Moon at Sunrise from our Deck

We had another week of feeling poorly. Danita and I were both coughing away. By Sunday, Danita was actually starting to feel sick. Monday, we decided to go to the medical clinic in Rapid City (only an hour away!) and see what the good medical people had to say. They decided we have a virus and there’s not much they can do for us. They gave us some Tessalon Pearls which are supposed to help with the coughing. We did some shopping and went home. It wasn’t much of a day, We spent the rest of the day reading library books.

At Sylvan Lake

Tuesday we felt a little better and decided to go to one of the lodges in Custer Park for Breakfast. The breakfast was just so-so, but it felt good getting out. After breakfast, we took a one-mile hike around Sylvan Lake. We didn’t see any wildlife, but it’s quite a beautiful area. It was an easy walk, well within our capabilities. It felt good being out in the sun for a little while. After our walk, we drove on Needles Highway. We stopped at several lookouts and even did a little easy walking. On the way home, we stopped at the local burger place and had some amazingly good hamburgers.

Rock Window at Sylvan Lake

Today was our big day out. We went back to Rapid City and visited a couple of local museums. It rained during the day, but we managed to be either in the car or in a museum every time it rained. The original plan was to see a Rodeo this evening, but we headed home home early and had dinner at home. It’s early to bed for me tonight. I’m still coughing, and we have 4 days of cave tours coming up.

Cathedral Spires on Needles Highway

Our first confirmed Elk

I got a cold this week. I was feeling kinda OK Friday, kinda not OK Saturday. By Sunday I was pretty down. I actually told the lead ranger I couldn’t do my scheduled patio talk and took a nap instead. I’m feeling better now, but of course Danita is coming down with her version. It’s a strange experience living in this area. Many of the restaurants are closed in the winter. In the summer, the good ones are mobbed. So it turns out the locals almost  never get to eat dinner out. Go figure. We’ve given up on eating dinner out in Custer. Fortunately, we get up early so it’s easy to get a nice breakfast when we want.

More Custer Buffalo

We had a laid back weekend. Monday we took an early drive through Custer Park and saw some more wildlife, then went to a breakfast brunch. Tuesday we went back to Custer for the 4th of July parade. It was about half an hour long, but it was fun to see the fire trucks, veterans, and kids going down the street. We went back home, then went back to Custer in the evening for the fireworks. It was a nice show.

Alpine Toboggan

Today we went to Keystone. We started with some mini-golf. Danita visited a gold mine. (I tried, but the shaft was way too small for my comfort.) Then we decided to ride an overhead tram. While we were riding up, I saw people coming down in a toboggan. We hadn’t plan to ride it, but it looked like a lot of fun so I upgraded my ticket to take the toboggan on the return trip. I had so much fun that I took the whole ride a second time. Danita was happy to watch.

Danita in Minuteman

We started out visiting the local air and space museum. We took the bus tour so we could see the Nike missile training simulator. We also went the inside of the missile silo trainer. The missiles originally had mirrors on them. They used a system of mirrors to align the missiles with the North Star. The guides learned they could use that mirror to make it look like a visitor was inside the missile. The museum had several aircraft outside. There was no signage or explanation. The only thing they had was a paper map that one could use to figure out which plane we were seeing. I can’t blame them too much. We were visiting a strategic bomber air base with working B1B bombers. Still, a little signage would go a long way.

Beechcraft Twin

My favorite aircraft was the C45 Expeditor, AKA Beechcraft 1800, AKA Beechcraft “Twin”. I thought this was the aircraft in Casa Blanca. Then I learned it was actually the very similar looking Lockheed Electra. Then I learned it was really a scaled down model of the Electra. All that aside, this was a true classic. In it’s day, it held the record for the longest production run.

Big Horn Sheep at Bear World

We spent Monday afternoon at Bear World. This is a drive-through zoo. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of animals. One of the things we do at Jewel Cave is give patio talks. These are aimed at children visiting the site, waiting for their cave tours. Danita does an “Animal Furs” talk. It’s surprising how many children insist that bears live in this part of South Dakota. After all, they saw them at Bear World.

Boxwork

Sunday we drove in a different direction and visited our sister cave, Wind Cave. This was the first time I tried to take pictures inside a cave. Not surprisingly, even good cameras have a problem getting good pictures while walking around a cave. This came out as well as any. It’s a picture of Boxwork. It was fun seeing how different two caves with the same geological history can be. The ranger did a wonderful job leading the tour.

Mammoth Site

Monday afternoon we visited the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs. This was a cave that collapsed, making an attractive-looking sink hole. Unfortunately for the mammoths, the soil lining the sinkhole was very slippery clay. Many mammoths entered,  none escaped. As expected, there were lots of bones from animals of the day. We were surprised to learn that what we saw represented less than 1/3 of the dig.

B52 Stratofortress

The weather here is rather freaky. We’ve been experiencing mostly cool days (highs in between 60 and 70 / lows in the high 30s). We definitely didn’t bring enough warm clothes. We’re getting by, but we really thought it would be warmer in the summer. At 85 degrees, yesterday afternoon was our first warm day. We were planning to eat dinner at a burger joint. While looking for a parking space, we saw the entire block was filled with people waiting to get inside. We were trying to decide what to do when the wind suddenly kicked up. We decided to drive home (about 12 miles). Dirt started blowing across the road, making it hard to see. Then the rain started. Without warning, the rain got so heavy that I couldn’t see the road. There was a wide shoulder, but I didn’t dare pull over because I literally couldn’t see where the pavement ended. I stopped the car and turned on the flashers. That was fine, nobody else could see either. After a few minutes, there was a lull and a string of us pulled over. The temperature dropped to 55 degrees. After about 10 minutes, the rain tapered off enough that I could drive. I didn’t go over 45 on this 65 MPH road. Neither did anybody else. It was quite an experience.

B29 Superfortress

1880 Train

We had a nice, relaxing weekend. That’s a good thing because I was exhausted at the end of our work week Sunday. Monday, we took the 1880 train. They have steam trains, but they are all oil fired because coal-fired trains are illegal. They burn used motor oil. Afterwards, we visited several small museums in the area.

Crazy Horse

Tuesday, we went to Crazy Horse. They have an extensive visitor’s center. After 50 years, only the face of the carving is done. We chose not to take the bus ride up to the statue. This picture is from a website. We had dinner at the Purple Pie Place. Their dinner is basic but good. The Chicken Pot Pie is excellent, as are their desert pies.

It is the 4 of Diamonds!

Tuesday evening we went to a magic show. The magician picked Danita to assist him with a card trick. You get a bonus picture of this. The magician is a good illusionist, the show is very family friendly, and everybody had a good time. When we came out, the sky looked very dramatic.

We’re having a computer shortage. My computer stopped working, so we’re sharing Danita’s computer. The part Dell needs is on back order, so it seems I won’t get my computer back this month.

We subscribed to Netflix to get some video entertainment in the evenings. I don’t know why anybody subscribes to them. I haven’t found a single good streaming movie. Every time I find a movie we might want to watch, it’s either not listed or it’s listed as DVD only. I haven’t found a decent way to search for streaming movies in Netflix. I can’t believe the service is that bad. For now, we’re watching “Orange is the New Black” and reruns of “The Flash”. Neither show is riveting, but it gives us a couple of hours of down time in the evening.

Dramatic Sky

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Interior – Population 67 or 94?

We spent most of our two days in the Badlands. We stayed at a roadside motel just outside the park in a little town named Interior. How small is Interior? That depends on whether you enter from the east or the west, apparently. We had quite a good T-storm the night we were here. Lightening was very frequent, but mostly from cloud to cloud. Thunder was continuous. We got about an inch of rain. The hotel owner told us that this was not a very bad storm. It’s not unusual to get hail, with 70 MPH winds.

We had a delightful 2 days driving around the area, taking short hikes, and listening to ranger programs. I’ll let the Badlands speak for themselves.

White River — “Too thick to drink, too thin to plow”

A piece of the Berlin Wall

We visited the Minuteman visitor center next, which is really a museum of the cold war. They had the typical black-and-white TVs playing “duck and cover” clips. plans for family bomb shelters, a summary of the Cuban missile crisis, and other cold war “fond memories”. It was fun to touch a piece of the Berlin Wall.

Silo Exterior

On the way back home, we visited a missile silo. By pure luck, a park ranger came by while we were there. She said there are no Minuteman I silos and this is the only Minuteman II silos. Minuteman III silos still exist, but they are active.

The glass cover the park service installed allowed us to peak inside, and see the trainer missile, but it was impossible to take a picture through the glass. Here’s a pic of the interior from the information board. The control center is available only by tour. The tour allows 6 people a day. With reservations booked 6 months out, we didn’t see the control center. But the ranger said we can see the training center at the local air and space museum.

Boiler, for anything from laundry to rendering hogs

We took a two-day swing through the Badlands area. We started with a stop at the Prairie Homestead. The first big rush of settlers to the Dakotas got 160 acres of land and set up farms. They did very well in the good years. But this area doesn’t support farms, as the settlers learned soon enough. Droughts and grasshoppers drove them out. This “sodbuster” house is as original and authentic as it gets, and we were allowed to touch anything we wanted. It belonged to the Browns. Here are a few more pics. I’ll post about our other visits separately (to keep text with the pics).

Kitchen – sod wall in the background

Stove is original, waffle maker is period

A few keys of this reed organ still work

Devil’s Tower from a distance

We completed our first week of work yesterday. Because they are shifting our schedule a couple of days, we worked 5 days instead of 4. But we still get our 3 days off. We have a cave talk and cave walk. The talk is physically easy. We ride the elevator down, talk, they ride the elevator up. The walk is physically rigorous, with 723 stairs and a substantial hill. I did 2 cave walks a day the first 3 days. The next day I did 3 cave walks and felt quite tired. I was scheduled for another day of 3 cave walks, but got the opportunity to do some surface hikes instead. I’m not sure I could have done the 3 cave walks. I should start giving tours next week.

Danita is limited to one cave walk a day because of the problem she has with her knee. She’s not as ready for cave tours. She’s spending more time on the surface, working with visitors. We fill all the tours, but just barely. In a couple of weeks when schools are out, we expect more visitors. Lots of the staff is new this year, but training is going well for everybody. We expect to be ready for the crowds when they come.

We have Sun – Tue off this week. We wanted an easy, stress-free weekend. We spent today visiting Devil’s tower. It’s the only site we plan to visit in Wyoming. It’s a small, easy site. It’s one of the hotter sites, so it’s good to visit before the summer temperatures roll in. We had a great time. Besides the big rock, the area also has a large Prairie Dog colony, which we visited. We saw plenty of other wildlife. While driving, we saw deer and a couple of elk. At the site, we saw a bull snake, turkey vultures, and numerous small animals.

The Circle of Sacred Smoke

Many Native Americans consider the site sacred. They have most of their religious ceremonies in June. They often leave prayer flags or prayer bundles. These are interesting, but Native Americans prefer we don’t take pictures of them. Junkyu Muto is a Japanese sculptor who has place his works at 3 spiritually significant sites around the world. The sites are the Vatican, Bodh Gaya India (where the Buddha reached enlightenment) and Devil’s Tower.

Bull Snake

Tomorrow is chore day. Tuesday is relaxing day. It’s back to work Wednesday. I have 3 cave walks.

Prawn Horn Deer at Custer Park

We ended up getting the conventional 3-day weekend this week. The closest city to us is Custer, about 15 miles away, which is large enough to have a real grocery store. The largest decent size city is Rapid City, a little over 50 miles away, fully complete with 2 super-Walmart stores. We spent Saturday going to the big cities, shopping, getting a library card, and taking care of other prosaic duties.

Bring a carrot and feed the begging mules (or else roll your window up)

Sunday was much more interesting. Custer Park is a very large and very popular state park just outside Custer City. After Church and breakfast, we went to Custer Park with the intention of taking a short hike. Unfortunately, rain started earlier than was predicted. Fortunately, it was just a warning shower and we hadn’t gone very far. It was pretty easy to turn around and keep from getting very wet.

We decided to drive the wildlife road, which we can see from the comfort of our car. Boy, did we ever see wildlife. Buffalo is the featured animal. We saw several groups, including one group that was grazing right at the side of the road. One group of young men decided to get out of the car and slowly approach the buffalo, shutters clicking. They kept on getting closer until the buffalo made it clear they were too close. At this time, they immediately turned around and ran back to their car. In spite of their multiple unwise decisions (one should never turn one’s back or run from a wild animal), they managed to survive. They took off and we never saw them again.

We made our own unwise decision and decided to visit a viewpoint. After we entered the roadway, we found a 1-mile narrow dirt road, with no option for turning around, with 2-way traffic, and of course the rain turned into a deluge complete with soft ice while we were going up. We felt rather naked with our sedan amongst the 4×4 pickup trucks. After we went up, we had to go down. As dangerous as the road were the other drivers. We got behind one poor family from Nebraska. The situation obviously did not fit with their sensibilities, where roads are straight and one can see forever. Even when they got on the paved street, they wouldn’t go much faster than 10 or 15 MPH. And, of course, they were going our way.

Today we visited Mt. Rushmore. Here’s a shot from an angle most people don’t see. Below is a picture of the model the sculptor made before starting on the mountain. His scale is 1″ = 1′. He transferred measurements from the model to the mountain using a rotating bar and a plumb line. He almost didn’t get Teddy Roosevelt. There was a lot of soft rock in that part of the mountain. He cut into the mountain so much that  there is only 30 feet of rock behind Teddy.

Reproduction of a lodge. This was the warmest bed in the building. Notice all the wood used in construction.

We had several stops Wednesday. We saw the world’s only corn palace in Mitchel, SD; the Lewis & Clark camp site on the Missouri River, and Wall Drugstore in Wall, SD (It’s as super tourist trap, kind of like South of the Border). The best  stop by far was a prehistoric Indian village in Mitchel, SD. The Indians were part of the Mississippi culture. They occupied the area in about 1000 AD. They lived at the site for about 120 years. We learned quite a bit about these people.

The Dig

These people were farmers, with their “3 Sisters” gardens of corn, squash, and beans. They built lodge buildings of about 20 x 40 feet for each family, typically of 3 generations and about 15 people. The first thing we didn’t know but learned is that these people were terrible housekeepers. They did their meat processing, tool making, etc.; and just left their leavings on the ground. When the the ground got to fowled, they went down to the river and carried mud up to the village. They buried their junk under the mud, and went on doing what they do. They did this several times over the 120 years they were at this site.

Outside of the Dig

The other thing we learned is that their lodge buildings lasted about 10 years. After that, they would burn the old building (or just let it fall down) and build a new one. After 120 years, they had used all the lumber in the area and had to move on to another site. So much for living with nature.

The dig is inside a building which sits on several piers. The site includes parts of two lodges and the space between the lodges — the “back yard” where the Indians worked. Archaeologists have worked on this site for over 20 years, and expect to continue for another 50.

Thursday we had a short, 2-hour drive from Wall to Jewel Cave. It took us all day to check in and get settled. Today we had a day of training. We get one more day of training tomorrow. Next week we will shadow another ranger. The week after that another ranger will shadow us. Then we’re on our own. We missed several important training days. They will make no effort to provide us materials to read on our own or to provide additional training on those subjects. We received a tour outline which had at least one major error. We found that out by accident when I asked a question today. Our uniform shirts are way too large. We are a little less than impressed.

The housing, however, is great. They have a two-story building with living units. Mostly summer help has to live with a roommate. We have our own one-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen. We have a TV and a DVD player. They even gave us a desk (which they usually don’t supply.) We got the internet set up the first day we were here. We reported some minor plumbing issues. They were fixed the same day. In spite of getting a little less than a great training experience, this should be a very good summer.