Needles Highway:
Mt. Rushmore:
Saturday Night, August 22nd
We are driving across South Dakota on I-90 right now. Time jumped ahead to central time, so it is now 9:50 pm. It's dark outside and quiet in the cabin. Kenna is sleeping on the dinette-turned-bed and Erika is laid out on the sofa. I don't think either one of them is asleep, but after failing to get them to nap today, I am relieved to have them both quiet.
We have been visiting the Black Hills area of South Dakota the past couple of days. Thursday we stopped at Devil's Tower on the east side of Wyoming, as we drove from BIllings, Montana to Custer, South Dakota. Mark really wanted to see Devil's Tower as it was featured in the Steven Spielberg film, "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind"; I had never heard of it before. We learned that it was the first place to be deemed a National Monument and that it was known by Native Americans as Bear Lodge, but was documented on a map of one of the first explorers as Devil's Tower and that was the name that stuck.
We got settled into the RV park in Custer a little after 9 pm Thursday night. The next morning we woke to find the 32 oz honey container had fallen out of the top cupboard and broke open on the floor. So Mark & I spent the first 20 minutes of the day trying to coax all the honey off of the floor. Afterwards, Mark logged into work while I played Supermom, getting the kids breakfast and cleaning up after them. Fortunately, the RV park was really nice and the kids happily played outside. I am struggling to find time to get my work done, so am brainstorming ways to get a jumpstart on the day before everyone wakes up. The main challenge with this idea, which I didn't realize before we owned an RV, is that even with 4 jacks on the ground to make it level, the RV bounces with every move made, whether walking or turning over in the bed, giving away my early rising.
Friday afternoon we drove through the tourist-oriented town of Custer on our way to Mt. Rushmore via the "Needles Highway." The "Needles Highway" is a twisty, turvy road that is really narrow. The huge boulders on it were amazing, and even moer amaziing was the tunnels built into them, some as narrow as 8 feet wide by 12 feet high! Thank goodness we made the drive in our pickup instead of the RV. While we wouldn't have attempted it in our RV, were were surprised to see a full size tour bus coming through from the other direction - we noticed that the mirrors on both sides were all scratched up, indicating just how tight the tunnels are!
Along the way to Mt. Rushmore, we saw many different animals including burros (donkeys), wild turkeys, bison, deer and mountain goats, making the long drive a little more interesting. Mt. Rushmore was striking as I had only seen it in postcards, and so didn't realize how far up the mountain it was. We attempted to go to Crazy Horse for their laser light show, but after going to the RV to get warmed clothes and jackets, as the temperature had dropped with the sun going down, we were a few minutes too late to get in.
So we went to Crazy Horse today on our way out of town. Unfortunately, the visit did not go too well. To begin with, Erika refused to sit correctly in her car seat, and after Mark corrected her, she carried on crying and pouting for about 45 minutes. I went in to the exhibit hall with the other kids while Mark waited outside with Erika for her tantrum to pass. Just after the kids & I went inside, they had a movie showing how Crazy Horse was built. Unfortunately, our cell phones didn't work so I had no way to tell Mark where we were, and he ended up missing the movie. And last but not least, we had planned to take the Mickelson Trail, a rails-to-trails bike trail, the 5 miles back from Crazy Horse to Custer. Unfortunately, it got too hot for our comfort so we chose not to do it. All in all, Crazy Horse was interesting & I could have spent a lot more time seeing all the exhibits, but I was disappointed that the majority of the focus was on the sculptor and his family instead of the Native Americans and Crazy Horse in particular.
We left Custer around 2:30 pm, and hit Wall Drug in Wall, SD around 4:30 pm. I had never heard of it before, but they have quite a history and I got to read up on it while we were driving. Seems there was a young pharmacist who moved to Wall with his young wife and child just after the depression. They tried to make a living for nearly 5 years, but were on the brink of calling it quits when the wife hit upon the idea to advertise free water to the tourists travelling to the newly opened Mt. Rushmore exhibit. That moment of inspiration led to a $5M year business in the middle of absolutely nowhere! The kids enjoyed it; Mark & I tolerated it.
We plan to dry camp (not hookup to an RV site) in or close to Sioux Falls, South Dakota tonight and continue on towards Minneapolis tomorrow.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
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