Day 52 - Mt Rushmore

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Posted from: Blackhills, SD - Mt. Rushmore Palmer Gultch KOA

Miles driven: 182

Total trip miles: 9,494

With the weather last night and the long day of travel, we did not visit Devils Tower yesterday. We woke up this morning and picked up camp (not nearly as quick as we set up camp yesterday), and drove up to the base of the tower. 

There is a one mile paved simple path, or a three mile longer dirt path. We must be getting to the end of the trip, because we chose the easy path for once. 

As you get closer, the ribs of the tower look much bigger. You can see groups of climbers standing on some of them. This is a very popular rock climbing location. 

To get started, the climbers climb over these fallen rocks at the base. 

Our camper is almost right in the center of this picture. Did I mention that the campground was very close?

Group shot! 

We stopped at the visitor center so the kids could turn in their Junior Ranger booklets. Then we hooked up and headed down the road to the Blackhills. 

We watched this cloud most of the way. It was the kind of cloud you could find endless animals and objects in. I think here it looked like a bear, but right after this it looked like the kangaroo from Horton Hears A Hoo. 

Our drive to the Blackhills was nice and seemed very short compared to yesterday. We saw plenty of motorcycles with Stergis starting in a week. A dark cloud kind of loomed the whole way, and rained as we were driving out of Rapid City towards Mt Rushmore. We set up at the campground while it was sprinkling. 

Once set up, we drove into Hill City to eat dinner then to Mt Rushmore. 

We took a happy picture (above), and then the kids wanted to take a serious presidential picture (below). But it actually just looks like we are all bored or really annoyed. 

The sunset was gorgeous.

The kids were sworn in as Junior Rangers. This ranger was from Florida and here all summer with his wife and kids. 

The sunset sky looked different every time we looked, so I kept snapping pictures. 

Here we are eating ice cream. Now we totally avoided this last time because it sounded like a goofy tourist trap thing. Apparently Jefferson had a recipe for vanilla ice cream. So they sell "Jefferson Vanilla" ice cream as well as many other normal flavors. The Jefferson ice cream cost more, but we decided to try it. It was AWESOME!!! So I recommend stopping for vanilla ice cream if you visit. 

We stayed for the night lighting show. We gave the kids a choice and Grace really wanted to stay, so we did. The "show" is mostly a cool inspirational-type video, the whole audience singing America the Beautiful and the National Anthem, and turning on lights to light up the faces. After this, they invite all past and present members of the military to the stage to honor them. We are glad we stuck around. 

God blessed America.