This is my favorite campground yet
An authentic 1908 Hupmobile (they say) (Team.Net folks will understand why I took the picture)
What it will look like someday
Getting out was a chore (darned cows!)
These are the donkeys that attacked me (sorry about the quality)
This doesn't do it justice -- it's gorgeous at night
I woke up this morning after a very sound sleep near the Badlands National Park. As you know already, I drove through last night, but my goal was to get to the campground, not to sightsee! I had kind of wanted to get up early enough to take part in the campground home-cooked breakfast (I was finally starved after the previous night's stomach issues), but I slept in just a little too long. They only serve from 8am to 9am, and I didn't get out there 'til 9:30. Oh well. I needed the sleep.
I plotted a route out towards Rapid City that took me through the Badlands to Wall, SD, the home of the famous Wall Drug. The options were to head back to I-90, or to take the curvy road through the park all the way to Wall. I took the latter option.
It's hard to describe the Badlands. Basically in the middle of this enormous grassy prairie, there are these sandy, water-eroded mountains. Like Arches, the apparently unnatural formations just pop up in the middle of the otherwise somewhat normal-looking landscape. But this wasn't nearly as awe-inspiring as Arches, at least not to me. Still, worth the visit. And the campground, the Badlands KOA, is by far my favorite so far, mostly because the owners were so nice and accomodating (and funny!)
Next stop: Wall Drug. Another thing that's kind of hard to describe. Basically back in the '30s, a pharmacist bought this drugstore in this tiny, remote town, and business was awful. It occurred to his family that if they offered free ice water to all of those Model As driving out to the Black Hills, they'd get some people to come into the store. So, they did. Today, the town is a huge tourist attraction, and Wall Drug sells absolutely everything (but mostly tourist trinkets). Still, I had lunch there at their soda fountain counter, and bought a refrigerator magnet. The "store" itself, which is really a whole bunch of stores occupying an entire city block, is huge. In the "backyard" there are all sorts of funny places to take pictures of your kids, and a huge collection of antique photos from the area. I think it's actually worth the stop. Lunch was only so-so though.
After that, on to Rapid City and the Black Hills. There are tons of attractions in this area, the most famous of which is Mt. Rushmore. But before that, I decided to stop at a cave tour near Rapid City. This was a crystal cave, called that because there are crystals growing on almost every surface inside. We went 250 feet down or so. In a lot of ways it was like the gold mine tour I did back in Breckenridge, but this time everything was natural, not man-dug -- an important distinction. I took a whole bunch of pictures in the caves, but I don't like them. They were too close-up, and it all looks like this bizarre medical experiment gone wrong. So I won't show them to you. But Dad: there were a couple of natural pools underground, and in one of them, there's a brook trout. Thought you'd appreciate that.
After the cave tour, I went down towards the Black Hills. I wanted to get to the campground first, dump the motorhome, and then cruise around in the BMW. Turns out that I had to drive right past Mt. Rushmore to get to the campground, but I didn't stop. The road was pretty hilly and twisty (but wide), so it wasn't all that much fun in the motorhome. But in the BMW I thought I could have some fun here :-)
Got down to the campground, checked in and hooked up, and unloaded the BMW. After a quick call to Mom and Dad to try to figure out where they are going to join me (looks like Dad will join me on my last leg back towards Massachusetts, and Mom will join me from MA down to PA), I headed on out.
First stop: The Crazy Horse Memorial. It was about 5pm by the time I got there, but it was still plenty open. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a privately-funded (despite having offers of millions from the US Government) memorial to Crazy Horse, the famous American Indian leader. It is primarily an enormous statue of Crazy Horse sitting on his horse. It's so huge that it has taken 50 years of work so far, and the only recognizable part of the memorial is the face, which was unveiled only a year ago. The face is so huge that all four faces on Mt. Rushmore are smaller. The entire statue, when complete, will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high. You can't actually get all that close to what's been done (after all, they are doing a lot of blasting), but you can see it just fine. There is a 1/34th scale model of the statue at the visitors center so you can get a feel for what it will finally look like when done.
After that, I wanted to head back to Mt. Rushmore to catch the lighting ceremony, which was supposed to start at 8:00. Looked like I had plenty of time, so I did a quick drive down to Custer, a small town nearby, where there was an interesting-sounding item in the AAA guides: the Flintstones Village. Naturally, it's a kid's attraction, but they apparently had built an entire town of Bedrock, and I thought it would be cool to get a picture of me driving Fred's car.
So, I got down to Custer, and found the place, but they are closed for the season. Oh well. Had dinner at a little sandwich shop in town. There were some high school-aged kids hanging out there, talking about what they were going to do tonight. Sheesh. What do you do in a town that small? I grew up in a small town, but not anywhere near this small (Sudbury then was 14,000 people -- I'd guess that Custer must have less than 3,000, but who knows?), and I was close to a metropolitan area. It was amusing. It sounded like they knew every restaurant within 30 miles though.
Then I headed to Mt. Rushmore. I decided to take a different route than I'd taken to get there, just to see some more roads. It looked slightly longer on the map but I thought I had plenty of time. Well, it turns out that this road was a lot twistier than it looked! It even had two 360-degree turns! Really! It wasn't *all* twisty though, but for the 30 miles between Custer and Mt. Rushmore, there weren't too many opportunities to get above 40mph, even in the BMW. In fact, the road took me through the Custer National Park, which I wasn't intending to visit but it was nice to have done.
I really enjoyed the drive. Windy, twisty, smooth roads, maybe 10 other cars for the 30-mile trip ... I've been told by so many people that the Mt. Rushmore area isn't worth visiting because it's so incredibly crowded and the roads are nice but packed ... but those people obviously didn't visit after Labor Day. It was 75 degrees today, sunny, and empty. Very enjoyable. I was a little worried about running into (literally) wildlife. I saw lots of deer, but it was the sign that said, "Buffalo are dangerous, do not approach" that had me nervous. None got in my way though.
The highlight of the drive, other than the drive itself, had to be this moment when I saw a truck parked in a pull-out on the opposite side of the road. There was no sign of anyone in the truck, but there were three horses, or donkeys, or something, just hanging out sniffing at the truck. I went by too fast to stop for a picture, but I thought it would be a good one, so I turned around at the next opportunity (about a mile up the road). As I approached the scene, I expected the animals to run away. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up slowly, headlights on (it was now pretty much sunset), and they wandered over to me! No time to get out of the car, all three of them were all over the car before I had a chance to do anyting. I think they were wild horses, but maybe they were donkeys. It was hilarious! I had one *right* next to me, nose leaving marks right on the driver's side window, its breath fogging up the glass. Similar scene on the passenger side, with the third one, the smallest one (the baby?) just hanging out in front of the car, keeping me from moving it. I was laughing out loud. I didn't know what to make of this! They sure seemed tame enough, but I wasn't about to open the window or the door with the biggest one literally inches from my face. I took a bunch of pictures from inside the car, but didn't use the flash 'cause of the glass, and I'm very disappointed to see that they didn't come out at all. I wish you could all see this, because I was just rolling on the floor (well, not on the floor, the car's not that big).
Anyway, after about 3 or 4 minutes of this stalemate, I composed myself and decided that I needed to move (I wanted to get to Mt. Rushmore before the lighting ceremony!) So, I slowly started to drive forward. The little one obligingly stepped aside, and I pulled forward about 100 feet and turned around, headlights on them. I thought that I'd have time at this point to get out of the car, snap a couple of pictures, and hop back in before they attacked me :-) This time they wandered slowly towards me, but stopped a few feet away. Took some pictures, which came out better, then hopped back in the car and headed to the monument.
The Lighting Ceremony was fantastic. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Mt. Rushmore. First of all, the entrance is amazing. I remember hearing a couple of years back that they'd actually had to build parking garages in front of it because there was so much traffic there, and wasn't that disappointing. Well, let me say that they are very tastefully done. About 10 years ago, about 50,000,000 (that's 50 million) dollars of *private* funds was raised to upgrade the facilities. It's gorgeous. You park, then walk through this little "village" of sorts, down a pinnacled corridor that commemorates the 50 states joining the union, and to the absolutely massive amphitheater. There must have been about 500 people there, but I think it could probably hold 3,000 or more. At first there was a ranger just walking around with a mike, quizzing the audience about the National Parks, National Monuments, and other National Historic Sites. I couldn't believe the depth of his knowledge. He'd ask questions like, "What was the first National Park?" (Yellowstone -- everyone (but me) knew that.) "What was the 2nd?" Silence. Until one guy a few rows in front of me shouted out something that I'd never heard of. He was right, it was some little island in Michigan, which was shortly turned back into a state park. Then, "What National Park commemorates the largest cave in the country?" I got that one! It's Mammoth Caves, in Kentucky. One of my planned stops. For my knowledge, I received a free guide/directory to the National Park System. It's free anyway :-) But it was nice to win something.
At 8pm sharp, he wound up his little quiz, and started the talk. It was really about the history of the National Park system and how the four guys on the mountain related to it. It was actually really interesting! Then they ran a movie on an enormous screen talking about the sculptor and how he chose the four faces to commemorate. Fascinating. I also learned some things: the monument was never actually finished! The sculptor died before it was completed, but they decided that it did a fine job of sending the message it was supposed to send, so they left it alone. It was supposed to show the four men from the waist up. Actually if you look carefully you can see that George Washington has a jacket, but none of the others are sculpted below the neck. It also looks a little like Teddy Roosevelt has only one eye. And the other interesting thing I learned? Thomas Jefferson was supposed to originally be carved to the far left as you face the monument, to Washington's right. And in fact, they made a lot of progress at doing that. But they determined, before they finished his face, that the rock there wasn't suitable. So they blasted away everything they'd completed and started on Jefferson again. That's part of the reason why the spacing between the four faces is so weird.
After the film, they asked everyone to stand and they played the National Anthem while encouraging everyone to sing along (yes, I did). During that they lit the monument, and I must say it was gorgeous with the nearly-full moon behind us, the monument in front of us, and lots and lots of stars in the sky. The pictures didn't come out all that hot, so they don't do it justice. I'll take more during the day tomorrow.
Anyway, after the lighting ceremony, I headed back to the campsite and started typing. Now it's time to do some pictures (I took 41 today, but don't worry, I won't show you all of them :-)
Tomorrow I'll hang around here some more, and probably spend another night while I figure out the rest of the trip. Right now I intend to get to the SCCA Runoffs (that's the road racing National Championships, the sibling to the autocross National Championships that I just competed (and sucked) in), on October 8th and 9th at Mid-Ohio (that's the race track that's located in (go figure) central Ohio). So, with nothing scheduled between now and then, it's a little up-in-the-air. Right now, I'm thinking of heading west to Wyoming, then north to Montana, then east to Wisconsin. Probably from there south to Tennessee and Kentucky, then back north to Mid-Ohio for the runoffs. But, of course, this is all subject to change! I need to spend some time tomorrow figuring it out.