Mt. Rushmore or less

I got up this morning around 7 am, showered, dressed and went down the hall for breakfast consisting of an English muffing, pastry and coffee. I returned to my room and finished getting ready and headed out around 8:30 am. I headed north out of Custer toward the Crazy Horse Memorial, just a few miles up the road, arriving there around 8:45 am. I decided to go on in and tour the site since it was only $10. I also took the $4 bus tour to the base of the monument. They are working on the horse and have 7 of 10 tiers blasted away. The remaining three will take another 10 years before they can start sculpting the horse. At that rate it may not be finished until after 2100 AD (or BCE for those politically correct).

 Bronze Sculpture with the monument in the background

 Crazy Horse as of today with the outline of the horse’s head traced in white

 The scaffolding on top will be replaced by a single feather sculpture

 Mock up Sculpture

An Indian in the Indian Exhibit

I left Crazy Horse around 10 am and drove to the Mt. Rushmore memorial, arriving there around 10:45 am. I parked the care and walked to the entrance. This being Memorial Weekend there were a lot of people visiting today. I walked through the Hall of Flags, representing each state and to the Grand View Terrace for a closer look at the monument and took some more pictures. On the way the Friends of the Monument were having a souvenir sale with everything $5, s I bought a T-shirt.

 On my way in

Hall of Flags

What a view!

 I then took a walking tour around the Presidential Trail loop at the base of the mountain, returning to the Terrace View lower level where the Visitor Center was located. I went in and toured the exhibit and found where I could stamp my passport. I walked back up to the Grand View Terrace and started making my way out. I stopped at the Hall of Flags and found Texas on the engraved granite columns. It was on the outside of one of the columns, where it was not visible walking down between the columns to the Terrace. Just as well because everybody would want to stop there and it would cause a log-jam of people on crowded days.

 Views from the Presidential Trail

Texas inscription and flag at the Hall of Flags

As I walked back out I saw the Carver Café and it being around lunch time, decided to go there for lunch, where I had a hamburger, fries and a Coke. The Carver Café, though I’m sure it has been remodeled since, is where that famous scene from “North by Northwest” was filmed, 50 years ago, where Eva Marie Saint’s character (Eve Kendall) shoots Cary Grant’s character (Roger Thornhill) with a blanks pistol to dupe her evil benefactor played by James Mason to believing her loyalty.

Carve Cafe

An interesting anecdote (to me anyway) regarding Eva Marie Saint is that she attended Bowling Green State (Ohio) in the late 1940s. My late wife’s grandfather, Lyman Stevens was a Bowling Green policeman and also worked as a campus cop during that same time period. He was known around campus as “Steve the Cop” and it is said he would escort the women to their dorms from the library at night, though I can’t imagine there was much to worry about back then.

Any way to make a short story long, I have a playbill from a dramatic production there in 1948 with Eva Marie Saint in the cast. The production was dedicated to “Steve the Cop”.

Another scene from the movie which I like is when Roger Thornhill is in the hospital as part of the ruse and decides to leave, but the door to his room is locked from the outside. So, he opens the window and crawls out on the ledge, then walks along the ledge to another room, opens the window and goes in. The patient, a woman, in that room (it’s at night) hears the commotion, turns on her light and yells: Stop! Upon seeing Cary Grant’s character she then breathily says Stop..

So, I left Mt. Rushmore and headed toward a drive-through wildlife park called Bear Country U.S.A. I drove through the park and the line of cars stalled at the entrance to the bear area, because there were two bears pacing back and forth on the road just inside that area. Finally cars were able to get through as the bears would move off the path for a few moments. In the bear area there must be 50-75 bears. They had other animal sections, but the bears were their main draw. I finished my drive through Bear Country and it was around 1:30 pm.

 Bear Patrol

 Big Bear

 A lone wolf in the bear exhibit

I then decided to drive over to Custer State Park arriving there around 2 pm. I drove the wildlife trail loop which would take me through the park and bring me out on the highway that led back to Custer. There were several herds of Bison along the way as well as other animals. At one spot there were two donkeys on the road inspecting everyone’s car as if they were toll takers and you had to give them something to let you pass. Some people were feeding them something, however I had nothing to give them so I kept my windows up. A little further down the road there was a group of donkeys and people were out of their cars, petting them etc.  As I got ¾ the way around the loop, I realized from my map that I was near Wind Cave National Park. I asked Samantha how close we were and it was close enough to make a detour there to check on the cave tours for tomorrow, since the information I had obtained on line was only valid through mid-May.

 Bison Herd

Donkey Toll Road

 Donkey Petting Group

Bison on the Road to Wind Cave

I drove on over to Wind Cave and checked in at the Visitor Center on the various tours and times for in the morning on my way to The Badlands. I got my passport book stamped, and headed back to the car for the drive back to Custer. I arrived back at the hotel around 4:30 pm. Around 5 pm I walked a couple of blocks to the Buglin Bull for dinner where I had grilled pork chop, baked potato, green beans, roll and ice tea. After dinner I walked around the Custer area and took some pictures of some of the old brick buildings, etc. I returned my hotel room a little after 6 pm and will be reviewing the Wind Cave tours for tomorrow. It looks like Jewel Cave is out of this trip as the tours are by reservation. Another time, another trip.

 One of the old buildings in Custer, circa 1881

Buglin Bull Restaurant

Tomorrow after Wind Cave I will drive to Wall, SD which is on the north side of The Badlands National Park. I have Monday and Tuesday to explore the park and then Wednesday I start my trek toward home arriving Saturday afternoon at the latest, maybe even Friday evening. It has been a good trip, but I am ready to get home as well.

See you down the road!