Home Again

We are home again.

We had a great flight from Rapid City, South Dakota to Chicago.  Unfortunately we had trouble in Chicago.  After boarding our flight, we had to wait an hour and a half on the runway, then a generator on the plane went and we had to taxi back to the terminal and take another plane.  We arrived in Philadelphia about 3 hours late, about 12:10 this morning, but we arrived safely.

We both thoroughly enjoyed our adventure and hope you enjoyed following along on this blog.  We traveled 1,237 miles in our SUV, visiting three states, six national parks and monuments, numerous national forests, and many other sites.  It truly was an adventure that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Relaxing in Keystone

Today, we spent a relaxing day in Keystone, South Dakota (population 311).   Gold was found in Keystone in 1883 and a handful of mines opened in the area.  The largest producer was Holy Terror Mine.  The mine was located by accident by the daughter of a prospector.  His wife had a habit of pulling him out of saloons and he would remark Ain't she a Holy Terror" so when it came time to name the mine he decided to name it after his wife. Mining was not allowed during World War II so this mine has filled with water.

Keystone is 2 miles from Mount Rushmore, so after the mines died out, many workers moved over to the Mt. Rushmore project and once it was completed it became popular as a tourist town.  Keystone is where the great scenes in North by Northwest were filmed.  Also, it was home to Carrie Inglis, one of the girls from Little House on the Prairie.

Our first stop was to the National Presidential Wax Museum.  All of the presidents as well as some local scenes were depicted in the museum. 

Barack Obama

JFK with John Jr.

Some oldies, can you name 'em

Johnson being sworn in

We visited the Big Thunder Gold Mine and took a tour which was just the two of us and a guy from Germany.  The mining work here was done mostly by hand by two German prospectors, on a part time basis after their regular jobs over a 32 year period.  The mine was downstream from the Lucky Boy Mine so these two prospectors decided they would try to tap into the same source as the Lucky Boy.  It took them about 25 years to hit it, but the vein was smaller and did not have too much gold.  About 2 years later, they began extending the mine to get to try to hit the vein of another mine, but again when they got there there was very little gold.  Thirty two years with very little to show for it.

We donned hard hats and traveled the full 680 feet of the mine.  It was a good thing we had hard hats because I turned my head and smacked right into a beam.  Our guide was a great story teller and taught us how to pan for gold.  That skill might come in handy some day.  The pictures are of us using a detonator.

Keystone's Boardwalk

After lunch we played miniature golf at the Holy Terror Golf course and then took a dip in the hotel pool. 

Crazy Horse and Caves

We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial today.  The Crazy Horse Memorial has been under construction since 1948 and there is no end in sight.  The sculpture will depict Crazy Horse, an Ogala Lakota warrier, who was an Indian hero at Little Bighorn.  It is said that he rode his horse back and forth in front of the cavalry with hundreds of bullets being aimed at him, but he was not harmed.

After the dedication of Mt. Rushmore, Chief Standing Bear wrote to Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish sculptor, who had just won a prize at the New York World's Fair asking him to do a sculpture honoring American Indians.  The story of how Korczak got this project started was fascinating.  His family has continued since his death in 1982 without any funding from the government.  They rely mostly on tourist dollars.

At first it seemed that very little progress has been made since only the head is done, but then you see the scale of this project and realize how much rock has been removed.  The head is 87 ft tall, about 27 ft taller than those on Mt. Rushmore.

Current Focus of Work

 

We had a chance to ride a bus to the base of the mountain and there was a nice Visitor Center there with a museum of Indian culture.

We had lunch in Custer, SD and drove to Jewel Cave National Monument.  The monument was created in 1908 by Teddy Roosevelt and was the first cave to be designated a National Monument.  At present, 151 miles of the cave have been mapped out making it the second largest cave in the world.  However, only a fraction of the cave has been explored, so it could be much larger. 

This area apparently has a lot of caves.  Wind Cave National Park is also located in the Black Hills.

Likes sea level

We descended 250 ft. in an elevator to get a 20 minute look at a large cavern.  The cave stays at 49 degrees all year round.  Interestingly, the cave reacts to changes in air pressure outside by taking in or letting out air.



We had dinner at Mt. Rushmore and stayed to watch the Lighting Ceremony.  The ceremony begins with a movie about America and the ideals of the presidents represented on the mountain.  America the Beautiful comes on and the mountain slowly begins to light up.  Its very moving.  Then, they play the National Anthem and all the veterans in the audience get to come onto stage to take down the flag.  This is one of those events that you have to experience in person to get a true feeling of what it is like.

Unfortunately not many of our pictures came out, but here are some pictures.

Ave of the States

Mt. Rushmore at Night

 Veterans Retire the Colors

A Heady Experience

Bill Hickok's grave

We did more than expected today.  In Deadwood, we visited Mt. Moriah Cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried.  There was a nice view of the town from the hill where the cemetery is. 

Homestake Mine

Then, we went over to Lead (pronounced Leed), another mining town next to Deadwood.  Here we briefly visited the Homestake Mine, which was the oldest, largest, and deepest gold mine in the world until it closed in 2002.  The mine was over 8,000 feet deep  This one mine produced 10% of the world's gold for 125 years. . The mining claim was bought in 1877 by George Hearst, father of William Randolph Hearst for just $70,000. The Black Hills Gold Rush began following the 1874 Custer Expedition.

Beautiful Lake in the Black Hills

Our next stop was the Mount Rushmore National Memorial (a.k.a. the Heads).  The idea of carving a mountain was to promote tourism in the state.  Originally, the thought was to sculpt colorful figures of the West on the Needles (another area which we visited).  The artist, Gutzon Borglum, thought it should be grander and chose to sculpt presidents representing the first 150 years of U.S. history.  He chose this site because it was more conducive to carving.

It took 400 workers, 14 years (1927 to 1941) to complete the sculpture .  They ran out of funds and declared it finished about 5 weeks before Pearl Harbor.  About 90 percent of the work was completed by dynamite. Each head is about 60 ft tall.

In 1998, they completed 10 years of improvements to the facilities at the site so the Visitor Center, pathways, and exhibits there were well done. It was a great experience seeing this memorial.

As originally designed, the presidents were to be carved from the waist up, but only enough money was appropriated by Congress for the heads.

What Mt. Rushmore looked like before

 Pigtail Bridge on Norbeck Byway

We drove the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway into Custer State Park after our visit to Mt. Rushmore.  These small roads spiral through the Black Hills National Forest taking you though pigtail bridges, six one way rock tunnels and up on top of mountains.  We have now learned that scenic means steep grades, sharp curves, no guardrails and barely enough room for too cars.

A section of the road is known as the Needles Highway.  This takes you up to see the Needles, which are eroded granite pillars and columns which were to be the original size for the carving that is now on Mt. Rushmore. 

The Needle

The needle is one spire that has eroded in the shape of a needle's eye.

Needle Tunnel

Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park

After an eventful day we had dinner at the Ruby House Restaurant in Keystone near our hotel.

Ruby House

Exploring the Black Hills

Today we take in the rest of Deadwood and head down to Keystone, just an hour away.  So this is an off day where we get to sleep in and take it easy.  Keystone will be our home for the next three nights as we explore the Black Hills.  Keystone is the closest location to Mt. Rushmore.  These are some of the sites we hope to see over the next couple of days.

The sculptures of the four presidents on Mt. Rushmore are 60 feet tall and were sculpted from 1927 to 1941 as a way to promote tourism in the area.  The four presidents are Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln.  The granite here is so hard that the rock only erodes one inch every 10,000 years so these sculptures are going to be around awhile.  What few people know is that the sculptor built a Hall of Records behind the heads to hold America's key documents like the Declaration of Independence.  These documents of porcelain enamel were not added until the 1990s.

About 17 miles from Mt. Rushmore, Chief Standing bear commissioned a sculpture of Crazy Horse to show that the Indians had great heroes too.  Work on this sculpture began in 1948 and is still on going. They accept no government money and the family of the original sculptor, Korczak Ziowkowski, continues the work.  The face was completed in 1998 and is the only completed piece.  When done it will be the world's largest sculpture.

Custer State Park is a wildlife preserve that also contains a couple of scenic highways such as the Peter Norbeck.  In 1927 this was the summer White House of Calvin Coolidge who announced he was not running for another term from here.

Also nearby are two other National Parks, Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument.  In addition there is the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs.  We'll see what we can fit in.  We have to leave time for Ida to buy some of that Black Hills gold.

Thanks Wyoming, Hello South Dakota

St. John's

Approaching Devils Tower

We went to Mass at St. John the Baptist in Buffalo, not far from our hotel.  The pastor greeted everybody on the way in and out.

We then hit the road again toward Devils Tower.  Lots of rolling prarie with ranches and not much else.  We had our first glimpse of the Tower from about 8 miles out.  As we got closer, it got bigger and bigger.   The tower is 867 feet from its base to its summit and it is 1,267 ft above the nearby Belle Fourche River.

 
As we approached, we thought of the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where all of the animals were dead along the roadway.

Getting Closer

Closer

Arriving at the Tower, we walked up to its base and watched rock climbers climbing up its side.  They are hard to see in the pictures because they are so small.  There are about 150 different routes up the face of the monument.  The climbers use the many cracks in the rock for climbing.

Climbers typically climb in pairs. The first person to climb – the lead climber – climbs upward using only their hands and feet. They periodically place protective equipment in the rock and clip their ropes through this gear. The second climber belays (securely manages the rope) the lead climber. When the lead climber arrives at a good stance, they secure themselves to the rock and belay the second up. The second will remove all the gear that was placed on lead. Nothing is left behind.  

How do climbers get down? Climbers rappel to descend off the Tower. One rope is passed through permanently installed anchors (expansion bolts) in the rock and then tied to a second rope. Climbers place both ropes through a mechanical friction device (attached to their harness) and slide (rappel) down both strands of rope until they reach the next rappel stance and anchors. In order to retrieve their ropes for the next rappel, one of the ropes (the knotted side) is pulled down – pulling the other rope up and through the anchors. Eventually, all the rope is pulled through the anchors and the process is repeated (3 or 4 times) until the ground is reached.  Only five people have died climbing since 1937.

Dave decided to give it a try

On the pathway around the Tower

A number of Indian tribes consider this a sacred place and have rituals here regularly.  The Indians tie prayer clothes to the trees.
They dislike the name Devils Tower and dislike the climbers.

Indian Prayer Cloth

Not far from the Tower is a huge Prarie Dog Village.  They were quite playful.  Ida likes the chipmunks that we saw a few days before better.

After visiting Devils Tower it was off to South Dakota to the old western town of Deadwood.

Prarie Dog

Another State on our Tour

We took a stroll around Deadwood when we arrived.   Its mostly full of casinos with some shops and restaurants.  The town is in a valley where they used to mine gold.



In the Celebrity Hotel we got to see many pieces of movie memorabilia.  They also have a collection of vehicles from the movies.  Here are some pictures

Costume from Hook

Herbie the Love Bug

Jeep from M*A*S*H

In town, we saw the old Bullock Hotel, built in the late 1800s by Sheriff Seth Bullock.  The hotel is reported to be haunted and was featured on Unsolved Mysteries.  We also saw Saloon No 10 where Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall.  Later, we had dinner in the Deadwood Social Club, a restaurant above the Saloon.

Bullock Hotel

Saloon No. 10