Monday, September 9, 2013

September 8, 2013

We both had a really busy day near Rapid City, SD

We started off by beating the sun up and traveling an hour and a quarter to get the first tour of the day at the Wind Cave.   Tom tried to get several pics down below but because of the poor lighting most did not come out very well.

 The original opening to the Wind Cave was not very big...not much larger than
for a young boy, Alvin McDonald to pass through.  We did find Grammie had made her way down.  The temp was 53 and we went down to a depth of about 250 feet.


These box formations on the ceiling were caused by calcite seeping into cracks, and later the surrounding limestone was washed away.

 After leaving the Wind Cave on the road to Custer we managed to see some wild animals.


 Pronghorns

 and Bison


This one wasn't really this up close and personal.

 Our next stop was the huge rock sculpture of Chief Crazy Horse.  It was started by Korczak Ziolwalski in 1948 and will probably take several more family generations to finish.  This photo is how it appears today.


 This is a closeup of the head.  You notice maybe 3 people up in front of the face...they paid big bucks to see it from that area.



This is a mini sculpture of what it will eventually look like with the work in progress in the background.


Our last stop of the day was at Mt Rushmore.  To make this a little more fun, see if you can identify the noses of the famous presidents.  Answers tomorrow.
 Nose A


 Nose B
 Nose C


Nose D


 If the above were too tough, see if you can find Grammie in this picture.


 With the help of a young lady from Australia we both got into this picture.


A close up if you need help answering the first 4 above.  Maybe Grammie's nose is one of them.
We hung around to see a short program and the evening lighting of the monument.  
After about 10 minutes, everyone was scrambling for their vehicles because of a 
wicked thunderstorm.  Luckily there was no hail like last week.

Time for some rest as I finish today's blog at 1 am home time.

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