After a short break at a hotel, we were off into the Black Hills of South Dakota. We stopped at the Prairie Berry winery. We did not like their signature Red Ass Rhubarb Wine but did enjoy two of their other wines: a pear wine called Gold digger(this was good!) and their Black Raspberry Fusion. We also had a good time talking to ???? and Pat as they served us samples. Pat was traveling like us and was just staying the summer in the Black Hills.
We enjoyed two different sites at the Big Pine Campground. When you do not have reservations you sometimes need to shuffle around some. Our first site was near the bathrooms/showers which was nice. That first night the wind picked up and actually knocked a few trees down. We were lucky, a branch came within about a foot of our Sparty van. Others were not quite so lucky but only minor damage. Our second site had a spectacular view into the Black Hills. Mrs Ram saw several deer wandering through. Ron, Angie and (dog)Bo were wonderful hosts for our few days stay. Additional campground info is here.
Mt Rushmore is one of those places we all know about and have seen in movies, Shows and cartoons.Mrs Rams latest recollection of it was a Phineas and Ferb episode. Both of us were somewhat disappointed – we both had imagined them being overwhelmingly large. They are big and impressive but just not as big we imagined. Tips – go early, use the south road into the mountain, avoid the really slow line to get in. We did the first two.
They have the Massachusetts pillar facing a fence. Somebody clearly did not like us.
We did notice what seemed to be another face to the right of Lincoln. Maybe the apes have started adding their president. (Planet of the Apes?)
We opted to see Crazy Horse from the road after our visit to Mt Rushmore and save $22.
Of the two National Park Caves we opted to see the Jewel Cave. Partly because it looked like it would be more impressive and partly because Linda’s horse was named Jewel. It was impressive and for the most part a dry cave. There were lots of of steps so we did get our work out in. The picture is of a rock formation called bacon.
Testing a new format for posts that will hopefully let me get them written and uploaded faster.