The Great National Park Adventure - Rushmore

Shorty at our Custer Cabin

  We woke up in Custer State Park to a beautiful morning - I could see my breath!  A beautiful haze was blanketing the huge trees.  Oh how I wish that we could have lingered a little longer in Custer.  They have wonderful wildlife and just neat areas to explore.  We were feeling the crunch though and after a brief stop at the visitors center in Custer that the CCC built, we were on our way to Rushmore.

wouldn't this be an awesome house?

  The drive up was just beautiful.  Even though it wasn't far from where we camped, the curves and switchbacks made it slow going, but really who minds when surrounded by so much beauty of nature?

   When we got to Rushmore, we could tell that it was almost the next weekend because the crowds had really picked up.   The cool thing was when we walked through the parking garage we saw almost a different state/province in every slot!  To be totally honest, I was very disappointed at the "grand entry" to see the monument.  I thought that the monument itself was grand enough and the other just took away from that.  It wasn't there when I was there 20+ years ago, so I was glad I had the memory of that time:)
 

   The exhibit area down closer to the monument was really well done.  They were interactive for the kids and great for all different learning types.   The kids' favorite one was where you could push a tnt detonator plunger and make parts of Mt. Rushmore explode using original video footage.

Making Rushmore go "boom"

getting sworn in as Rushmore Jr. Rangers

  The walk on the President's trail was so pretty with lots of great photo opportunities.  Bubby was really interested in all the Ponderosa pines in the area and would pick up the needles along the path and hand them to Shorty telling him what they were.  Shorty misunderstood and thought they were "porkapine" quills :)

  By the time we left Rushmore, our hopes of reaching Devil's Tower for an afternoon visit were slim, so we just headed for our next night's stay in Keyhole State Park.  It is about 20 miles away from the tower, but you can see it in the distance on your descent into the park.

  Our cabin at Keyhole was more basic (without a heater or close showering facilities), but it was still lovely and lakeside too! 

   Oh how majestic that tower looks!  I've been 3 times and am not tired of it yet.  We got there right when the visitor's center opened and got "rock star parking", which was good, because when we left a couple hours later, it was getting really busy.  

  Surprisingly the kids didn't get really tired of all the hiking we did.  They all trooped along, just excited to be seeing what we saw at each place.  Shorty didn't care much for the faces on the mountain at Rushmore, but he did enjoy the tower - maybe it was because of all the rocks he could climb along the trail.

walking the tower trail

 

  

the kids on the debris at the base of the tower

   After earning their 5th and last Jr. Ranger patch, we started on our last leg through the mountains in Colorado - um, or so we thought.  From about Gillette, Wyoming on we drove through rain.  When we reached a few miles north of Cheyenne the road signs started saying that all roads were closed from Cheyenne to Colorado - huh?  We'd been without internet/tv/phone service for a couple of days so had no idea what was going on.  After we got cell service I made a call to Ducky and Gigi to find out what was going on and they told us about the flooding going on in Colorado.  What a blessing we weren't a day or so earlier in crossing the state border (they had closed the border just that day) - we had been planning on heading to Estes Park area.

  We turned east on I-80 and decided to drive on home.  When we hit pea soup fog in Nebraska, we were doubting our choice.  It even had strong winds with it, but the fog was unaffected!  When we stopped for gas, the attendant said that it had been like that for 2 days.  Thankfully, we ran out of it and had a great uneventful trip safely home.  Shorty woke up when we pulled in at 4am and cheerfully shouted "Home!".  He was more than ready to be there, his schedule had been shot to high heaven on this trip and he was done.  Actually the rest of us were wearing thin too, that is except Bubby.  That kid just fed off of each place we went.  We told them in stages where we were going over the next day or so, that way they would enjoy each thing and not be looking forward to the next to do.  Every time we'd let them in on the schedule, he'd say "I've read about that place and have always wanted to go!" and tell us some odd fact about it.  

  The funny thing about this trip was that the kids asked what we'd be doing about school since they were missing it.  They thought we were weird when we told them that they'd been doing school the whole time!  But really, all the intensive Jr. Ranger research, all the math figuring out ETA and how long the trails would be, P.E. (the hiking), geography, history, etc.... it was the ultimate in school! 

   Who knows when we'll have the opportunity again for something like this, but we'll be ready when we get it! :)