My Dutch friend Marianne and I first visited the Mammoth dig site in Hot Springs. There were restrictions on photography during the tour, then I forgot to take any photos after when the restrictions were off. Good grief! I’d be fired from my job if I were a reporter!
It was raining when we arrived thirty minutes before opening time, but the woman who turned out to be our excellent tour guide opened the door and let us in, where we could wait on a bench in the lobby till the official opening.
After the video, tour, and a little time to select agates and other small souvenirs, we drove to Custer State Park (photos above) where smoke from park fires earlier was cleansed from the air by the mist and rains of that morning. Everything was glistening, magical!
A prairie dog town (photo with Marianne, above) provided a glimpse of the wildlife to come. The leaves on deciduous trees had begun to turn, turning the landscape into a festive one.
Apparently, these burros are seasonal at Custer State Park if I understood comments from a South Dakotan responding to our description of an “encounter” with this band of beggars!
After a long drive through the Black Hills glistening in rain and light fog, we arrived at Mount Rushmore. Believe it or not, there is a carved mountain in this photo! It was pointless to pay the admissions fee to view more of this, so we turned south to see one last major sight and any wildlife we could view along the way.
[to be continued]
Great Trip Sir.
The carved mountain was to se in mind . It was more powerful ! 🙂
Marianne had to imagine ! 🙂
The donkeys were really familiar
In friendship
Michel
All of the wild life probably appealed more to us, but the carved mountains are impressive in their own way.
Hello, Marianne! Sounds like your trip is off to a fun start, Doug! Love the donkeys!
We got our first real good rain of the season today. Many passing storms came through, and it is raining again this evening.
The visit took a turn, of course, after the accident, but we enjoyed hours of catching up talk and listening to music CDs from my all-to-big (5000-6000 CD) collection. Glad to hear about the rain there. Hope it helps with the fires.
I have seen those places more than once, believe it or not. Too bad you missed Rushmore. Waiting for part two.
I’ve seen Mount Rushmore before, but Marianne hasn’t. Crazy Horse Memorial, on the other hand was incredible.
When we are all gone, and the earth is cleansed of our pestilence, Crazy Horse and the Pyramids will still stand.
Could be. I think they predict a 10,000 year life span for the carvings, but no one from today will be around to correct the record if that’s wrong! I know Mt. Rushmore has lots of fissures that they annually have to repack with material that is supposed to extend the life of the sculpture.
If Washington blows his nose on Rushmore, it will be gone!
LOL! Yet another alarming possibility to keep in mind!
What a great drive for Marianne. I’m sure she enjoyed the company even if the weather wasn’t great. I would like to see Mount Rushmore. I’ve only seen it on TV.
Jean
If you ever come out this way, I’d love to take you on the trip through the sights! Mount Rushmore is impressive for scale, but Crazy Horse Monument dwarfs Mount Rushmore and you can take a bus to the outstretched arm of this famous Lakota leader. (Oops! You don’t know about that part of the trip until tomorrow!)
We’d love to see it….perhaps we’ll make to Independence soon.
It’s huge! Of course, there are people like me who feel the natural mountain would be better. I’m a spoilsport on the matter!
*Hums* So long Marianne, it’s time we began, to laugh and cry and cry and laugh – about it all again …
Sorry, the name of your friend just put Cohen’s song on my mind.
That’s nice! And Marianne thinks so, too!
A very interesting trip – thank you 🙂
More to come tomorrow, France, and it has a dramatic end! (Which will have to be a third blog once the details sort themselves out.)
Great to see you’re having a ball, Sir!
It has been lots of fun, yet there is more to come, including a little incident where I drove into a boulder, with yet to be determined consequences.
The whole landscape looked so dank and dreary, the kind of day that makes me want to stay in bed.
Actually, it was fresh and smelled of pine. The day before, there had been fires in the park that sent smoke down to where I live (two hours’ drive south), and the rain and mist (besides helping with the fir) cleared the smoke out of the air.
Welcome, Marianne. It is a pleasure to meet you.
Doug – your reporter status is definitely slipping! 🙂
Oops!
What’s Andy and Dougy are doing while you’re on this trip?
Staying at home and being good boys! They definitely miss me when I’m gone, but know I will be gone for long times occasionally. If they travelled well, I would take them with me.
I am sure the burros would do very well out of the visitors. Animal appeal factor !
Yes, they beg for treats. I can’t imagine what people feed them, but their begging didn’t come out of the blue!
The fog is just the smokescreen while they add Donald Trump to the other four.
Fortunately, there isn’t enough granite of carving quality to add any new presidents to the mountain. In fact, the original Thomas Jefferson would have been forward and more in line with George Washington, but a serious flaw in the granite forced Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who created Mount Rushmore, to dynamite the first attempt off the mountain!
While I know you were joking, there periodically are serious efforts to put new presidents on the mountain. Reagan is the last one I remember.
oh what a wonderful trip… I love the burros… maybe your friend can take one to the netherlands in her suitcase? I would like to have this guys in europe too ;o)
They are persistent beggars when it comes to tourists who might have treats for them. I can’t imagine what they get fed by tourists, but it surely isn’t healthy! They are very appealing, though, and the white mother and child you see in some of the photos were especially pretty.
What a great trip. We love the beggars and are wondering if they like dogs. The ZAB team.
They push their muzzles into the car and seem totally unafraid of people. I think they are charming in their own way! Doglike? In some ways!