Wednesday – Mt. Rushmore, Jewel Cave, Custer and Custer Park
Day 2 of our South Dakota trip started off with a grab & go breakfast from the hotel, since the free hot breakfast has been outlawed. This was much better than what I was expecting as the last trip I took had no breakfast anywhere in town. We first made our way to Mount Rushmore.
Mount Rushmore
I had been to Mount Rushmore as a kid (we’re talking at least 40 years ago) and all but one thing had changed. At that time, there was a much smaller parking lot, a lot of history and a museum. I also remember the Presidential Trail (the hiking trail that takes you to the base of the mountain) was closed. Guess what? The trail was closed again today, as was the walk way of flags and the museum. The good news was it would be reopening for Trump’s visit (July 3rd) for the limited crowd that was invited for the event.
We didn’t let that ruin things though! We toured what we could and finished off with ice cream. Emma earned a Jr. Ranger badge and we purchased several overpriced souvenirs and moved on to our next adventure with plans to return for the night show.
Jewel Cave
Next, we made our way to Jewel Cave. This site is on a twisty road about 35 miles away from Mt. Rushmore. On this road, we passed a sign that warned of a bighorn sheep crossing right before a twist in the road. Just around this twist – and I mean within 30 seconds of passing the sign – there were two bighorn sheep walking beside the road. I would swear one of them looked at me wanting to say “I’m walkin’ heeah!’ in a New York accent.
Jewel Cave has a very nice visitor’s center. A very young ranger bid us greetings with a nod as we passed him upon entrance to the parking lot. He looked all of 7 years old, rode a bike and donned a Park Ranger’s hat.
The center itself was practically empty with only 2 or 3 cars in the lot at any one time. The exhibits were interesting documenting the exploration of the cave. Water had eroded away soluble minerals within the harder rock formations to form the cave. It recounted the history and spoke of the critters and other scientific phenomena that occurred in the cave.
Sadly, we couldn’t tour the cave because it was closed. Emma didn’t let that stop her from earning another Jr. Ranger badge! Having done everything we could at the cave, we journeyed onward – waving to the ever vigilant guardian of the parking lot on our way out.
Custer, SD
As we motored back through Custer, we stopped at the Mt. Rushmore Brewing Company for a late lunch. Emma and I shared some chipotle-mesquite rubbed wings, while Cooper had chicken tenders and Amy ordered a cheese pizza and a flight of some of the beers they brewed on site. The food was delicious- the beer was definitely home brew. I wouldn’t say it was bad, but I don’t like super hoppy beers much, and they were definitely proud of their hops.
Custer State Park
We ventured back in the direction of Mt. Rushmore, bit turned to take a driving tour through Custer State Park where Cooper very much wanted to see a bison. We traveled the very pretty landscape for some time and were about to exit the park when I decided we should backtrack a bit and drive up Needles Highway. This turned out to be a very good choice!
Needles Highway made the twists and turns to Jewel Cave look like a kiddie ride. This road takes you through the incredible rock formations that litter the park and make it so beautiful. We finished this drive by exiting the park near Sylvan Lake where we used the facilities and decided to go on a quick hike. I’ve never seen such an amazing area in my life!
As we were getting back in the car to start heading back to Rapid City, I heard a very large jet passing nearby. I have heard a lot of big jets over the years and can recognize if it’s a fighter or a bigger jet. This one was bigger but wasn’t a passenger plane or a cargo plane. It sounded very powerful, but I could never find it in the sky.
Back to Mount Rushmore
We continued on, exiting the park and making our way back to Keystone which is right down the hill from Mt. Rushmore. We had already planned to stop for another t-shirt for Emma, but we had no idea how quickly things had changed since we passed through this morning.
At the entrance to Mtount Rushmore there were dozens of lighting trucks, COWs (Cellsites On Wheels), rental trucks, Forrest service and other trucks lining the roads and other areas. The crowd control had set up construction cones and barrels in the road. Entrepreneurs had constructed temporary buildings to sell Trump souvenirs at the bottom of the hill. At the bottom of the hill we saw a large bus covered with Trump pictures and silliness (for better lack of a word) parked in front of a strip-mall. After seeing these changes, we were happy we chose to do Rushmore today instead of Thursday after seeing these changes.
Keystone
We finished off the day with a ride down an alpine slide at Rushmore Tramway Adventures in Keystone. I think Cooper was being super cautious as this was the first time she had ever been able to do something like this completely unsupervised. We all had fun though. Emma had caught up with her cart going down the hill, and so did the person behind Emma. It was all good though and I’m proud of Cooper for doing it.
Blue Angels
We took off up the highway heading back to Rapid City. Before we were a mile out of Keystone, I looked out the window to my left to see several fighter jets heading right to us! I quickly pulled over and recognized them as (and I always hear their old announcer’s duo-tone voice in my head when I see them) “THE BLUE ANGELS, flying high above in A CLASSIC FORMATION as they streak across the sky!” We drove another mile or so up the road when we saw them again. This time they were accompanied by two B-1 bombers – these were the jets I couldn’t identity at the lake. When we made it to the hotel, we saw them a third time, then could see the B-1’s coming in to land at the Air Force base up the road.
Day’s End
When we returned to the hotel, we found there were now at least 30 government vehicles from multiple services now. We also found that they were sealing rooms after they cleaned them. Weird stuff that you wouldn’t normally see In the world.
Today was an incredible day! The things we saw (even if we didn’t see a bison) and did will live in our memories for a long time.
Tomorrow we head to the Badlands to look for prairie dogs and jackalopes to finish out our exploration of South Dakota. Have a great night!
Thank you,
Colby