The Rainmakers

Communing with a buffalo in Custer State Park

If you are having a drought in your area just give us a call. We'll come by and bring a bunch of rain with us. Things went well from Sioux Falls until we turned off of I-90 toward Mt. Rushmore. Then it started raining. Again. It hasn't let up since.

We are in Hill City about five miles from Mt. Rushmore. This is the coolest KOA ever. It stretches over acres and acres of pine forest. The spaces are large so you don't have to listen to your neighbors do anything and this time of year it is very quiet in here. They also have a restaurant which we at at last night. We went in and found that they had a decent wine list. Without asking if they had a cork law (giving one the ability to cork the bottle and take it home) we ordered a bottle of Cab intending to cork it after we each had a small glass. We sipped a glass of wine while we ate our dinner and that ended up being enough for both of us. When we mentioned to our server that we were going to take the bottle back to the coach he informed us that the liquor laws in South Dakota don't allow us to do that. We both looked at a bottle of wine 3/4 full. What to do? Why drink it of course. We sat there for over an hour and sipped wine and had fun conversation about growing up and some of the silly things that we did. We wandered back to the coach and found our two cute dogs thrilled to see their two tipsy pack leaders giggling and stumbling up the stairs into Mary. I'm sure she rolled her eyes.

Really our only problem is the weather. It is about 50 degrees and socked in raining. We just came from a long stretch of very hot weather in Kentucky so our blood is a little thin. But we bundled up this morning and headed up to Custer State Park and then to the Crazy Horse Memorial. The second stop was amazing. If you haven't seen it the monument is a work in progress and it is impressive. It started back in the 1940's at the request of a Lakota Sioux Chief. They chose an artist who ended up devoting the balance of his life to the project as well as raising ten children and teaching them his craft as he worked. They have since taken it over and are working on a beautiful rock carving of Crazy Horse (on a horse) that is over 600 feet wide, over 200 feet tall and when it is completed (they figure in about 50 years) will be a fully three dimensional stone monument. It will be beautiful and a wonderful tribute to a people whose way of life was stolen from them. It is all funded privately and by admissions to the park and sales of gift items. It is just awe inspiring. If you are interested check out the website: http://www.crazyhorse.org/ They even have a webcam that you can check on to see how they are progressing with the blasting and carving. How they do this is just mind boggling.

Sculpture in foreground is what it will look like when it is finished

Snug on a rug

We came back to the coach after that and exercised the dogs, a 30 minute walk in the rain that left us both wet, Breezy filthy and Ransom....well he never seems to get wet or dirty. It's miraculous! We have settled in for the rest of the evening. John, Breezy and Ransom are napping. I'm doing laundry and working on the blog. Our plans to race up to Glacier have changed again. We really want a good day to see Mt. Rushmore and that will probably be tomorrow so we decided to use the extra day that we squeezed out in between Indy and Sioux Falls to see it. Then we will head for Yellowstone and spend some good time out that way. I've never been to Yellowstone and John was there briefly last year so he really wants to spend more time there. We will be sure to see Glacier next time we come out west, probably in the spring.

The temperature has dropped to 43 degrees but the skies are starting to clear a little bit. The weather report tomorrow says 54 for a high but it will be sunny. I should get some great photos of Mt. Rushmore if it is sunny. Time to change the laundry and think about dinner.

Monday

We woke up to a spectacular morning. I took the dogs out for an early walk and it was sunny and brisk, really refreshing. We had breakfast and got things tidied up in the coach and away we went to Mt. Rushmore, camera in hand. We are only five miles from the monument so in no time we drove up to the entrance and when I looked out the driver's side windows there it was! It is the same monument that I have seen in photos and on television all of my life. But it surely was not the same experience. Until you see it with your own eyes you can't appreciate the sheer magnitude of the monument and the incredible amount of work that went into carving those highly recognizable faces in the granite. It is nothing less than awe inspiring to think that it started from one thought, an inspired thought to leave something for generations to come that would remind us of the courage and vision that created and shaped this country. Wonderful.

Mt. Rushmore

It was time to go back and check on the kids. When we arrived they were as ecstatic to see us as if we had been gone for a week. We ate some lunch and loaded them in the car for a drive up to the Needles Highway. John talked to someone staying at the KOA and they said it was a beautiful drive full of natural tunnels. Cool...we were off on another adventure with Breezy and Ransom in the back seat.

We turned off of the main highway onto the Needles Highway and immediately started climbing a steep grade. Breezy was looking out the side window and Ransom was looking in between the seats through the front window. The road began to switch back first with 15 mile per hour turns and then 10 mile per hour hairpin turns and then clear down to 5 mile per hour turns. The scenery was beautiful, pine trees and open meadows with grazing deer. There were lakes every so often and several trail heads. Then we came upon our first of several rock tunnels. There were motorcycle riders on the other side (see photo below) taking pictures as we passed through. We waved and drove on. "Cool!" we both said. We stopped at a view point and took some pictures and then got back in the car and moved on, Breezy still looking out the side window and Ransom looking over my shoulder at the road ahead. Down the road a few miles we drove up on a bunch of massive stones that formed a natural square, like a big four walled room. It was paved and there were several cars parked along one side. We got into the middle of this area and thought that somehow we had missed a turn and had come to a dead end. John was about to turn around when we saw a car emerge from in between two giant stones on the far left side of the stone area.

A car appearing from a natural tunnel

Motorcyclists on the other side of a natural tunnel

After watched several cars and a truck come through the crack in the rocks we passed through and resumed our windy drive along the Needles Highway. We finally passed out of Custer State Park and headed back for the KOA. We were enjoying the scenery when I heard Ransom behind my seat...heaving. He let out three big heaves and then barfed on the carpeting. "Ransom's barfing," I said. "You want me to pull over?" John asked. I glaced over my shoulder to see that he was back up on the seat next to Breezy looking somewhat relieved. "Nope," I said as I gazed out the window. "I'll clean it up when we get back." It has been a challenging two weeks of dog barfing....mostly Breezy consuming all that goes in her mouth. She knows the term "drop it" better than any other.

Ransom looking a little green around the gills...

Okay, I have been working like some sort of a possessed nut to get this blog post done but every time I think I've got a good enough internet signal to upload the pictures it fades and I go back to square one. I have most of the ones I wanted to put in this one and am going to wrap it up so I can start the next one. We just arrived (it is Wednesday) at the RV park near Grand Teton National Park (near Yellowstone) and I have lots more to tell you about our adventure so far. I will start a web album to share more of the photos that I've taken so far. I hope you all are having a great week!