Adventures in Roadtripping - Vol 2. : Big Heads On Mountains

After the mishaps of the previous day, I was hoping for a better start to day 2. We had decided to take a trip to Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument, and got a relatively early start. We headed out to Melissa's folks' house to pick up her mom Marvell, and after packing up the car, we started out on the road.

Melissa's folks own a Yukon, and we took the Yukon for the trip. It's bigger and definitely more comfortable than the Hummer. We popped a DVD in the entertainment system, giving Carolyn and Marvell the opportunity to watch Shrek.

We stopped at the state line with South Dakota to take a picture, then at the nearest rest stop where I got this cool shot. It is a concrete representation of a teepee. The sun was behind it and the picture just worked.

A little further down the road was an old house that Melissa had always wanted to get a picture of. It was a little tough as the sun was behind the house, but I tramped through some tall grass to get a good vantage point. In the end, it made for a nice picture.

The trip was fun, and we had a good time listening to Carolyn make up stories and try to teach Marvell how to play games on her Leapster.

The road into Mt. Rushmore from Rapid City is a tourist magnet, with reptile farms, drive-thru zoos, and other oddly placed amusements. After driving about 2.5 total hours. We arrived at Mt. Rushmore.

It was cold and windy, making it tough to stay outside. Luckily, the museum is inside and warm. Here, Carolyn collected her first Junior Ranger Badge of the day.

The museum is nicely done, with good views of the monument from the inside. The exhibits include the scale sculptures that were used to plan the "carving" of the mountain into the monument we are all familiar with.

If you have kids, and you want to have some fun visiting the National Parks, get them into the Junior Range activities. They're free and each Park has a Junior Ranger program tailored for the location. They also have differing activities depending on the child's age, so young kids aren't trying to write essays on the creating of a mountain-sized monument.

In this case, they have a few activities where the prospective Junior Ranger has to ask questions of Rangers (like what their job is), as well as find information in the exhibits.

One question created a bit of fun. The question is "What is the Hall of Records"? Regardless of what the movies try to tell us, there is none at Mt. Rushmore. There were plans for one,but they never came to fruition. There is a single door on the back side of the mountain, but behind that door there is a only a short passageway, no Hall of Records.

We found all this out when Carolyn asked the ranger (as she was supposed to). Meanwhile, Melissa and Marvell had found a book about it, and thought it existed. I told them no, we had just asked the Park Ranger. He then became the arbiter. I asked him if he could settle a wager for us about the Hall of Records, to which he rolled his eyes. He pulls out the same book.

After a quick laugh, we asked about the filming of National Treasure with Nick Cage. Apparently, they spent 17 days there, for a total of about 30 seconds of screen time. But is has generated a whole bunch of email and phone calls, mainly from folks who have been there but never saw the lake behind the monument.

For the record, the lake exists - it's just 17 miles away at Sylvan Lake.

We got lots of pics at Mt. Rushmore and headed off to Crazy Horse Monument, less than 20 minutes away. The big difference between the two? Mt. Rushmore was funded by government funds, where Crazy Horse is funded entirely privately.

The monument has been under construction for nearly 60 years, and is now being worked on by the children of the original sculptor. It is an immense project, and as I mentioned above, it is funded by private funds. This results in a $25 per car entry fee. But there is a lot to see, including the monument, museums, and displays on the construction of the mountain and Native American history. Carolyn picker up her 2nd Junior Ranger badge here.

We had lunch in Custer, a little town south of the Crazy Horse Memorial, and headed back. On the way we stopped at Jewel Cave National Park, the 2nd largest cave in the world. There are an estimated 140 miles of cave, the vast majority of in unexplored. So how do they know how big it is? They measure the volume of air moving through the explored areas, and from that they can estimate the volume of the cave.

Carolyn heard the name "Jewel Cave" and of course, had to go. Besides, it's another Junior ranger badge.

We headed in while Melissa and Marvell stayed in the car. After some poking around in the Visitor Center, we went down with the ranger for the Discovery Tour, which us just a quick orientation of the cave. It was late in the day, and all other tours had been completed.

We exited the elevator over 230 feet below the surface, and approached the entrance to the cave. The ranger explained the air pressure difference in the cave by releasing the latch o the door, and the door was pushed open by the change in air pressure. We entered the cave's first chamber, and Carolyn started to get scared. The room was high, with large voids. In addition, there were large voids leading down, and we were on a flat area in the middle. As we talked, Carolyn got more scared. We tried talking with her, the ranger and I, but she was starting to cry. It was time to go, just three or four minutes after we arrived. Then the ranger asked if she wanted to see crystals.

He said the magic word. Carolyn perked up immediately, and followed him to the next platform. He showed her a vein of crystals in the cave wall, including some pink ones. The fear was gone. As Carolyn said, the crystals made her brave. We talked a few more minutes with the ranger, and headed up. She finished up her Junior Ranger book, and collected her third badge of the day.

From here, we headed back to Gillette, spying a number of deer along the way. All in all, a fun, if cold day.