Road Trip Post #2K - Wind Cave NP, Crazy Horse Mem, Needles Hwy, Iron Mountain Rd

Wednesday, June 17th.

We left the Mammoth Site and drove into Custer, SD to regroup with my parents, sister, niece, my uncle, aunt and their dog. We were separated while others had to run errands in town. Instead of errands, I took my mom and girls through a drive of Wind Cave National Park. I was a little sad we didn't take the 90 minutes to do the tour and let the girls become Junior Rangers again. We love the National Park Service Junior Ranger Program! We did see a lot of bison. (I will probably use the term buffalo, but know that I mean bison). Some day we'll have to take this trip again with Tim!

The girls talked me into getting them these adorable Junior Ranger hats at the Wind Cave NP Gift Shop.

Why did the bison cross the road? To get to the stop sign to scratch its head!

We had lunch at Subway in Custer, which I actually recommend! It's a typical Subway, but the crew was fast, efficient, and embraced being a popular chain restaurant in a tourist town with small talk on their favorite places to see and times to see it. (After finding their link on Yelp, I think I should review it and bump up their rating...after I finish my blogs.)

We decided to split up again on our way to Mt. Rushmore. I took the girls and my mom in my vehicle. First stop was to see how much progress had been made in the carving of Crazy Horse. Construction on Crazy Horse Memorial started in 1948. This memorial is privately funded and is not government sponsored like Mt. Rushmore, so progress is very slow.

We thought we could snap a few pictures in the parking lot, but the booths with people charging us $11/person admission were before the parking lots. At least they let us do a U-turn for free. We weren't in the mood to pay $44 for a quick look at the mountain.

Picture from the point of our free U-turn.

Zoomed in cropped view from our U-turn. There's now a hole under his pointing arm.

We left Crazy Horse Memorial and came to our decision point: drive straight (20 minutes on SD 244) to Mt. Rushmore, or scenic route (turned into 2 hours on SD 87 - Needles Highway to US 16A - Iron Mountain Road)? Because my sister wasn't in our vehicle, we chose the scenic route with lots of hairpin turns, sharp drop offs, and one lane tunnels. Usually the scenic route is only an hour, but we got caught behind people doing 10 mph in the 35 mph zone, and stopped in road construction with flag people so long that I actually stopped the engine and enjoyed the summer breeze carrying the scents of fresh mountain air.

Slipping through the eye of the needle on Needles Highway. Actually the eye of the needle was near here and people were rock climbing and all kinds of people parking in crazy spots to take a picture. I was focused on driving. Picture by Karen Rasmussen.

Part of the scenery we would have missed going the short way. Picture by Karen Rasmussen.

More scenery along the way. Picture by Karen Rasmussen.

Steep cliffs that we can see on this side of the road. Drop offs looked like this, but on the other side of the road. Picture by Karen Rasmussen.

One lane traffic going through a tunnel. Picture by Karen Rasmussen.

We stopped at a campground to use the restroom. This is the type of safe scenery that could be seen on the short route taken by my "scaredy-cat" sister. (Opinion completely mine!)

This is the reason to take the scenic route! Our first great view of Mt. Rushmore!

Shortly after that tunnel there is a place to stop and take pictures. Here is my mom taking a picture of the girls and Mt. Rushmore.