Up bright and early the next morning, and ran to a Forest Service campground between Custer and Keystone – Oreville campground.  Scored a spot for 3 nights, moved the motorhome and got settled in.  Back in the Jeep and off to Mt. Rushmore, where we did a ranger tour and walked the President’s Trail for close-up views of the presidents and lots of information on how it was constructed.   Brave, daring and resourceful men! 

Then did the Needles Highway loop. The highway is carved out of rock with several one-way tunnels and several “pigtail” bridges where the highway curves back over itself – some very creative surveying and engineering!   The "Eye of the Needle" and Needle Tunnel were awe-inspiring!  Saw lots of deer, one lone buffalo, and 3 mountain goats with their babies.  We were reminded again of the stupidity of some people – a tourist tried to pet the goats, got between the mom and the baby, and very nearly got gored.  Mike was all set up with the camera to capture the million dollar sequence on that one, but the tourist got lucky!  Back to camp after a very long day, but amazing scenery.

Slightly lazy morning today – got up and moving by about 10.  Did another portion of the loop around Rushmore, and then headed for Wind Cave.  More twisting and winding roads (thought of you bike riders and how you would love those roads).  Arrived at Wind Cave, but all of the tours of the cave were full.   So we settled for a leisurely drive back through some of the other alternate routes.  Did the Wild Animal loop and saw several herds of bison, lots of babies (remember Norman from City Slickers?), lots of deer, antelope and the wild burros.   Lots of stops for pictures – good thing it’s all digital now, or we would go broke buying film!   As we drove through the different routes, the words from "How Great Though Art" kept coming back to me - "Oh Lord, my God, as I in awesome wonder, consider all the world thy hand hast made....".  We are so blessed to have so many truly wondrous places in our country!

Atttended the night illumination at Mt. Rushmore tonight,and it was impressive.  Patriotic music before-hand, a nice movie about the development of America and the role each of the 4 presidents played, then the illumination, a reading of Frances Scott Keyes' poem (source of the Star Spangled Banner), then retiring the flag.  The ranger invited all former and current service members down to the stage to retire the flag and I was so proud of Mike as he stood and saluted our flag!  A very moving ceremony.

Back to the motorhome and to bed.  Off to see Jewel Cave and other sights tomorrow.

Things we learned:

• Buffalo are dangerous (the signs say so!)
• Buffalo are bigger than our Jeep!
• It takes longer to get somewhere than we think (mostly because we keep stopping and looking at stuff!)
• Some tourists are really stupid and have a death wish.  They also think signs like "leave the animals alone" don't apply to them. We call this "genetic selection"......