That's it? (July 30)

First night in a tent was a success. We were a little fearful of rain, but woke up to a beautiful crisp morning. About 10 miles away from the west side of the Badlands was a store called Wall Drug. We had seen all kinds of billboards for it and heard from a few people that we needed to stop there. On our way we ran into some more bison that were grazing along the side of the road. We pulled over to take some pictures and video and heard some squeaking (wee wee!) that did not sound like a bison. It turned out to be prairie dogs! They popped out of everywhere running from hole to hole.

Wall Drug reminded me of the Shenandoah Farmers Market. There were all kinds of little shops that had snacks, souvenirs, and other nick-knacks. We stopped in one of the gift shops and got a book to put all of our pressed pennies in. There were a lot of painted manikins that people were getting their pictures taken with, penny presses, and lots of taxidermied animals.  Kids enjoyed running through shooting fountains, pretending to drive a covered wagon, and climbing on top of a giant jackrabbit. Nate and I enjoyed watching a giant animated T-Rex “trying” to eat the on-looking children waiting anxiously for the steam and lights that went off about every 10 minutes. There was also a giant monkey that “played” the piano and sang, as well as a jukebox that had a banjo and 12-string-guitar inside of it and was played with a set of mechanical dampers that changed chords and picks that plucked the strings. We went across the street to a cafe called Cactus Cafe Lounge for a breakfast of a Mexican omelet and blueberry pancakes. Not too far away, Wall Drug owned an 80 foot dinosaur that we took a stop at to get some pictures and later viewed from the highway on our way out of the Badlands. 

Along the way we stopped at the Minuteman Missile Historic Site. We got our cancellation and watched a 10 minute video on how the solid fuel minute man was an improvement over it's predecessors by giving it an almost instant response time (can you tell that Nate wrote that sentence ;)). There were many silos surrounding the interstate during the Cold War.

Our next spontaneous visit was a giant prairie dog statue. There was a little gift shop that you could buy 50 cent bags of unsalted peanuts to feed the prairie dogs. Nate and I bought two. There was a large fenced in field covered in prairie dog holes and even more outside of the fenced in area. Most of the doggies inside the fence were fat and not very interested in food and not as comfortable with people as I expected them to be. You could get a few yards away from them before they darted into their holes. Sometimes they would sit on their hind legs very still and wouldn't even blink when I accidentally hit the with a peanut. It was cute to see them play together and lay out on their bellies as they munch on their peanuts.

When we got back to the Badlands we got out to explore the mountains and hills for a little before traveling to the visitors center to get our passport stamped and to see their fossil exhibit. They told a neat story about how most of their fossils are found by park visitors but they do have a staff that digs for fossils as well. They follow up on every report they get to see if it is something to look into further or not, or something that they want to continue to monitor or even extract. A big rain can erode enough to reveal something that you could not have seen the day before. In fact, after a heavy rain a 7 year old girl found something that she thought was worth reporting. Looking at the picture of what she reported, if I was her mother, I would have told her it was nothing and not worth bothering the staff. How wrong I would have been. It turned out to be the most pristine one out of 3 skulls they have found in the park of a saber; priceless according to the park ranger.

The tires needed to be rotated on the car, so we took a stop to do the car maintenance and figure out what to do next. We wanted to do both Wind Cave and Jewel Cave but didn't have time for both so we settled on Wind Cave. We got their just in time to get two of the last six tickets to catch the last tour at 6 in the evening, get our passport stamped, and buy a patch to add to our collection. We had a great tour guide. He was an excellent story teller and did a good job answering all of the eager kid's questions. He is the only park ranger at Wind Cave that is from Hot Springs, SD and had a great story telling voice, well paced and soothing as Nate describes it. Legend has it a cowboy discovered Wind Cave when his hat was blown off his head from a gust of wind coming from a hole that was just big enough for a skinny person to shimmy down. When the cowboy came back to show of his hat trick instead of being able to catch the hat in his hand, it got sucked back into the cave never to be found again. One kid wanted to know why they didn't send robots down the cave to find the hat. The ranger, taken by surprise by the question replied, “Why would we want to do that when we have stairs?” It got a good laugh from the crowd. The cave is a constant 53 degrees Celsius and filled with all kinds of unique rock structures. They have the largest amount of “box work” that was named because someone thought that it looked like p.o. boxes. There was one point when the ranger turned off all of the lights illuminating the way to show how dark it truly is. He told a story about a 16 year old boy who gave 6 hour tours of the caves. He asked the group how they thought he lite the way. I laughed out loud when he said that it wasn't electricity, it wasn't a lantern, it wasn't a torch, it was a candle in a bucket and a ball of yarn as a back up plan. His candle was made out of animal fat so it burned longer and brighter than our candles today. The ranger asked how many of the 16-year-olds would feel confident leading a tour into the cave with no concrete paths that they have today and just a candle in a bucket lighting the way. My remark to Nate was, “He asked the wrong question, the question should be who in the world would be willing to trust a 16 year- old to give them a tour in a pitch black cave with a bucket candle?” Unfortunately, all pictures of Wind Cave were accidentally deleted by Jess. :( Good thing we have the internet to get pictures from.

 We stopped for dinner at the pokiest DQ I've been to and then went up to Mt. Rushmore. We knew that there was a lighting ceremony that started at 9 but were surprised at the mass of people that were there, probably around 5,000. It was dark when we arrived so we couldn't see the four presidents just yet and they played an audio of information about the presidents. As that was going on we went to the Visitors Center to get our passport stamped, read some info boards, bought our patch, and did a penny press. We came out and found a good viewing spot as they started playing a recording of “God Bless America” and spotlights slowly came on to reveal the sculpture. When they were fully lite the only thing I could think was “That's it?” We both expected the faces to encompass more of the mountainside and be taken back by a majestic view. We actually thought that they looked bigger from farther away when we were leaving. We decided that all of the pictures that we have seen of Mt. Rushmore make it look like it takes up ¾ ths of the mountainside. Nevertheless, carving four faces into a mountain is still very impressive. Mom Swartz told us later that they had intended to have the sculpture reach down to the waist but they ran out of funds. That helped explain our confusion of the size surprise. At that point they called up all of the veterans in the stands and asked them to come down onto the platform and played the national anthem while four people took down the American flag from the flagpole and fold it. That concluded the ceremony and the mass of people began to leave. We are lucky that we were close to the back, walk fast, and were able to get out before the mob made it to their cars. Taking turns driving through the night. Next stop: Yellowstone.