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If you have not read the previous blogs on the Black Hills Adventure I would highly encourage you to read the previous vlogs to catch up on where we are. Day 3 is a busy day: we are visiting Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Jewel Cave National Monument, Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park.
We got up early and headed for Mount Rushmore to see it in the daytime. The weather was fair, the temperature was not uncomfortable and we did have a lot of cloud cover. The drive heading into the Black Hills was beautiful, now that we could see the mountains around us. A short time later, and another drive through the deserted tourist town of Keystone, Mount Rushmore came into view. The faces grew larger as we rose in elevation apporaching the monument. We parked and found our way up to the main path. Since we were in daylight we could now see where we were going, unlike last night. We walked down the main walkway past the flags of states, to the Grand Terrace View. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln looked incredible. There was still snow visible on top of Washington and the rest of the mountain. This is one of the most spectacular views in the world. Unfortunately, the Presidential Trail was closed so we headed down stairs to the visitor center. We bought a puzzle with all of the national parks posters on it and I got my stamp for my parks passport.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial
We took some more pictures and then headed back to the car. The memorial was not very busy with a few other families visiting. The lack of other people would be a theme throughout our entire trip to the Black Hills. Our next destination was to Jewel Cave National Monument, but we would head through Hill City to make a stop at a winery as well as pass by the Crazy Horse Memorial. Turning left onto the highway we made a quick stop at an overlook next to Mount Rushmore to see a side view of George Washington. We made our way down towards Hill City passing by a beautiful lake and through spectacular alpine scenery. Some time later we arrived at Highway 385 and headed north to Hill City to make a quick stop at a winery in town. From there, we headed south down towards the town of Custer.
One the way we saw, from the road, the massive and uncompleted Crazy Horse Memorial. It looked the same as the last time I saw it several years on our Glacier National Park trip. Over a hill we began our descent into the town of Custer. This was busier than the rest of the towns in the area, but more people actually live there than the town of Custer. At the junction, we headed west to Jewel Cave National Monument that is 13.3 miles outside of the town.
Jewel Cave National Monument
Jewel Cave is home to...a cave. There have been 198 miles of discovery passageway which is estimated to be three to five percent of the entire length of the cave. I had a long discussion with the ranger at the visitor center about the cave and the monument. She was very knowledgeable and friendly, as the vast vast majority of park rangers are. Unfortunately, the cave was closed because the elevators are being renovated. We were on a tight schedule because of our limited time and daylight, so we elected to do the short Roof Trail. Though the trail is only .4 miles long that has beautiful vistas of the surrounding area. We walked around and took some beautiful pictures of the area. I would highly recommend visiting the monument just for the views on the surface. Someday I will go and do some of the spectacular tours of the cave, hopefully later this year. One the next part I will go over visiting Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park.
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