MT Rushmore and the Caves
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2008
1
8
12
Trip End
Jul 06, 2008
Hot Springs,
South Dakota,
United States
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
We then headed towards Mt Rushmore. We stopped in Keystone first for some lunch. Keystone is a cute little town. It reminded me some of Gatlinburg, TN but not as big. We had some pizza at a nice little restaurant on the second story with a balcony that overlooked the main drag. The original plan was to go right on to Mt Rushmore, but instead we stopped by the Borglum Historical Center. We took the audio tour and watched the film. Isaiah seemed to really enjoy it which surprised me. Probably because it was an audio tour and not just a walk around a museum.
Kerry with T Rex
I had no idea that Borglum worked in other mediums. When we finally left for Mt Rushmore, the skies had gotten very gray and there was the sound of distant thunder. We drove towards the monument and hit some rain. We pulled into the parking lot and off to the mountains in the left a large bolt of lightning hit. We decided to make our trip very short. We took some photos and went to visitor center. We lucked out and it didn't rain or lightning on us. I don't remember getting so close to the mountain last time we were here. I remember a walk to get to closer which we didn't do. I also don't remember a visitor center just a NPS trailer. In the movie at the Borglum Historical Center, they mentioned that the monument wasn't officially dedicated until 1991. I wonder if what we saw today was being constructed last time we were there.
Then we drove to Jewel Cave National Monument. Just outside the cave, we encountered a landscape with lots of fallen and bare trees. When we got to the cave I asked about it and found out it was from a wildfire back in 2000. I remember the wildfires burning in this area because we were going to go to Yellowstone and instead chose to go to Yosemite because the fires out here were so bad. The ranger said that the fire had been caused by someone's cigarette. One careless action and lots of forest is destroyed and still is after 8 years.
All the tours at Jewel Cave were sold out for the day. We visited the visitor center and book store and just looked around the grounds. Then since we were only about 20 miles away, we drove to the Wyoming border. Wyoming was one of the three states I hadn't yet been to
Isaiah at Mt Rushmore
. So now I've been, but I need to go back since I still need to see Yellowstone. So now I just need to get to Montana and Nebraska. After our little detour, we drove over to Wind Cave National Park. We figured we wouldn't be able to get a tour till tomorrow so we figured we would see about signing up for the next day. Much to our surprise, they had two tours left that weren't filled. So we took the last tour of the day. This gave us time to run into Hot Springs to grab a quick dinner. Wind Cave was pretty interesting. The story goes that a cowboy discovered the cave when he saw some brush blowing but there was no wind. He found a hole that had wind blowing from it. The most interesting formation in the cave was the boxwork. Boxwork in Wind Cave is plentiful, but it is rare to see in other caves.
When we drove back to Hot Springs, the area in National Park was full of prairie dogs. We didn't see them earlier on that same drive, so they must come out later. We then saw some deer. No bison though. We got to the hotel and there was no pool. I can't believe I booked a hotel without a pool. But tomorrow we are going to Evan's Plunge so we will have lots of pool then. I am looking forward to the mineral water.
