Custer County is WOW-worthy!

 This was my view from "bed" this morning. Pre-sunrise colors flooded into the car as birds sang and cows moo'd outside. I had slept like the dead and woke feeling refreshed and full of joy. Gosh it was peaceful!!! But making it last was not in the cards. I had places to be... I was a lady on mission this morning.

Here's the situation with Wind Cave National Park. It's free to enter! BUT it's not free to see the cave itself and it's also Ranger guided only, which means you need to get a ticket and they are limited, understandably. Tickets can be purchased online - in theory. In practice, at this time of year the supply online was long since gone and I was left with Option #2: buy a ticket in person the day of. (About half of the ticket sales are reserved for same day purchase, but it's a first come, first served thing.)

Yesterday, rocking up to the Visitor Center and inquiring, I was told that all tickets for that day were gone but if I came back at opening time (8 AM) tomorrow, I could line up to buy any available tour ticket.  As I left that building, I noticed "line starts here" signs poked into the ground leading 100 yards away from the entrance... Hmm... all signs pointed to me being not alone in my quest!

So, after a quick coffee stop in Hot Springs at 6:30 AM, I headed straight into Wind Cave NP. Arriving at 6:46 AM, I expected to wait in my car until closer to 8 AM then line up. WRONG! The line was already started and I was patron #15 after high-tailing it from my vehicle, coffee and wallet in hand!

For the next hour I chatted with 3 delightful young ladies about life and travel. Inspirational and motivational. Time well spent. Here I also learned that while 50% of the tickets are sold online and 50% in person, its not 50% of each tour per se; it could be that all the morning tours sold on line and I had to wait til 3:30 PM today to see the cave... time would tell. Oh... and each person in line could be buying tickets for a group of people, meaning that just being #15 in line didn't guarantee that 150 tickets hadn't already been sold before I got to the ticket counter!

Success - well for me anyway. I was a single person hoping for the earliest possible Fairgrounds tour. And that's what I was lucky enough to score for the very reasonable price of $16.

Our Ranger/Guide was Casey. She graduated with a degree in history just 3 weeks ago, started her job with the Park Service 2 days later and last week, added Cave Guide to her list of accomplishments!

We (20 of us) loved Casey. She was funny and informative, great with the kids and prioritized conservation of the cave as well as our safety. Good job, well done!!!

Wind Cave is an extensive network for tunnels and caverns running in every direction and it is still being mapped. I believe something like 120 miles are so far discovered but it's ongoing. Nobody has conclusively ruled out this cave at some point intersecting with Jewel Cave, also in the area. 

(Jewel Cave post from 2012)

It is dimly lit and we walked on mostly concreted path and copious quantities of stairs in our particular tour which went as deep as the public is allowed to go. Entry and exit was actually by elevator! There are other tours, less strenuous and a bit shorter, to choose from too.

Essentially one sets a path to Wind Cave in order to see 3 types of cave formation:

Box Work: Flat sheets/lines of calcite that once filled the cracks in limestone rock, then the limestone eroded and left just the calcite box work.

Popcorn: Little nubbies of calcite that form from condensation in the cave. The cave is 97% humidity and 57 degrees cool. It is considered a "dry cave" though, as no water seeps in or runs through or pools in it.

Frost Work: Looks like crystal formation. It literally sparkles like frost. Also calcite... it's always calcite!

I drove the Needles Highway through Custer State Park this morning. It abuts the north side of Wind Cave NP and before you know it you've driven from one into the other. Custer SP is lush and gorgeous and shared by many! It's one of my fav's and I'd consider coming back here to explore it more in the off-season. Kudos to South Dakota.

Leaving the Black Hills of South Dakota, now one of my favorite places, the place is alive with birds and flowers and there are a thousand people on vacation pulling large RV's with even larger families, it appears.

Listening to Enya's The Return to Innocence, which seems just perfect for the energy in this area and the history of Native Americans, the legends and the vibes. It's always good to reconnect with what really floats my boat and remember how little I need in the way of gadgets and accessories, to be happy. My car is coated in bugs and dust and there is no less dust between my toes and under my fingernails. My hair needs a wash and I think that's a cactus thorn inside the tip of one of my most used fingers! But feral me feels liberated by this little roadtrip. 

... and grateful to be coming home to Colorado too... despite the return to thunderstormy skies!

Mt Rushmore and Jewel Cave

Continued from the post Mt Rushmore: "Lofty Idea, Colossal Endeavor", this is the story of my flight from KLMO to KCUT and back.

When I last wrote, I was turning in for the night. Fabulous Custer County Airport allowed camping.  The air was calm and the moon full.  It was a beautiful night, despite the 30 degree temperature.

Fast forward (although, let me tell you it didn't feel fast) 3 hours.  I had tossed and turned on a blow-up mattress trying to find a warm spot and was growing fairly tired of it.   The air mattress was cold... It was giving up all my precious body heat to the wintry ground.

Fifty feet away, the cozy FBO beckoned and shortly after 3am, I relented.  With my sleeping bag in hand, I unzipped the tent and clumsily stepped outside. Mark probably heard the sound of hiking boots running across the ramp and the closing of the door behind me!

That dark brown leather sofa had my name all over it and there I spent the next 4 hours, dead to the world.  :-)

Sunday was a much warmer day than Saturday.  Like Colorado, it appeared that South Dakota's weather could jump or plummet 30 degrees in a single day.  Gone was the icy cold wind and instead a calm, sunny day welcomed us.  Easter Bunny had visited me (I knew I had been good!) and first things first...we had a little pre-breakfast (chocolate) snack.

We found on of the only restaurants open in Custer and sat down to eat.  The food was good and hot and fast.  The cinnamon roll was to die for and big enough to share!

Jewel Cave, our next stop, was not too far away.  By 10am we had ourselves booked on a tour of the cave and were wandering around, exploring the hills and taking in the geology info that covered the walls of the visitors center.

I wished I had tucked another cinnamon roll into my backpack!

Jewel Cave:
This cave is the second longest in the world and to date, over 150 miles of cave have been explored and surveyed.  It is estimated that about 95% of the cave is yet to be found!
Luckily there are some thin, smart people willingly crawling around on their bellies, dragging their own water in (and out) of Jewel Cave, mapping more of it.

Our cave tour lasted about 90 mins.  Ranger Lydia did a wonderful job of teaching us the history of the cave as well as pointing out its unique features.  Mark and I took more pictures than the rest of the tour group put together.

Fun times!  But alas, they couldn't last all day... we had to go home.

But return from Custer without doing a fly-by of Mt Rushmore?  Not likely!
I flew and Mark communicated with Ellsworth Airforce Base.  Wonderful Shannon at the FBO had given us these no-brainer directions:

Once within the limits of Mt Rushmore, Mark flew and I pointed my camera right out the little left seat window.

Awesome.  Now, I was ready to go home.

As we left the Black Hills and flew over the roads leading southwest toward Cheyenne, we couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for the two Coloradoan girls we had met earlier in the day.

They were down there somewhere... driving home to Loveland.

Mt Rushmore: Lofty Idea and Colossal Endeavour!

Sometimes people ask me why I learned to fly.

... Because it's wonderful, is the short answer.
But I know they want a different answer.  One that explains how exactly how I plan on using my new skills and freedom.

I want to go places and see things.  I want to go quicker and further and see things from the air as well as the ground!

Mt Rushmore has been on my bucket list for a LONG time.
It's iconic.   History and art, blended.

Last weekend, I crossed Mt Rushmore off my bucket list.  I also completed my longest flight as Pilot in Command and added almost 4 hours to my time logged in N303B.

We left Longmont (KLMO) around 9am and arrived at Custer, South Dakota just about 1.8 hours later.  The air was definitely not smooth.  I was pleased to have a co-pilot with infinitely better skills than I, when the time came for an approach over trees and a gusty touch-down!

Landing at Custer County Airport, we were welcomed by Shannon Stites, FBO manager.  She and her husband Mark, had been instrumental in the organization of this trip.  The FBO was now base-camp.  We had a rental car, campsite, showers, TV (and movies!), microwave, computer and printer.

The temperature was dropping and expected to be at 30 degrees overnight.  The FBO was a tropical 65... My kind of warm.

We set off sightseeing.  First stop, the Crazy Horse Memorial.
"A work in progress" is the understatement of the year!  One day, this will be the world largest sculpture, until then, it will employ generations of people who are enthusiastic about blowing stuff up.
See the hole in middle?  It is 10 stories tall.

Crazy Horse today

Historical photo of Crazy Horse sculpture

There is a lot of history here, for sure. The original sculptor was the apprentice to the artist that created Mt Rushmore.  He toiled at the face of Crazy Horse for years, while raising 10 children with his wife.  Today, long after his death, 7 of those kids and his (much younger) wife, continue work on the monument.

Mt Rushmore was everything it promised to be and once again Mark and I enjoyed a short presentation about its "construction" and artist.  We then walked the Presidential Trail and sampled the delights of the cafe.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Mt Rushmore

Mark under Mt Rushmore, on the Presidential Trail

Wild turkey

Finally on the list of Saturday activities... A scenic drive along The Needles Highway.  This curly 1-2 lane road ran through Custer State Park.

With abundant wildlife and countless view points, the land seemed to really come alive as the sun got lower.

The Mitsubishi Endeavor... nice vehicle!

Believe it or not, this tunnel wasn't one of the smaller ones.  I saw one sign that said the tunnel was just over 10 feet wide and only 8 feet tall!

The Needles Eye

Later that evening we took advantage of the really nice FBO, getting hot showers, heating up quiche and watching a movie, while awaiting the full moon to rise.
Yes, full moons are among my favorite things too, so a walk to the end of the runway and back just before turning in, was in order.

It had been a really great day but I was exhausted.
Easter Sunday was just around the corner and we had a plan to explore a cave tomorrow, before flying home.