August 1st, 2018
Today is our tour of Wind Cave National Park. We got up early and got to Wind Cave a little after the visitor center opened. There were three tours to choose from and we chose the earliest one. It was about a half mile and we went down about 150 feet navigating 300 stairs. The hardest part was probably that there were 38 people on the tour. At one point I’m on a stair case and 18 people in front of me and 18 people behind me and an inch above my head and a foot of space on either side. Claustrophobic yet? It was cool to see all the box work and think about the people in the 1940’s navigating the cave by candlelight.
After that we had to go back up to Spearfish to pick up Goldie. We wanted to take a new route so we did the Iron Mountain road to Keystone. I had three cool tunnels that you could see Mt. Rushmore when you drove through them.
We were supposed to do a Jewel Cave Monument tour at 4 but Goldie wasn’t ready until 3. So we drove to our campsite finally and got to spend one of our three nights there. The lake was gorgeous and surrounded by tall rounded rocks and lush greenery. We saw baby deer and even some bucks. Black elk peak trail is up here and we probably would have done it if we had more time. It is the tallest peak in South Dakota. We made dinner and had a fire. It was a pleasant end to our South Dakota portion. We left some things to do so we are confident we will be back.
Vanawaywithus 