Touring the Black Hills

July 4th My original plan was to go to Mt. Rushmore and experience their brand of celebration but as we were wrapping up our usual morning chores, our host Jon came down and asked Patrick if he wanted to go to the lake and do some tubing and water skiing with Jon's daughter's family. They have 6 kids the oldest being 12 and he and Patrick hit it off and spent the weekend together. I figured a chance to go to the lake, hang out with kids his age and get away from mom and dad was a great thing for him and he really enjoyed it. (so did we!)
Becky and I drove into Hot Springs and did laundry and walked around a little bit downtown and got some BBQ at Smokin' BBQ. What is with these people? We crossed out of Ohio and they quit selling sweet tea. I'm lazy I don't want to mix in the sugar and it never tastes as good. Anyways...we ate BBQ.

The pulled pork as excellent with a nice smokey flavor and the bread was delicious. Some of the best potato salad I have had recently.

A water fall along the downtown area. I read it was fake but I didn't climb up to investigate. It was cool though.

This river walk ran along the creek.

Back at the camper, I worked on the blog but the internet was spotty and I couldn't get pictures to download and Becky read a book. Patrick played with the other kids. Suppertime was a big cookout and we were well fed and watered by our hosts. Then we saddled up and drove to Custer City to see fireworks. We were supposed to meet up with Jon and Laurie but we got separated and ended up in a different area. We still saw the fireworks and then sat through the forty minute traffic jam to get out of town.
I thought it would be tremendous to see fireworks at Mt. Rushmore and I tried to find information about this but was thwarted.  Jon told me that they used to do them there and it was spectacular but they stopped a few years ago when it was really dry for fear of forest fires and they never started up again.

July 5th We went to church in Pringle with Jon and Laurie and Patrick got to say good bye to his new best buds. The church has a pot luck dinner on the first Sunday of every month and we were invited to stay. From there were headed up the highway to see the big statues carved in rocks.
First stop was Crazy Horse which has been a long work in progress. It uses only private donations and doesn't use any government money because the original sculptor, Zorczak Ziolkowski believed that the Indians had enough government promises broken and didn't want anymore from them.

 Much of the visitor's center was built by Zorczak when he was working on the mountain. It is filled with a museum, art and lots of trinkets and chotzkies for sale like this big buffalo to drum up proceeds to keep the work going. Zorczak spent the day carving the mountain and at night he carved smaller statues in marble, granite and wood and formed others from bronze. Many are for sale and we could view his studio and living areas.

After the big horse, we moved on to Mount Rushmore to see the four presidents. The junior ranger program has a CD with songs on it and one of them is called, "Four Presidents on a Hill in South Dakota." Becky and I like to sing it with different words putting the presidents in various other of the 50 states and it drives Patrick nuts. He wasn't so impressed with the four men.

We left Rushmore knowing that rain was coming and I took 16A away from the monument. It is called Iron Mountain Road and it has three tunnels on the road. Each tunnel gives you a view of Rushmore through it. Then the rain closed in and we couldn't see the presidents from a distance. The road was still fun to drive but I yearned for a motorcycle to lean into the twisties. The road is a pork barrel project so it's beautiful and well maintained. It runs through Custer State Forest looping back to the Rushmore area. We turned off at the forest pay station and headed back to the trailer. It was a long day and we were ready for some supper.

An air view of the bridges and tunnels of 16A.