2015 Yellowstone Road Trip: Day 8 - 11: July 26 - 29:
States: Wyoming, Montana
Hailstorms: 1
Dryer Loads of Laundry: 14
Wash Loads: 1
Temperature Swings: 55 degrees
Memories:
Danny:
Mammoth Sinkhole
Bunnies at the campsite and making new friends
Rain/Hail soaked tent
Learning that Rushmore can fit into Crazy Horse's head
Snakes and Prairie Dog Town at Reptile Gardens
Grace saying: "The tornado passed us, the tornado passed us!" in her sleep
Grace:
Laser Lights at Crazy Horse
Crocodile Show and the Bird Show at Reptile Gardens
Really, really scary bug show at Reptile Gardens
Digging up the tusk at Mammoth
Hail and downpour
Going to the freezing bathroom in the middle of the night at the campground
Therese:
Driving in the hailstorm
The tent holding up under buckets of hail
The extremely hot day at Mt. Rushmore
The barking dog at the campsite
Crazy Horse and getting a rock
Four hour drying marathon
Freezing at night
:
Having a dry tent again
Snowdrifts of hail
We left our hotel in Buffalo relaxed, with two days worth of food in the cooler and headed out for our Rushmore adventure. The drive was only about three-and-a-half hours so we planned to do a bit of touring on the way. In particular, Gordon and I were interested in seeing the city of Deadwood since we had watched the series of the same name on HBO.
I had read about avoiding the Sturgis area of South Dakota during the first week of August due to a huge annual Motorcycle Rally. But it was becoming evident by the time we reached Deadwood that the bikes had already arrived.
The woman at the Deadwood Welcome Center said we ain't seen nothing yet and that by next week there would be bikes as far as the eye could see. Because it's the 75th anniversary of the rally, record crowds are expected in excess of one million or more thereby tripling the population of the state of North Dakota.
We opted to walk into town as parking lots were all blocked off for bikes. It was a baking hot day and we kept the kids going with ice cream bribes. Motorcycles and Deadwood seem to suit each other. I never associated an outlaw culture with South Dakota, but clearly this exists in Deadwood. Every door we walked through in Deadwood offered a gambling opportunity from slots to high stakes gambling. I am not kidding. Most of the historic spots are saloons but lucky for us, children are allowed in bars and casinos until 5:00 pm. Fortunately, brothels have been against the law for about 10 years so we didn't have to worry about exposing our kids to that!
We walked to the Saloon 10 which is the infamous location of the shooting of Wild Bill Hickock. Just as we were about to leave, Wild Bill himself informed us that a reenaction of his demise would take place in 10 minutes. We grabbed front row seats and I headed to the bar to get soda for the kids and a beer for Gordon. I asked for a beer that was "authentic Deadwood". The bartender said: "Look around and at the sawdust on the floor - the most authentic would be Budweiser."
The Wild Bill shootout was well done. Audience members were recruited and quickly trained to play critical roles. We learned that after Bill was shot, the hand he was holding was revealed to show a pair of eights and aces which has been ever after referred to as "Dead Man's Hand."
Swap motorcycles for horses, and we probably had a legitimate Sunday afternoon Deadwood experience.
On our way out of Deadwood we stopped at the Broken Boot mine for a quick tour. We were allowed to take any rocks we found on the floor of the mine so of course we went home with a pocketful of rocks. Grace was especially taken with the rocks because they were graphite and could be used like a pencil. Rock collecting was to become a trend on this vacation. Afterwards the kids panned for gold. 
Then, gold in hand we were off.
We decided to find somewhere down the road to pull over for a picnic. Suddenly we started seeing signs for the town of Sundance. Wow! Would we see Robert Redford? Would there be movie star memorabilia? We pulled off the highway with big dreams. Nothing was open. It was a Sunday after all and this was no Deadwood. Oh - and by the way: the big Sundance is in Colorado...forgot about that.
We pulled into the Custer KOA in late afternoon and it was immediately obvious that we were at an awesome campground. The staff couldn't have been friendlier. Our site was next to two kindergarten teachers grabbing one last bit of vacation. There was only one drawback on the first day and that was a barking dog in the camper across the road from us. It barked constantly only stopping to howl. It brought our whole "street" together in camaraderie and solidarity as we all went slowly crazy together. The campground staff tried to reach the family and also promised that they would not be allowed to leave their pets unattended again. All of us who were there that day can tell you that the family came home at 11:05 that night. They left the next day and we all thought our troubles left with them. (Foreshadowing)
The next day was our Mount Rushmore day. Danny had been extremely disappointed that we weren't camping in the shadow of Rushmore so he was excited to see the real thing. The night before, the kids had gotten their hands on one of the tourist magazines and picked out a couple additional attractions that they felt were important to see. They specifically were excited about the Glow in the Dark Mini Golf and the 3D Dragon Blaster tag. Lo and behold on the way to Mount Rushmore we passed the Mini Golf game. We told the kids that we would stop there before we left the area since we knew we would coming that way many times during our stay.
Mount Rushmore was, of course, impressive. The kids were amazed at the size of it and enjoyed the film about it's origins. We got the headphones and followed the self-guided tour which featured many beautiful views of the mountain. After a 90 degree picnic outside the visitor's center, we told the kids that we would stop at the Dragon Blaster on the way back. Gordon would stay with them and I'd run a few quick errands.
We had a special treat in the gift shop. The only living person who worked on the mountain was signing copies of his book. We bought a copy and got a photo opportunity. 
As I called Gordon to let him know I was heading back to pick them up I noticed some extremely ominous clouds in the distance. When I pulled into the parking lot, the storm was upon us and I barely slowed down as the family leaped into the car.
We got a couple miles down the road when the rain began to include hail. Visibility was down to nothing so I pulled over and put on the flashers. Soon the entire highway was empty with all of flashing on the shoulder. We felt sorry for the bikers who were taking a pounding. Grace claims the Golden Valley hailstorm was worse, but I think this one was far worse.
Finally we were able to start towards our campsite which was about 20 miles away. As we got nearer, there was no longer any hail on the road and we hoped the storm missed our campsite. We were especially nervous because for the first time in our camping history we had left the rain fly off the tent. It was such a hot day without a cloud in the sky we wanted to keep the tent ventilated. Plus the camp host had just been telling us a story about how hailstorms always seemed to miss the town of Custer. I guess he jinxed it!
As soon as we pulled into the town of Custer everything changed. Where there had been small piles of hail alongside the road in the area where we pulled over, there was solid white on the ground in Custer. Roads were flooded and huge sections of gravel and silt runoff from the mountains covered the roads. Roofs looked as if they had just been hit by a snowstorm and a plow was out clearing the streets. The campsite was more of the same. Our tent was a disaster although it could have been much worse.
The mesh top of the tent was weighted down by buckets of huge hail. But it held up! We envisioned it ripped to shreds. The floor of the tent had at least three inches of water. This meant that all our clothes, sleeping bags, pillows (the first time we brought pillows camping!), duffle bags, etc. were soaked. We went into triage mode with Gordon putting the tarp on the tent and clearing out the water. I brought all our worldly possessions to the laundry room and started drying. There were four dryers and I initially used only two. I didn't want to hog the dryers. But no one else showed up so eventually I used all four. As other beleaguered moms began to show up, I scaled back to two dryers. It was actually kind of fun as we traded stories and suggestions about things to do. We shared detergent and quarters and had a nice bonding experience. Four hours later everything was clean and dry.
The staff at the KOA was outstanding through all of this. One manager was collecting newspaper and stuffing the wet boots of all the bikers. They gladly replaced our soaking wet firewood with dry wood and were often stopping by to see if we needed anything. Best KOA ever!
The sunset was beautiful.
Unfortunately, it was not warm. All our nights in Custer got down into the low 30's and I was miserably cold. My sleeping bag was not made for freezing temperatures and even with all my clothes on, I was never able to get warm. I decided to head to the Walmart (sigh) the next day and get the cheapest sleeping bag I could find to add another layer.
The next day we headed out, first for my sleeping bag and then to Reptile Gardens. Our guide book highly recommended this place which holds the Guinness World Record for most reptile species housed under one roof. It was a pretty cool place. The exhibits were interesting and we also were able to see three shows: A bird show, a snake show and an Alligator sow. The guy who presented the snakes was very charismatic. He had us thinking he was going to be bitten by a snake at any moment. He appeared extremely nervous and made jokes about us laughing at his nervousness. We headed to the alligator show and what do you know? The same guy. He put on an equally entertaining show, even showing us how to hold a gator's mouth shut. We later learned that he is in his final year of Law School. He will make an excellent lawyer.
We headed back to camp for an early dinner so we cold drive to the Crazy Horse Memorial to see the laser show. We had time to wander the museum for a bit and pick out our free rock. We planed to watch the show from the warmth of our car, but both kids wanted to sit on the viewing terrace to watch so we waited in the plummeting temperatures for about 15 minutes before the show started. The first thing that happened when the lights went down is that the announcer said" Ladies and Gentlemen, the laser show will begin in two minutes. There was a collective groan from the crowd. But we were finally rewarded with a pretty impressive show that ended with a laser outline on the mountain depicting the final outline of the carving.
I got my first warm sleep of camping with my double sleeping bag.
The next day we headed back to Crazy Horse to see the monument in the daytime and to ride the bus to the closest viewing spot. I think the kids, especially Grace was really impressed with this monument. We learned that while progress was initially slow, they are able to speed things up as they now use GPS to determine dynamite blasts. They are also able to do some sort of ultrasound technology to determine the make-up of the rock they are blasting so they don't run the risk of hitting fault lines. The work was initially projected to take 100 years. It has been going for over 60 years but they project that it will be finished well within the 100 year timeframe. When it is finished it will be the largest mountain carving in the world.
After viewing Crazy Horse and stopping for some souvenirs, we headed to Hot Springs, SD. This is a place I heard about during my mom conversations in the laundry room after the hail storm.
There is a Mammoth site in Hot Springs. It is unique because the entire dig was covered with a roof and walls and is climate controlled. It is a museum but also a live dig site. The other mom told me that her husband had signed their kids up for a junior paleontology class weeks before their trip. We were bummed that we didn't know about the class but headed out to see dig and take the tour. When we arrived we were told that there were a few limited spots left in the class. So the kids got to go on a simulated archaeology expedition.
I had to laugh because we had just taken our second showers of the trip that morning and now, 6 hours later, they were digging for bones in the dirt! You may remember that after the previous bath, they were rolling in the rodeo dirt!
We had a relaxing morning the next day. We decided to grab breakfast in town to save time. By this time the bikers were out in full force but we were able to get a table at a recommended bakery/restaurant and the food was delicious even if the logo was a bit risqué.
On our way out of town, we checked out the Air and Space Museum as Gordon had a hankering to relive his airplane model building days. The kids brought their books in and sat and read while Gordon wandered around. I think they needed a break from touring.
Then it was off to the Badlands!
Did I mention the dust? The west is dusty! Here is the dust gathered around my window sticker on the car. 
