Thursday, 9/28/19

 The hole in the center of this picture is the original entrance to these caves!

 box work cave ceiling

 Like a horse, when a buffalo raises its tail, its about to...

 Up early today, hoping to see wildlife in Wind Cave National Park, but only saw the same three deer, a doe and her fawns, that we saw last night.  I took a short hike over the hill that overlooked our campsite and enjoyed the rolling grasslands that dominate this park.  After breakfast we packed up and headed to the visitor center to book a tour of the wind cave.  We were able to catch the first tour of the day, a 75 minute tour that descended more than 400 feet into North America’s most extensive cave system.  It was only 54° in the caves so we dressed in down to stay comfortable.

These caves do not contain the water that most familiar ones like Carlsbad or Meramec Caverns do; no stalagtites or stalagmites.  Instead these caverns have formations called boxwork, which is lattice-like but as fragile as potato chips. It was very pretty but  not easy to photograph.

Once we finished drove through Wind Cave NP, enjoying the prairie dogs and buffalo, through Custer State Park which seemed like an extension of Wind Cave, and onto Mount Rushmore, which is only about 40 miles form Wind Cave NP.

Driving through Custer State Park we wondered if there is the same controversy around naming towns and parks after Custer as the South is experiencing with towns and parks and monuments that honor Robert E. Lee.

The monument is located in the town of Keystone, which we drove through before getting to the monument.  The town was incredibly tacky, filled with every kind of souvenir and novelty shop you can imagine.  It made Lake George, Long Lake, or Alex Bay, New York, look like Aspen!

The monument was awesome and well worth the trip.  The road to the monument is uphill and winding.  You don’t see the monument until you’re right on top of it and then BAM, there it is…four of our greatest presidents, and there’s room for Trump too.  We had lunch, a hamburger for Joni and a bison burger for me, at the cafeteria right below the monument,  and we were lucky to get a front row table on the outside terrace, so we just saw and enjoyed the sculpture for quite a while.  The National Park Service again proved its value in preserving our wonderful national resources; everything was very well done.

Leaving Rushmore we drove through Custer State Park which was filled with buffalo, through Rapid City, onto the Badlands National Park which was less than 100 miles away.  We arrived around 4 pm and were immediately struck by this park’s unique qualities.  The visitor center was still open, so we toured that facility and then headed to our campsite which was barren, like the Badlands, but has incredible views.  Bacon & eggs for dinner, and we closed the day enjoying the stars under these incredible big skies!