Day 5--Mount Rushmore

I woke up at dawn this morning to Big Horn sheep bellowing in the distance, a sound that is as eerie as it is awesome.

Today was the day to take in Mount Rushmore. So, we all piled in the car and drove the six miles east on Hwy 244 to the entrance. As Keith, in the driver’s seat, careened up and down the hills and around the sharp turns on our way, he pondered the state of our blog, decided that we need to spice it up a bit and then tried to convince me to invent more exciting stories to appease and entertain our readers.

Then, as if on cue, Keith came out of a particularly tight turn around the side of the mountain to discover a park ranger vehicle waiting for him. The ranger flashed his lights, and Keith immediately pulled over -- confused, frustrated, and, if you know Keith, a little puffy. According to the ranger, Keith was doing 39 mph in a 25 zone. He got off with a warning. And Keith, at this point, is plenty happy to go back to a bland blog.

At Mount Rushmore, we perused the visitors center, and worked a bit in our Junior Ranger activity books before taking a break and heading into Keystone for a completely cheesy, completely touristy ride up the side of a mountain in a chairlift, a lovely alfresco lunch at the top, with views of Rushmore in the distance, and an alpine slide ride back down.

Then, it was back to Mount Rushmore to complete the Junior Ranger activities and achieve Junior Ranger badges. We also took a little hike to the sculptor’s studio, which was kind of base-camp for MR sculptor/designer Guzton Borglum from 1927 to ‘41, when the monument was being constructed, and explored the related exhibits.

Rushmore, we all agreed, is quite a bit smaller than we had expected. I wasn’t sure I would love the idea of seeing four 60-foot faces carved into the side of an otherwise beautiful mountain, but I was still impressed -- mostly by the artist’s vision, the engineering ingenuity required to carry it out, and the commitment of the nearly 400 workers to the 14-year project.

So, here we are, back at the KOA. Two years ago, when we took 28 days to drive to California and back, I had the itinerary plotted out to the day, and campground reservations made in March. Last year, for our trip to Nova Scotia, I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants by waiting until May to make reservations. This year, we were a few days into July before I started making travel plans. I don’t know why I’m so disorganized this year; I just am. And of course, as a result of waiting until the eleventh hour, I didn’t have the luxury of choosing places to stay; by that point, availability dictated our itinerary. Of course, campgrounds in Custer State Park were mostly full; somehow I managed to snag two nights at the Game Lodge Campground at Custer for later this week. But that’s it.

So, like I said, here we are, back at the Mount Rushmore KOA, where I had no problem making a reservation. Honestly, KOA kamping is not exactly our speed; Keith and I prefer something a little less populated, I suppose. Indeed, we have been savoring the KOA experience -- the car alarm going off in the distance; the roar of a garbage truck in the morning; the guy at the next campsite hocking a ginormous loogey; the woman trimming her own hair outside of the shower house, and leaving it in a pile there on the ground; and the guy with the t-shirt that says, and I'm not joking, “I like my women the way I like my coffee -- ground up and in the freezer.”

It feels a little bit like camping in the heart of the midway at the state fair. And truly, even I could hock a loogey and hit any one of about ten campsites that are right on top of ours. Keith claims that it’s not a real campsite unless he can get up in the middle of the night and take a leak in the woods; but here, the poor guy has to walk all the way to the shower-house like a civilized KOA kamper.

Despite all this, Keith and I are fond of our little campsite here. It’s shaded, and it’s close to the playground. Our kids are having the time of their lives running with the other little urchins that inhabit this place, and we haven’t once heard them complain about being bored. The campground is centrally located and makes a good base-camp for day excursions to the different sights around the Black Hills. The original plan was to stay here for three nights and, for two mornings, not have to take anything down, pack it into the van and move on. But, in fact, Keith and I are so in love with this absolutely luxurious idea of actually staying in one place, that we have canceled our hard-to-come-by state park reservations (gasp) and have extended our stay here at the KOA for four more nights. A wonderful week of not moving!