Busy

Yesterday was a tourist day.  The weather was nice but a little cloudy.  We were up early and started driving.  We drove by (not in) the Mount Rushmore monument.  We had been there four years ago.  The area is still beautiful.  It makes me aware that sometimes it is okay to come to the same spot. 

Bob was navigating and I had told him that I wanted to see the badlands.  We drove, and drove.  At first it was pretty.  Then it was a little boring.  I kept thinking this is not so bad.  Then we got to this spot (where there is a picture of me).  It is really bad, and amazing.  At the top of the cliff was a small rough structure and an old Indian woman was sitting there with a table and trying to sell jewelry.  She gave me this story about how she had to make money to pay a fine.  I was not interested in any of it and walked down about a hundred feet to the edge of the cliff.  Apparently while I was gone, the woman told Bob that she was just doing this for fun.  She has enough money. 

Anyway, I was awed by the badlands and would have stayed longer, but, guess what, it was lunch time.  So we drove, and drove.  There was nothing.  We finally found a small family restaurant.  The waitress who seated us was very hard to understand.  So I gave her my pitch about having old ears and asked her to speak slower.  She told me that she did not speak English well since she had only been in the US a couple of days and this was her first day of work.  She is from Ukraine and we had a short discussion about the fact that my family was from Kiev.  Lunch was okay, not great.  (This was the first time we made a choice that was not great.)

Then we headed off toward Custer state park.  (No idea why it is called that or if this is where Custer had his last stand.  We could not find any info.)  As we started the drive there were lots of signs that said that this was not a drive for trucks or rvs.  We started up a steep and windy road and found (guess what stupid people) an rv on the side of the road.  There was no way that rv could continue up, and no way it could turn around to get back down.  I have no idea what they did and drove by just shaking my head. 

The drive up was beautiful and there were some amazing tunnels (see picture above).  You could also see Mount Rushmore through the trees in some places.  And we met some interesting people when we stopped at the scenic areas.  And, once again we saw buffalo.  This time there was about thirty of them on the road stopping traffic.  They came right up to the car.  I had the window open and was taking pictures, but decided that maybe I should close the window for a few minutes.  They finally, slowly moved on and we were on our way again.  We did get to Custer park and found that it was not that interesting.  We did not want to pay the entrance fee just to drive through, so we headed back to our camp.

Great dinner and nice evening.  I walked around a while and even found the local entertainment (a cowboy poet).  Then once again early to bed.  (I have decided that I am so relaxed that I get sleepy earlier and easier.  No problem sleeping here and now.) 

Today is a lazy day.  It takes a long time to download pictures so I don't know how often I will do it until we get back to where we can use the jet pack.  Having a great time.  Wish you were here.