Mountain carvings

After the usual free motel breakfast, we set out for the day's Black Hills exploration, with some conflicted feelings given that we were heading first to Mt. Rushmore. Several people we love and respect said that as long as we're here, we really ought to see this iconic American destruction of a mountain. (We prefer mountains that are carved by wind and rain.) The drive to Mt. Rushmore is beautiful, with many "scenic views" along the way, and lots of switchbacks in the road. The Golf did fine, though most of the time we were following slow people in vans, or middle aged people on Harleys. We tried to imagine how Italians would react to the pokey driving up and down the mountain roads.

The "Presidential path" at Mt. Rushmore (described as strenuous, but only because there are a lot of steps) took us through some lovely pine forest, with many granite boulders strewn throughout. We spent enough time in the gift shop to buy 5 postcards and left, heading for Custer State Park.

Entering Custer, we encountered our drama for the day. They are repaving the road into the park and so they held up one lane of traffic while another came through. Thus, we found ourselves in a long line of cars, stopped on the road. All of a sudden, the car in front of us took off like a "jackalope" swerving out of the line of cars, across the other lane, and skidded sideways off the road, stopped by a couple of somewhat spindly trees. Without those trees, it would have crashed down the side of the mountain. We jumped out of our car, fearing the worst. Other people did the same. Thankfully, everyone was OK. The driver, a middle aged woman, was unhurt despite the fact that her side of the car rammed into the trees. Her two passengers were also OK -- two young adults from Argentina who didn't speak English. At least she told us they were from Argentina, although the young man sounded Russian to us. Someone gave the driver

a bottle of water; several of us gave her a lot of hugs; someone called for help, and soon we all had to move on because the construction crews motioned for us to get going.

We took the "wildlife loop" and saw deer, burros and pronghorns, but no bison. Emerging from the loop, we entered the "Needles" area which is most amazing--huge natural rock formations that are dramatic and beautiful.

We decided we should be equal opportunity tourists in viewing mountains carved up, so

we headed for the Crazy Horse monument. We wished we had stopped at the bottom of the hill instead of paying $20 for the privilege to drive up and park. We looked at Crazy Horse (probably not to be finished in our lifetimes despite a rather large recent contribution) and spent a little time in the museum/gift shop. John was quickly afflicted with "gift shop-itis" and we left to drive to Hill City, which our waitperson at the wonderful slow food restaurant told us about last night. It's a little place with lots of touristy stuff (many t-shirt vendors and a big Harley Davidson apparel store). We did the tourist thing of getting ice cream cones and sitting on a bench watching a small part of the world pass through Hill City. Interestingly, the ice cream was Blue Bunny brand, which we thought was a Wisconsin thing.

Since we'd spent some money to buy a lifetime senior pass that got us to Mt. Rushmore

($10 for anyone 62 and older -- such a deal), entrance into Custer State Park, and admission to the Crazy Horse Memorial, we decided to eat cheaply tonight at the Ruby Tuesday by the motel. Susan studied the menu with great care and thinks she found the most healthy item on it: Asian salmon and spinach salad with edamame and black beans. Black beans are Asian? John had a burger. We ate outside on the Ruby Tuesday patio and watched cars, motorcycles, and a few bicycles going up and down the road that leads to Mt. Rushmore. Tomorrow we enter Wyoming, heading for Devil's Tower and then wandering our way to Sheridan. At the moment, John is fighting stiff competition for use of the coin-op washers and dryers in our hotel...