Day 53 - Wind Cave National Park

Monday, August 1, 2016

Posted from: Blackhills, SD

Miles driven: 85

Total trip miles: 9,579

When vacationing in the Blackhills, there is an endless list of "must see and do". Wind Cave National Park gets a little lost in the shuffle. We visited this area four years ago. Wind Cave was closed due to a wild fire. We had planned to visit either Wind Cave or Jewel Cave (a national monument), but with Wind Cave closed, reservations for Jewel Cave were booked out several days. So we went to a touristy cave. It was actually pretty good, though we noticed on this trip that it is now closed. 

Wind Cave does not accept online or phone reservations. You must be present to win at this particular cave. So we got up early to catch the first tours. We were told that if you got in an early tour you will usually go with little to no wait, but if you go later you will possibly have a 2 hour wait. 

Our usual picture, but this one cracks me up because at least they honestly put the "curvy road" sign right at the entrance. Noted. 

Taking pictures in caves is tricky. This cave allowed flash photography (most don't because the flash can be disorienting), but still...Caleb was kind enough to demonstrate how hard it is to keep your eyes open when the camera is going crazy with the flash. This was the best picture...yup. The absolute best. Rock on. (pun intended)

Cameron was my poser for this picture. Not bad. The temperature in the cave was in the 50's, so it was comfortable with a sweatshirt.

We gave up taking pictures with people. We took this picture for Matt's sister. She studied mollusks. In this rock is a fossil of a mollusk. A mollusk from the ocean. In a cave. In South Dakota. Science geeks everywhere can feel free to geek out now.

The cave was cool (literally), but young Junior Rangers cannot just stop at the obvious attractions. They must explore beyond the beaten path. This resulted in us taking a short mile long hike through the prairie. Never mind the heat and bugs (both things we had become used to living without in the western states), we hiked through that prairie in full sun like true rangers. (Okay, Mom complained a little...but whatever.) There was a really neat sign/picture on the trail that showed how the cave was laid out below where you were standing. That was interesting...but I didn't think to take a picture. (A bug or heat stroke probably distracted me.)

The prairie flowers were beautiful.

We sat on the front lawn of the visitor center while the kids worked on their Junior Ranger booklets. While we were sitting there, a ranger came along and sat down beside us. He had elk collars with him and a radio scanner. We had seen him out in the field with an antenna earlier and Matt shouted out and asked him what he was doing...We are children of the 80's (Looney Tunes era!), so I totally imagined him turning to us and saying, "Shhhh! I'm hunting wabbits!" No instead, he explained that he was testing his elk collars to make sure they were working properly before putting them back into use.

So now this same ranger is sitting in the grass with us giving a really interesting explanation on how the process works. I know that tracking elk does not sound riveting, but it was truly fascinating. And this guy really knew his stuff. He describes how they catch the elk to collar them. Employees of the National Park Service are not allowed to partake due to the danger. They hire "cowboys" who ride along in a helicopter and jump out to wrangle an elk to the ground. They then have a few seconds to take blood, measurements and put the collar on. Though this sounds a little crazy, it is better for the animals than using tranquilizers.

After all of our adventures (and heat exhaustion...oh and bug bites), the kids earned their Junior Ranger badges. It should be noted that this was the only park where the Superintendent of the National Park, Vidal Davila swore the kids in as Junior Rangers. He was a very kind, patient, quiet and humble man. It was only after he walked away that the lady behind the desk said, "It isn't every day that our Junior Rangers are sworn in by the superintendent." Of course, that was the moment that I realized by pictures didn't come out. So we walked back over to where he was standing and asked if he would pose for one more picture. He seemed happy to do so.

We left Wind Cave and stopped at Crazy Horse Monument. A storm was on the horizon, but we decided to check it out.

It first appeared that it hadn't changed a lot in four years, but as we got closer we could see that quite a bit of the rock had been moved since we were here last.

While we were standing on the deck, it suddenly began to rain and hail. We ran for cover and thankfully it didn't last long.

Grace is just as fascinated with the bead display now as she was four years ago.

The storm passed and we decided to go out to a winery for our last night on the road. It was a beautiful evening, and very hard to believe that this was our last night on the road. We have decided to drive the whole way home tomorrow.

While standing in line to purchase a glass of wine, a lady standing behind me looked at me and said, "Crazy Happy Lifestyle?" I was a bit shocked and said, "What?" She looked embarrassed and said never mind, but I said. "No, I meant, that's my blog!" She got an excited look on her face and said that she had been reading about our trip along the way. I was so surprised. She was from Kansas City and a friend had shared one of our Facebook page posts. I didn't even know her friend. It was odd to think of how many people had been following us along the way.

We sat down and our families chatted and played games for the rest of the evening.

A beautiful last evening on the road...