ticket ($6 per person). We ate lunch at the visitor's center while watching a bull bison munch grass across the street. Then the rains came!
Nevertheless, we started the wildlife loop drive with optimism. We spotted several antelope, whitetail deer, and turkeys even though the pouring rain made visibility poor. Finally we came upon a rather large herd of bison. Our impression was that these bison were smaller and more scraggly looking then the ones we had seen in Yellowstone. We also saw the pens where the bison are herded during the annual roundup. Custer checks health and then sells excess bison to maintain a manageable herd in the park.
We went the length of the park and never saw a mountain goat! So we decided to head toward the Wind Cave. As we exited Custer State Park, a herd of about eight whitetail deer was spotted not far off the road. Not much further on, we spotted two more wild turkeys moving through the grass. The goats must not have wanted to get wet!
At Wind Cave, we decided to take the Natural Entrance Tour which lasts about 1 and a quarter hours. The tour starts at the exact location two men discovered air being expelled from the cave. The tour then leads down into the cave so that after 300 steps, you are about 200 feet underground and the end of the tour. This cave was different than any we had ever been in before. Normally we expect to see stalactites and stalagmites, but this cave had very few. Also, the caves we've been in before generally had large rooms. Wind Cave is more like walking through fissures in the rock. Several larger rooms were seen, but none were on the same scale as other caves we've visited. The lighting was extremely subdued and pictures just did not turn out well. Even flash did not produce good pictures. The return to the surface was via elevator (we were glad we didn't have to climb back up those 300 steps).
By that time, we were both tired. So we took the fast way back to Rapid City, found a Pizza Hut, and had a good pizza for dinner. Got back to Sturgis about 8 PM so we turned in so we'd be ready for the morning when we plan to visit Wall Drug and the Badlands.
No comments:
Post a Comment