Since I have so many pics in this blog they don't follow with the stories.On Monday, July 22nd, we drove from Buffalo, WY to Custer, SD. It was the shortest drive of our trip and uneventful, thank goodness. The Lord has blessed our vacation and kept His angels around us the entire trip.
We stayed in another KOA just west of Custer and it was gorgeous. Completely filled with tall, beautiful pine trees. We had a wonderful pull through site that was so long we didn't need to unhook the car hauler and we had the car and motorcycle parked in front of the RV with room for more if we needed it. We were also right by the laundry and if you have been keeping up with us you know that Thursday night is - yep, laundry night! Everywhere I looked out of the RV I saw pine trees. I think I could have spent a lot of time there and never leave the RV! They had an enormous area for the dogs to run with big cement trenches around it to help keep the dogs in. Bailey and April thought it was great to be able to run like the wind.
On our first night there we treated ourselves to dinner out. So we rode the motorcycle into town with the plan to eat dinner, check out the town and buy some groceries. However, after dinner we saw some nasty looking storm clouds rolling in so decided to head for the house. We had a chance to walk the dogs and sit outside a bit but then it started to rain so we enjoyed the beautiful sound of rain - just rain - hitting the roof of the RV. It was so nice to have just a nice steady rain with no serious wind, hail or tornadoes. I loved it. 
Before we left on vacation we bought a Tailgater satellite dish to use while we are on the road. We have the regular house-type satellite dishes at our place in Newcastle as well as our lot at Cedar Blue but those are too cumbersome to haul around with us. The tailgater can be picked up with one finger, it's so light and it's all automatic. We don't have to track down the satellites. We just need to be sure the handle is pointed north so we have to be sure that there are no obstructions to the south. We do have to call Dish each time we relocate so they can send us the local channels for our location but that's just a quick phone call. It has worked out very well and Dish has a plan designed for RVers that's very affordable. It took John a bit when we arrived in Custer, though, to get it set where there were no obstructions with all the trees but with a bit of persistence and a phone app that sees the satellites he finally had success. It wouldn't be a good night if my Sweetie didn't have TV.We had three full days there so we sawe Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, took a nice motorcycle ride through Custer State Park and down Iron Mountain road and Needles Highway that was recommended. What we realized was there is a lot to see and three full days is not enough time so we will need to return.
On Tuesday we took the motorcycle to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Those places are amazing. It just boggles my mind that people would carve faces in the sides of these huge masses of rock just like it boggles my mind how men built the Hoover Dam. I have included a pic of the eye of one of the faces so you can see how they made the pupils. While we were at Mt. Rushmore we took the 1/2 mile presidential trail that goes up to the bottom of the rock that they are carved on. It was a great walk but there were a ton of steps going down. Not normally a big deal but now the bone behind my large left toe is all inflamed from that walk and it smarts to walk on it. John, being an orthotist, has fixed up the padding in my tennis shoe and I bought a pair of Nike flip flops with a lot of padding as well so hopefully it will get better soon. There were several steps back up on the trail as well but nothing like what we had to walk down. We just took it slow and easy. 
Following that we biked over to Crazy Horse. That was also amazing. This monument is a long way from being done as they rely 100% on donations of cash, gifts, and the proceeds from entrance fees and purchases in the park. There are no state or federal funds going toward this as the person who started this project would not allow it. They had photos of it at various stages and when I visited it as a small child I now realize there was not much to see. The face of Crazy Horse was not unveiled until 1998 - after John and I were married! I have shown a picture I took of a sculpture of Crazy Horse with the project in the background so you can see where they are and what the end product should look like. Note the horse's head drawn on the rock in white. Not sure it will be done in my lifetime. The man sculpting this is now dead but his wife and 10 children are still alive and the wife and 7 of his children are continuing the project. We could see a bulldozer up on the end of what is the arm. Much of the work is done by blasting which I understand happens about once a week or so and when it does occur it is always at 11 am. I guess that is so everybody below knows when to expect them. I have shown another picture I took of a picture of the back side of the project where you can see there is a road up to it with a building up there where they work out of. What was also interesting is that the faces on Mt. Rushmore only take up the space of Crazy Horse's face/feathers area so this project is going to be much much larger. I have a hard time figuring out how you can work on say an eye which is much larger than yourself and get everything to scale. What an undertaking and so much more so many years ago when they had more primitive equipment or no equipment to work with. The stories are very interesting.
That evening we had a campfire and just enjoyed sitting outside with the girls and visiting with folks that walked by. We met so many campers on our trip from all over -- Iowa, Texas, Montreal, Kansas, Indiana, Minnesota, China, New Jersey. We heard many different languages as well.
On Wednesday we took the bike for a long scenic ride much of which was through Custer State Park. We drove on Iron Mountain Road and Needles Highway all of which was 35 mph at the most. The roads were winding with tons of S curves, many of which had to be taken at 10 mph with several switchbacks. It was gorgeous. The nice thing about riding on the back of a motorcycle through something like that is I can take lots of pictures while we are moving. We went through six single lane stone tunnels none of which our RV would have fit through. Some were not even wide enough for our 101" but none of them were tall enough for the 13' clearance we need. We arrived at one of the tunnels that was only 10' tall and very narrow and here was a Class C RV driving through it. Everybody that was stopped there were holding their breath as they weren't sure he would fit. I have to wonder how many people have foolishly driving their RVs or towables up there and gotten stuck. There isn't much you can do but go through or back up but either way there is going to be lots of damage. I'm definitely sure many side view mirrors have met their demise in that tunnel.
We had thought about trying to go back to either Crazy Horse or Mt. Rushmore at night for their laser light show but these old bodies were just too tired in the evenings. It was actually more enjoyable to sit out by the campfire and visit with the folks that walked by. 
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