DAY 12 - The Black Hills and Mount Rushmore

With a low mileage day in prospect we were allowed a lie-in so I rose at the same time, 6.30 (can you believe this Chris?), and wrote up the previous day’s journal and successfully managed to do all my laundry.  The first task was to return to the no-k corral and retrieve my fleece.  This was done without problems; Thank god!!

After the inevitable grocery shop we made our way into the hilly land of the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore.  A quick lunch stop in the car park and we were good to go.   It’s hard to know what to say about this.  The feat of engineering and skill needed to carve the faces into the mountainside has to be admired.  I suppose the sheer national self-confidence and pride can be admired as well; this thing was built to last and make no mistake, it’s a memorial and all the architecture surrounding the monument reaffirms this.  However, it does seem a terrible thing to do to a perfectly good mountain and is insensitive to place it in the Lacota heartland as indian culture is entirely based on respect for the environment.  Anyway, we enjoyed it for what it was but I wouldn’t have put it there.

From here we made our way to the Custer’s Gulch camping ground passing through the Black Hills en route.  Wonderful scenery, complete contrast to the Badlands but with many pine trees suffering the effects of a beetle that kills them.  It added a contrasting brown colour to the visual effect but this aesthetic improvement is probably one that could be done without.  The camp site is amazing, set into a wide glade in the hillside.  The only downside is the long walk to the amenities block, but once there they even have wi-fi and a little clubroom with books, games, TV and comfortable seats; not that we’ll get much chance to get there.  Leaving the trailer behind we set out into Custer National Park to find buffalo and, after a longish drive we finally found them.  A whole herd happily doing their own thing and utterly unworried by the presence of humans. 

We also saw plenty of prong horn deer, all about the size of the larger visitors to our Booton garden.  In fact I saw three in the campsite as I left the amenities block so we are really ‘close to nature’ here.  Leaving the buffalo behind we continued our scenic tour and met up with a herd of burros that have been allowed to run wild.  I’m not sure why the Black hills are so named as most of the rocks are anything but Black with pink, yellow and red colours relatively common. 

One theory was that with all the pine trees they look black.  I’ll have to find out.  Back at the campground tents and equipment were set up rapidly, we’re becoming a polished team now.  It was Lindy’s 35^th birthday so there was pudding with candles to celebrate and we bought lots of wood to enjoy a roaring campfire.  Another great day.