Day 16 ~ Sunny Days in Wall

Our teepee experience was so fun!  I don't think I would want to do it more than one night, though.  It was a bit chilly as the temp got down to about 50, but our bison kept us so warm!

I can't wait to use it during our winters.  Panda got really cold in her bed last night, so we stuffed three people in a king bed for the rest of the night!  The only thing about tent or teepee camping is you are wakened by the early light, so I woke up at about 5:30 am.  Thankfully I could get back to sleep for a couple hours.  We had more yogurts, strawberries, and donuts for breakfast then got back on the road.  

We had wanted to go to see the Crazy Horse memorial, but we didn't want to pay just to stop there for a few minutes to view the monument.  As we drove by the entrance, I made everyone look so we can say that we did see it!  It was really awesome, carved out right there on the rock.  We had a quick "scenic route" as we had to turn around, so we drove through a cemetery.  There were so many deer statues on grave markers as well as just around on the grass.  It was so strange.... like it was a theme for the town!  I've never see anything like it before.  

Originally, we had wanted to drive along the Needles Highway because the photos of it looked amazing, but we didn't realize it was part of Custer State Park, and we would have to pay a hefty entrance fee.  We just decided to go for it, and the "extra" we didn't plan for turned out so fun!  The Needles part of the park was a super narrow road along the mountainside with tall, pointy peaks that looked like needles poking up.  There were three tunnels along this part of the road that were one-car-only passes.  It was fairly busy up there, so we were a bit worried we would get stuck waiting for cars to pass through.  There wasn't much room for cars to wait on their side of the tunnel, and you can't always see if anyone is coming, so I can imagine it gets dicey up there on really busy days.

The curvy roads down and along the Needles Hwy made me nervous as often times us, or the car passing, had our wheels right on the edge of the pavement, and there is no guardrail before the cliff falls off to the side.  

Finally made it to the end, and we realized there are at least two other fun roads to take in this park.  The next road we went on was the Wildlife Loop Road.  We saw thousands of bison in multiple herds in this area.  The park system maintains the herds in a thoughtful and particular way.  They round them up and pen them each year and then decide which animals will be auctioned off and which will stay on the land.  This way the herds don't get too big for the amount of food available to them.  

Then we came to prairie dog town.  There were hundreds of mounds and the little critters were all over chipping away!  They would pop up and go down into their holes like little wack-a-moles!  They would run and chase each other over the prairie.  They would just sit and stare us down.  It was highly entertaining!

Next up were the burros, which are actually not native to the Black Hills region.  In the 1870s, the pack animals were used to cart people and stuff up the mountains, but eventually they stopped using them and just let them go on the land.  Over time, they became wild animals, but never really lost their "domestication" and many of them are very friendly.  The little grey donkey was super friendly and would come up to us unsolicited.  It was king of nice to be able to finally pet a live animal and not be in danger!

We heard there were a bunch of bighorn sheep on the roadside, so we drove along the river until we found them.  Six or seven of them were on the hillside, and there weren't very many big horns among them.  

More and more windy roads, with two different loops that went under the road we were just on and bridges made of wood--looked like lincoln logs!  Along the road we had our first glimpses of Mt Rushmore, our next destination.  It was still quite far away but still looked really big.  

Finally made it to the main attraction and it was so impressive!  We weren't sure if we would make it here on this trip, but I'm so glad we found a way.  It's just such a wonderful work of art!  So many years and manpower went into this feat.  

After leaving the monument, we had about one hour left to our next lodging place, the Sunshine Inn in Wall, SD.  Traveling through South Dakota is also feeling very long, but I think all of the states at this point are going to feel like it takes forever to get through them!  We arrived in the town of Wall, and it's really neat how the store fronts are designed to look like an old western town.  About a block from our little motel is a HUGE shop called Wall Drug.  If you have heard of it, you know the story behind it....it's really cool.  If you are like me and have no idea what is the big deal about this place, go check it out.  They made themselves famous because of ice water!  (story here)  We had dinner here, and it was good, but not exceptional.  Probably wouldn't eat the food here again, but the western adornments and decor were outstanding.  They have a bunch of large props for photo ops and we just had to be silly (Panda and I are on a piece of "petrified" wood)!