Friday - 22 Sept - Rapid City, SD

22 September - Friday

After working to catch up on the blogs for this week, we are almost up to date.

The rain and wind arrived in Rapid City, SD today as forecasted. I’m not sure of the exact temperature(s) but the rain and wind does make it uncomfortable to be outside for long without several layers of clothing. Fortunately, we dug out the winter gear earlier.

We picked up the rental car this a.m. and headed south past Mt. Rushmore. Even though it was raining, the clouds were above the Presidents’ heads so we got a good view. We plan to return on Sunday or Monday when it promises to be warmer and sunnier.

We continued past the mountain and visited the town of Custer and Custer State Park. Although many things around here are named in honor of Gen. George Armstrong Custer, the battle of Little Big Horn was farther to the west in Wyoming. But Custer did come through Rapid City and Black Hills in 1874 on an expedition to locate a possible army fort. It is quite well documented in a book called The Custer Expedition by Grafe and Horstead.

The town of Custer is right out of an old Western movie. Everything looks original. Many of the buildings have photos from the late 1800’s and haven’t changed very much. One of the town’s events is the Custer Buffalo Roundup and Annual Arts Festival to be held next weekend. A highlight of the weekend is the judging and auction of the Buffalo statues. Remember the cows in Chicago or the manatees in Jacksonville? Same idea -- only with a full-size bison statues are the three-dimensional canvases. Every corner has at least 4 life-size statues with more in mid-block, each completely different. The photo above is one of the statues in town. There’s also a chili cook-off, dancers, poets, western and Native American performers. Or you can participate in the Buffalo Chip Flip contest. CusterStatePark@state.sd.us. or www.CusterStatePark.info

We had a latte at an old hotel in town. The young lady who waited on us was from Romania. She has been here all summer and is returning home next week. Although she enjoyed the USA, she complained that all the food in Custer, SD was frozen – nothing was fresh. Interesting perspective.

We drove on through Custer State Park. It is reported to be home to one of the largest bison herds in the USA. But we saw only 4 bison. But we did see lots of wild turkeys, several antelope, and a large group of mountain goats. They were a hoot. The young ones were butting heads and leaping straight in the air like they were on the proverbial springs. The funny part is this all occurred right in the middle of a small campground. In fact, one of the campers was a bow-and-arrow hunter, busy getting his gear ready while a herd of mountain goats was cavorting around him!

Our return was via a small back-country road that wound through the hills. There were 5 one-lane tunnels cut into the mountain, and three switch-backs that crossed over themselves via wooden bridges! One set of bridges was called Pig’s Tail because the series crossed and re-crossed a steep chasm as the road spiraled downward thus resembling the curly-cue of a pig’s tail – and all made of large wooden timbers.

The one-lane tunnels were also fun because you were supposed to stop on your side and blow the horn to warn on-coming traffic. What was particularly fascinating on the two of the tunnels was that looking through the tunnel, the tunnel opening framed the Presidents’ carvings on Mt. Rushmore. We only had the “tiny” camera with us – not thinking we’d see much. We’ll return in the next few days with the “serious” cameras and see if we can get a good shot.
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