South Dakota Day 6

Dad got up early and drove down to Wind Cave National Park to get tickets for an early tour. Along the way down to the park there were lots of wild animals including buffalo, prairie dogs, pronghorn, white-tailed deer, and wild turkeys. It was a really pretty drive.

Dad took this picture on the phone.

Mom took this one from the motorhome window.

Custer State Park was beautiful.

Our tour of the cave started at 9:20. We had a really good ranger, which made this cave seem much better than Jewel Cave yesterday. We marveled at the natural entrance that blows in or out according to the air pressure in the atmosphere. This tiny hole is only about 15 inches in diameter and is the largest opening into the cave! We were glad to use the door they added when it became a national park. The tour we took is called the Natural Entrance Tour, and it led down a few hundred steps, but luckily an elevator brought us back up. We all liked this cave better, partially because of the rare natural feature called box work. This looks like a brick wall that has dissolved and left the mortar behind hanging from the ceiling of the cave. Our ranger was really well informed, and she took a shine to our boys. She put her jacket on Seth and proclaimed him a future park ranger. He wore the large jacket proudly though the next two rooms. She gave Dax the title of group leader. She’d tell him, “Keep walking until the railing ends and then stop and I’ll catch up with you.” This made Dax feel pretty important, and he did a great job. Mark was satisfied to be the elevator operator at the end of the tour. He’s a natural born button pusher. Wind Cave was cool because the passages were really narrow and the ceilings sometimes rose really high. There were hundreds of little passages leading away to dark spaces everywhere and then a lot of intricate box work on the ceiling. We enjoyed this tour better than the one at Jewel Cave.

The tour also worked for everyone because there were not so many steps.

The air pressure pulls the flag in or pushes it out. This gives Wind Cave its name.

The boys love spelunking!

Wind Cave was really beautiful.

The box work was something we hadn't seen before.

Mom and Dad wore jackets inside the cave.

Dax doesn't look too pleased, but he was!

Seth is a future park ranger.

Dax served as the group leader.

After the tour, the boys had to do a hike like yesterday. We took the Prairie Vista Loop, which is only a mile. We saw a few deer and a lot of prairie, but today is much cooler, and it was a pleasant walk through the grass. It wasn’t until noon that we actually finished our time at Wind Cave and headed south.

The hike looked back down over the Visitor's Center.

That cloud looks really cool, but we didn't even notice it at the time.

This cave is south of the Black Hills on the plains.

There was a spotted towhee at Wind Cave.

Our hike ran past the natural entrance. I can't imagine climbing in there!

We wanted to break up the long drive from Wind Cave to Rocky Mountain National Park. We saw only two small blips on the map, and both of them swung us into Nebraska. That was pretty exciting, because it added a fourteenth state for the boys, and it even added a state to Dad’s total, which he is pretty sure is now 35. Our first stop was at Agate Fossil Beds right in the northwest corner of Nebraska, and we certainly weren’t expecting much. But we spent almost an hour looking through the small museum and watching the park film. The boys enjoyed earning a Junior Ranger badge, and we learned a lot about the fossilized mammals in western Nebraska. There was also a fairly large collection of Native American artifacts that were on display. It was a surprisingly good stop.

The boys came up with this pose.

Seth liked the exploration table.

An hour later we stopped at Scott’s Bluff National Monument. The boys did the Junior Ranger program again (their third today) and we spent a little time in the Visitor’s Center. It was a nice stop, and we learned some interesting things about the pioneers from a little different perspective than we are used to. When we got back to the motorhome, Mom’s beef stew was just finishing up in the crockpot. We ate in the parking lot and left Scott’s Bluff around six o’clock.

Scott's Bluff is behind Dad.

The drive into Rocky Mountain National Park was another three and a half hours, we didn’t get in until after 10 pm. There were bigger problems, too. The campsite they gave us was not big enough for the motorhome. We got off the road as much as we could, but when we pushed out the slides to sleep, they overhung the road. There wasn’t much we could do, and it was late, so we set out a reflective cone and hoped we didn’t get hit. Nobody slept very well that night!