Mount Rushmore

June 10,2012

 Headed to Mount Rushmore this morning wearing a sweatshirt! Gas gauge in Bessie is always showing full, would be nice if that were true. : ). The birds were singing as we left, it is so easy to hear them out here, not sure why. Guess it is the lack of all the chaotic noises around us all the time. Whatever the reason, it sounds like the are right on your window sill singing just for you. Stopped and got gas at Wall. 3.59 a gallon. I don't know if I said this earlier, but the gas card I received at the retirement party got us all the way to Mitchell S.D. That was N awesome gift, thanks to everyone at NRVCS! We also put some gas in DiDi, since we will be driving her today. But only a few gallons, she does not drink as much as Bessie. We may have to do an intervention with Bessie. : )

 Got to Mt. Rushmore - WOW what a mountain! Charlie and Bessie did great, but going down is just as tense as going up... We then made the very uninformed decision to drive Bessie up to the entrance to Mt. Rushmore. bad, very bad choice. 2 miles 10% grade, slow and hard. We made it, but we decide we should have unloaded DiDi at the bottom and drove her up alone. We had no idea though... Everything turned out okay and we enjoyed seeing the mountain. It is BIG! Took lots of pictures and bought a National Parks passport book to get stamped at all the parks we go to. I know, we are dorks, but we like it that way.

 Went back into town And Charlie found a place we could leave Bessie for several hours, and we paced a lunch, and drove off in DiDi to see Custer Park. It was so pretty driving in - lots of firs and other undergrowth. You drove miles into the park before you reach the fee area which I thought was cool for locals. The park had a huge herd of Bison which was why we wanted to go. We did see lots of Bison, they just crossed the road right front of you, they couldn't care less that we were there. They also have "friendly burros" They literally stand in the middle of the road - if you are going around a corner, they could be right there. At one point there were several grouped together in the road going from car to car looking to see what you had. One was running down the road with his head in the window while the people drove off. He was fine, but it was hysterical.

 We also saw pronghorn sheep, which from here out I will call antelope, and we had a lunch of sandwiches at a picnic table in the park. On the drive out, there were great views of Mt. Rushmore - one framed it as we drove through a tunnel. Several other places you could see it too. We went back to Keystone, loaded up the car and headed out.

 We then drove to Deadwood, which was where Wild Bill Hitchcock was killed. Nice little town but you have to go up hill and down hill to go in and out. And when I say hill, I mean mountains. We played a little three card and won enough for another tank of gas! We also got a free dinner of Nathan hotdogs, and had lots of fun. Back on the road and headed to Wyoming to get some miles under our belt before settling in for the night. Again very windy. Charlie is having to really fight the wind whenever we are on 90. And.... we saw a cougar crossing the interstate! Yes, it really was a cougar - Charlie confirmed it for any doubters out there. We stopped at a Wally world in Gillette, WY. around 10:00, went in bought some ice, chips, milk in a box, and settled in. Tomorrow we head to Yellowstone.