South Dakota Day 2 (Wed. July 7)

Today was a very long day. We spent hours in the car driving scenic routes. All those many hours in the car ended us up right back where we started! We left the campground early in the morning and headed east 5 miles to Mount Rushmore. We spent quite a long time there walking the trail around the monument and attending a presentation about the building of the monument that was really interesting. We then left there and headed south down the Iron Mountain Road scenic trail. This road has several very thin tunnels you must go through. Only one car at a time can pass and most times you can't see if anyone is starting to come through the other way so you must honk before heading in. These tunnels were build purposely so you could see Mount Rushmore framed through them. After the tunnels were built they then put in a road connecting them all. This caused a road that had several very step, windy "pigtail" bridges. Very interesting driving. The Iron Mountain Road brings you to Custer State Park known for their huge bison herd. We headed into the park and down to the Wildlife Loop where we were able to find a rather large group of bison. We were also lucky to see some mountain goats and many deer.

From Custer we continued further down south to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs. This is an active paleontological dig site. Back in the 70s a new development was planned. Upon starting the digging bones were discovered. After some investigation it was found that this was a prehistoric sink hole that was filled with animal remains. It became the largest mammoth research facility. Eventually they built walls and a roof over the dig site and now visitors can tour and watch the work being done. To date they have discovered the remains of up to 55 mammoths along with other prehistoric animals. It was really pretty amazing to see the displays. They actually have left most of the bones where they were found and have dug out enough ground around them so you can really see them.

From Hot Springs we then headed back north to Crazy Horse, a monument of an Indian (Crazy Horse) sitting on his horse which is still a work in progress and will probably remain so for many years to come. This monument is so large that if you took all of Mount Rushmore you could put it into the head of Crazy Horse. It is also being built in the round (a.k.a. 3-D).

On our way to Crazy Horse we passed through Wind Cave National Park. We spent the most amusing part of our whole day driving through this park as we noticed along the way a prairie dog sticking his head up out of his hole. We stopped to take a picture and then realized there were prairie dogs everywhere you turned!!! They were so cute and were chatting quite loudly to us. Conor and Colin got some of the best pictures!!

Then it was back to Mount Rushmore for the lighting of the monument. We did not make it back to the campground until almost 11:00. We were exhausted!!!