Bob Goes West: Buffalo, Stone Presidents, Windy Caves, and Rain!

The day started off well enough - up with the Sun, ate a quick breakfast and headed off to Mount Rushmore to beat the crowds. Did the simple President's Trail up under the statue and got some decent pictures, but the sky was cloudy and they were doing some maintenance so they had a high wire crossing George and Tom's faces which marred the picture a bit. Too bad they weren't offering zipline rides down from the top - I would have signed up in a heartbeat.

After leaving Rushmore, took a scenic drive down the Iron Mountain road, a windy, hilly 15-20 mph road that was beautiful with several one way bridges and tunnels - amazing that roads can be built through this terrain. After stopping and taking pictures at a few scenic overlooks, the road broke into praire and I was thinking about where I might have to go to see some buffalo when I noticed the car in front of me had stopped in the middle of the road and two girls were sticking out of the sunroof. About then I noticed a decent sized herd of these same buffalo grazing their way down the highway and completely blocking the road. I whipped out my camera and started to take a few pics as they moved closer to me. As they got close, I got back into the car and could have petted them as they walked by, practically rubbing the car. That was certainly the highlight of the day without question. Stone presidents are one thing, but they are not huge and hairy and walking right by me - if they had, they might have gotten top billing on this post, but they didn't, so its all about the buffalo today.

After the buffs passed, I continued on the drive into Custer State Park. About then it started to lightly rain. Today I learned what isn't the first and won't be my last lesson about camping. Regardless of how nice it is when you leave your camp, always put the rainfly on the tent anyway. I didn't and thought I'd better head back and fix that before the rain got too heavy. Things were a bit damp inside the tent but not too bad. Shortly after that, it started to rain pretty hard, so I got there just in time.

I decided to forgo my hike through Custer State Park due to the rain and instead headed to Wind Cave. Of course, as I approached Wind Cave, the rain stopped, but I was committed at that point. Wind Cave was pretty cool, but its a different kind of cave and wasn't formed by water running through it like most caves, so it lacked some of the more colorful and exotic formations, but it was unique and really long, deep and is probably a caver's dream to explore. They believe that of the 193 miles of caves they have mapped, that is probably only 10% of the cave and all of that is crammed into one square mile. Our tour went by the original and only natural opening to the cave. Only the very skinny can get through that, but we did put our hand and face down into the opening to feel the wind blowing out of it. Today it was pretty light, but its been measured at 70mph before. Sometimes it blows in too. The legend is that it was discovered when a cowboy's hat got whipped off his head and sucked into the cave.

As I headed back to Custer, the rain started again pretty heavily, so I decided to head back to camp and try and take a nap - it worked and the tent wasn't too uncomfortable from the rain. After a couple of hours, the rain quit and I ventured out once again to get some food and to upload my pics and post this entry. My air card is pretty spotty here, but the campsite has DSL in their office, so I am here.

Park Rangers at Rushmore

Four dudes in granite. They were supposed to have hands too, but the granite was unsuitable. Pretty amazing how they took a one tenth scale model and with dynamite and jack hammers made something that looks so darned real.