24th June - Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Wind Cave National Park - South Dakota

Me and Sammy Samick. 

After one more delicious breakfast we hit the road, heading for Mt Rushmore and beyond. On the way we stopped at the other guitar shop (it was on our way!). I got to try some lovely Taylor guitars, but they were totally out of my price range! I ended up getting a beautiful shiny Samick. It came with bag and ‘chord chart’ – one page with a handful of chords on it. So pretty. 

We drove down to Mt Rushmore and as promised, there were lots of tourists, tourist shops and hotels lining the windy road to the national monument. Then we saw it! And like all national monuments, it was free to go and see it. BUT it was $11 to park a car! We would probably only spend an hour or so there so we didn’t bother stopping. It did look quite cool, but not super dooper impressive. So when Will stopped at the traffic lights, I snapped a few pictures and then we kept driving. There was a spot down the road where we could see the side of one of the faces, so we pulled up there with a bunch of other people and took some photos there. We also saw some mountain sheep wandering around in the trees – some people were taking photos and kept scaring them further away and then the people followed them. Too funny! 

Mt Rushmore.

We went to Hill City to have a look at the authentic 1880 train there – Will wanted to see it. The train wasn’t there, but we saw some cool carriages that looked like they were just made out of boards. We went into the souvenir shop but there wasn’t anything that eye-catching there. The actual rides on the train were pretty expensive - $24 each return! So we decided to continue on our journey.

Will and the side of Mt Rushmore. 

We headed down towards where Wind Cave National Park is, stopping to have a look at the Crazy Horse Memorial. It is a huge lump of rock, which is being transformed into a huge statue of Indian chief Crazy Horse. The guy who had the idea and has been the main carver of rock, died in the 1980s. So not sure how the carving is going now. I think his son has taken over. Anyway, when we turned off, Will did a U-turn. It was the last spot to do one before you entered the ‘park.’ They had about four lanes and tollbooth type buildings – but once you went up the lanes there was nowhere to do a U-turn, so you’d be forced to pay to go through and then you could do a U-turn. Sneaky! We didn’t know how much it would be to go in, but from a distance the lump of rock didn’t look too impressive. We could see a hole cut through it, where I assume his legs would be as he sat in a saddle and we could just see the horse’s head. I’m not sure what else would’ve been up there as part of the display, but we took some pictures and then kept going. 

Lump of rock = Crazy Horse Memorial!

It was a pretty drive down to Wind Cave – lots of pine trees. We stopped at a campsite just down the road from Crazy Horse, but it was $19 a night and there were no showers and only drop toilets. Seemed a bit expensive, so we continued on. Finally we arrived at Wind Cave National Park! We went down to the visitor centre and had a look at the different tours they were offering, bought some postcards to get change for the camping and then headed up to the campsite. 

It was a nice spot, with rolling grassy hills on one side and towering pine trees on the other side. $15 a night for primitive camping (but we camped near the flushing toilets - woo!) and ‘donations’ for firewood. But Will accidentally forgot to pay when he went down for the second lot of wood – oops! That night we had fire-cooked chicken burgers (again!) and they were delicious. Plus a s'more or two for dessert! I tested out the new guitar and had to rack my poor brains to remember how to play anything. It’s coming back to me though! After dinner we played a few games of cards, watched some Deadwood and listened to thunder rolling in the distance.