DAY SEVEN - BLACK HILLS/MT RUSHMORE

(Photos: Mt. Rushmore (duh); a herd of buffalo, a burro saying hello; all six of us at a National Forest overlook where we had dinner [if you squint you can see Rushmore over our shoulders in the distance] and Nora getting some hiking in.)

It was bitter cold last night and a circuit breaker popped on the furnace (outside) but we had the space heater to keep us warm. It wasn’t as bad as the night before, plus this time we knew what we were in for, and had the kids in their warmest pajamas. I slept well and Michael only woke us up once in the night to eat. We had French toast and fruit cocktail from a can this morning for breakfast. David went out and reset the breaker on the furnace so we ran that for awhile to heat up the walls and the furniture a little. The space heater seems to heat the air, but it still leaves the couch and seats cold to the touch. After breakfast, I did the dishes and straightened up and David went up to the office to ask Michelle about sightseeing. She gave us a nice map and some good recommendations. Then we asked where we could get air in our tires, and the owner opened up his personal garage and let us use his air compressor. They seem very nice here. So now we are on our way to Mount Rushmore!
Just in case anyone is curious, a few things that we do differently on the RV than we would at home includes the dishes. We heat water on the stove (rather than fire up the hot water tank) and then instead of pouring it into the sink, we usually just wash the dishes in the pan and set them in the other side of the sink when they are clean. Then we rinse them off all at once real quickly. It saves a lot of water. We have unlimited water at this place, at least during the day, but we don’t hook up to freshwater at campsites. We like to be able to come and go without a lot of setup and take-down. We just fill up our freshwater tank before we leave or when it gets low and use that. Even when we have unlimited water, these are just habits we picked up from other people (including Don and Sheryl and David’s parents) and we tend to use the same methods whether we have a few gallons or all the water in the world. We also put things away a lot better on the RV because we have to or there would be no space to walk. Right now it’s tough because I had all the winter stuff (kids’ coats and all the hats and gloves) in a big plastic zipper bag stowed away carefully, but we are using them so much we can’t put them away every time or all I would be doing is putting that bag up and down. So that’s making things a little tighter. Plus the space heater is in here, too. And the dirty laundry got too big to fit under the bed and is now in the shower. It will fit under the bed once we use a few more packages of diapers. But we are doing great. As I finish up this paragraph, I can see the faces on Mount Rushmore.
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We had a great day of sightseeing. We hiked to the base of Rushmore, Nora on David’s back and Michael on my front. We went to see the Crazy Horse carving, but it is not completed and when you turn in to view it there is a sign that says, “No U-turns” but doesn’t have any prices. So you pull up to the little booth and I guess they figure they’ll embarrass you into paying the $20. But we said we weren’t interested in paying that much, and it turns out they do allow U-turns after all... We could see the carving from the road anyway. Next we drove through Custer State Park. It was $10 for a visitor pass, but they do have a wildlife viewing road there. The driving all day was quite difficult. The views are gorgeous, but the roads are narrow with no shoulder and the hair-pin turns sometimes made us laugh out loud they were so ridiculously tight. David has been doing a great job handling the 30-foot motor home through the mountains, with all the downshifting and tight corners. A few miles into the state park, David needed a nap. We pulled into one of those scenic overlook turnouts in the road. I tied the dogs out, put Michael in the front pack, and stood with Nora while she put rocks in and out of her cup for 45 minutes. Since we were pulled off and standing outside, people in passing cars kept thinking there must be some wildlife, and so they pulled off, too. It was pretty funny, because the entire time we were there I didn’t see a single animal. Then we came in and read some stories and ate apples. David woke up refreshed and impressed that I had two kids and two dogs outside by myself. We got back on the road and a few hundred yards later saw buffalo and then pronghorn antelope. We pointed these out to Nora, and she would dutifully look out the window and then return to her book about Dora’s Chilly Day, which was apparently much more interesting, the 43rd time through, than a herd of real live buffalo. A bit past the antelope, we came across some of the burros they have in the park. They used to do mule rides on the burros, but they stopped doing it and let the burros free in the park. So the burros and their descendents are just wandering around. They came right up to the window of the car. The dogs were going nuts barking at them, but they seemed to be hoping we would share our snacks.
To get back to Mount Rushmore, we chose a road that had several narrow tunnels with limited clearance. They were toward the end of a long, twisty mountain road, and we were both a bit concerned we would get all the way to the end of this road and then not fit through. A few hundreds yards onto the road, we saw a pickup truck pulling a huge fifth-wheel camper coming from the other way. He pulled off, so we did too. He said he had gone through the tunnels, so we knew we were safe, because his rig was much larger than ours. It turned out that the tunnels through the mountainside were beautiful, and one offered a great view of Mt. Rushmore framed by the tunnel as we drove through. We don't have a photo of that because the tunnel came after one super-tight turn and there was a 360-degree turn (no kidding) right after it, and there was someone behind us. We pulled off in one of the National Forest parking lots to see the view. It was such a nice place, with RV parking and a little hiking trail, that we decided to just stay there for dinner. We had been planning to go back to the campsite and make dinner before returning to Rushmore, but hey, when you have your whole house with you, you can make dinner anywhere. David cooked up beef ribs with onions and green peppers, rice and canned corn. Then we drove the rest of the way back to Mount Rushmore. When we pulled in, David said, “I vote Nora does the dishes.” I said I would vote the same. Nora was looking increasingly leery. David said, “All in favor of Nora doing the dishes, say Aye.” And we both said Aye. “All opposed, say Nay.” We both swung our gaze to Nora, who, to our utter amazement, said "Nay." Pretty loudly too. She was outvoted, but since she isn’t tall enough to reach the sink, I did the dishes. David took Nora and went to the Rushmore museum while I finished up in the camper and fed Michael. We met up in the amphitheater for the nightly lighting ceremony. The park ranger, who sounded like he had smoked a lot of dope in his short life, gave a talk, and then there was a movie about the sculpture and about the four presidents. Then they turned on a spotlight that lit up Mount Rushmore against the night sky. The Big Dipper happened to be right above the carving tonight. Nora was asleep in the stroller and Michael was snoring pretty loudly in the front carrier by then, but hey, they are too young to remember any of this anyway.
Michael has been doing great. Even through we’ve been in three time zones in a week, his circadian rhythms seem to be right on. If it’s dark out, he has a little awake time, then eats, then sleeps. Doesn’t matter what the clock says. So that’s good, since we are trying to adjust to Rocky Mountain Time. We will be in Mountain Time for awhile, so we may as well get used to it.
We plan to set out tomorrow morning for Yellowstone, but we don’t intend to do the whole thing in one day. We’ll get about halfway tomorrow and I’ll call and try to reserve a spot in one of the Yellowstone campgrounds for the following night. Not sure where we will sleep tomorrow, but that’s half the fun.