Well, my first night of camping is in the books! Who knows when I am going to be able to post this? I didn't have service most of this afternoon and all of tonight. I must say all in all I was COMPLETELY unprepared for my first night camping but thankfully it all worked out. So let's start from the beginning and get you guys up to speed.
I woke up and my first stop of the day was Mt. Rushmore. It was very impressive. Just as you would imagine it to be in scale and size, I took my time walking around and getting pictures of the monument from different angles. There was a variety of different age groups there exploring the monument, mostly older couples and young families. I was the chosen photo taker for all groups as the girl by herself who can speak English and knows how to use a camera. After speaking with a park ranger I mapped out the rest of my day. I was going to go to the Crazy Horse Memorial and then Jewel Cave National Monument. Crazy Horse Memorial is another mountain carving three times the size of Mt Rushmore that no one has ever heard of. Why is that? It was started back in 1948 by one man Korczak Ziolkowski and they have been working on it ever since. He had ten children just to help with his dream to finish this mountain that is still no one where near done. They take only donations and money from visitor admissions to fund the project. It was incredible on one level that this one man was climbing up and down a mountain by himself for years working on this massive carving but on the flip side it was pretty pathetic that some seventy years later it still isn't finished.
From Crazy Horse I headed to Jewel Cave National Monument. One of the largest mapped caves in the world at 189 miles long, it was fascinating to learn about how it was discovered and the hard work of the volunteers who spend their free time down there discovering the cave. The Cave was massive and the formations unique but somewhat ugly in appearance. It was giving the name Jewel Cave because the brothers who discovered it where hoping to find gold. There were some crystal formations that were quite pretty but those very few and far between.
After the tour it was about 4pm and I was on my way to Badlands National Park. Overall, I was kind of annoyed with myself because I was back tracking 2 hours east. I knew it was unavoidable because I did not want to stop there the night before to camp because it was too dark and too late. As I was about 20 minutes into the drive I saw a brewery and a winery. I decided I wanted to make a quick pit spot for a beer and some food before the drive to the Badlands since I hadn't eaten since breakfast. Sitting at the bar I got to talking to some people and they were telling me they were in town for the buffalo round-up. When I explained to them I was planning on backtracking to the Badlands they strongly discouraged me from doing that. They said that it was a big waste of my time to backtrack and they really weren't all that great. Having looked at the trail options, which were minimal, and already being discouraged about having to drive all the way back there I decided to take their advice and stay at Custer State Park for the infamous buffalo round-up that they were speaking so highly of. These people traveled from various states to see this! Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota. I had to find out what it was all about. So I used one of the guy's phones (still had no service) to call and get a campsite right at Custer State Park which was only about 15 mins from the brewery. My plan was to go set up camp and then head back out for dinner (the brewery didn't have any food) and then to Mt. Rushmore for the lighting ceremony at 8pm. Boy was I wrong...Custer State Park was gigantic!! I was instantly happy with my decision to stay because it was a gorgeous drive through the Black Hills, but it was much longer than I expected to get to my campsite. By the time I arrived it was already dark so there was no way I was leaving again, it took over an hour to drive in. So here I was with no food, no water, completely unprepared. Thankfully I had a nice neighbor Dan from Minnesota who offered me a sandwich and some water when I explained my predicament. I told him about the round-up and why I decided to stay and we decided to we wake up early and ride over there in the morning. Although in the park, in was a 40 minute drive and the camp host Al warned me that people started showing up at 4am!!
Song of the day "Four Winds" Bright Eyes. I chose this song because first of all I love it and have for years. It's a great jam. It also has the line, "and I was off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps, in the Black Hills, the Badlands, the calloused east" which is extremely fitting as I camp tucked away in Black Hills for the night. The song is very deep and talks about people trying to bring life to what is dead. I am in the hope of bringing myself back to life....aro wooo!!
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