Mount Rushmore! (part one)

     June 26th began bright and early out on the prairie. Little did the deer living there know that their morning was about to be disturbed by a bunch of volunteers walking through the tall grasses and trees making noises. On the other side of the creek, on a straight gravel road, sat a few more volunteers with pen and paper in hand. It was time for my very first deer survey. Lifting up my legs to walk across the dense prairie with the sun beating down in that hot safety jacket was exhausting. Once we crossed the prairie, we had to go into the trees on the side of the creek and wait for Jesse to pass us before we could move. We were counting the deer we saw. I only saw one deer... but I did see two huge turkeys fly through the air! In the top picture, that's me in the right corner- rocking the Grandpa hat! In the bottom picture, you can get a better idea of what we had to walk through.

     We only counted four deer, but Chelsi saw a big swallowtail butterfly while she was near the creek. Too bad it flew away right as she tried to take a picture... The staff was so excited about our trip that they talked about it the whole day! Jesse was so nice, he let us off work at 3:30 so we could get an earlier start. We made our goal to be in the car and on the road at 4:30, and we made it!
     Here's where the first story begins. We took turns driving, and we were all really excited to finally be on our way. We were on an intense lookout for any and all animals, and were being as cautious as we could. In mid conversation, a HUGE rabbit hops into the road, and we swerve to miss it. The rabbit was unusually large, so we began to talk about it. It gets quiet and then Chelsi says, as innocently as I've ever heard, "Was that a jackelope?" Silence is quickly interrupted by laughter as Allison and I ask her if she's serious. She was! "The rabbit was really big! I thought it might have been a jackelope!" Jackelopes are the giant rabbits with deer horns on them... I got a huge kick out of that. After a few minutes of controversy, we finally settled on it being a jack rabbit. Soon after this conversation, we were finally in South Dakota!

   We had finally made it safely to South Dakota! I had taken over driving since it was so dark and Chelsi was in the front seat navigating me until she... and Allison... fell asleep. I had done so well going either exactly the speed limit or 5 under (watching for animals), and had the Garmin to guide my way. Well, I got into this straight stretch of road. I was lonely because the other two girls were asleep. I was tired of driving. We were one mile away from the campground when... I decided to maybe go over the speed limit by just a few miles. Not even 10 seconds pass when... blue and red lights are flashing behind me. Oh no! I'd been caught.
     I had my license and insurance ready for him when he got to my window. "How are you ladies doing tonight? Going a little fast weren't you?" To which I replied, "We're doing fine... we've been driving all day and (pointing to my Garmin) we're looking for this campground and we're not sure where it is..." You could hear my nerves shaking in my voice. "Where in Texas are you from?", he asked... "Oh, I'm from near Dallas..." He told us he'd be right back. I looked at Chelsi and just kept repeating "please don't give me a ticket... please... PLEASE... the one time I go a little bit over..." On the way back to his car I heard the officer tell his partner that all three of us had our seat belts on. I was thinking maybe that would work in our favor.
     The officer came back, handed my license and insurance back to me, leaned on my window, and paused. My heart was racing in the silence, but he had nothing in his hands. He then said in an unusually cheerful voice "Alright, you're going to go down this road a little ways, and once you get to the intersection, your campground will be on the left. Have a great night ladies and I hope you find your camp!" Stunned, I thanked him and we parted ways. He was so nice! I was stunned for the rest of the night.
     We finally made it into Hot Springs, South Dakota! They had taped the key to our cabin on the office door for us. Once we reached our cabin, we were drunk with exhaustion and really excited that we didn't get a ticket. We chose our beds and decided to take some crazy pictures of "Allison the sleeping bag worm attacking Katherine the princess"... We're crazy...

      After a great night's sleep, we were up and excited to begin the new day. The weather was absolutely beautiful! The girls went to take a shower and I stayed in the cabin. I went outside and... locked myself out. Great! Walking to the office, I couldn't help but pick up a pine cone and examine it. I got to the office and told the lady what I'd done, and she took her spare key and walked with me back to the cabin. She was really, really nice and asked me all the usual questions like where I was from, what my plans were... When I told her my fellow interns and I were going to Mount Rushmore, she stops and looks at me and goes, "You've gotta look at the third president's forehead. There's an image of a woman with her hair back kinda like yours. You've gotta be on the lookout for her!" I was like, woah, alright, we'll look for her!

     The day began at 85 degrees, and a cool breeze touched our faces every so often. It was glorious! Even though we were still confused by the "mountain standard time", and how we lost an hour, our day was still amazing.

      After we checked out of the KOA and the lady at the front attempted to show me where the lady in the president's face was, we stopped at a gas station in town and talked to the cashier about places to eat breakfast. She recommended that we get breakfast from Dale's Family Restaurant. I'm SO glad we listened to her! We got an amazing breakfast for under $5.

       The french toast won our order and as we were sitting in our booth discussing the day, we were still confused by the "mountain time" and the man sitting across from us was looking at his watch and giggling at our conversation. Then, Allison turns around to the man and says, "Excuse me, can you tell me what time it is?" He then helped us understand the change and what the time really was. We didn't want to miss our appointment to go into Jewel Cave! Breakfast was delicious and we were all full and happy and ready to squeeze into a cave.
     Before we could get to the cave, we got to drive through the beautiful Wind Cave National Park. One minute you're on a road with nothing around you, then all of a sudden you drive over this intense cattle guard and enter a fence and then... a pronghorn! I'd never seen a pronghorn before. Then... out of nowhere... BUFFALO!

     The buffalo were everywhere! When we pulled over and got out, it didn't even phase them. We drove and drove and it was absolutely stunning. It was like the road and hills and green never ended. I took a ton of pictures (almost 600 altogether), but I will post only a few for now.

      We had finally made it to the location of Jewel Cave, where we were going caving. (I get confused with the names because we drove through Wind Cave National Park, but went into Jewel Cave We chose the lantern tour, where each group gets a lantern and you get to explore the cave like people would have in the early days. On the way to this location, I was taught what a "tatanka" was.

      We had some time to kill so we took pictures, of course.

     We met up with our tour guide and were given a brief history of the location and then the lanterns were handed out. Then it was off to the cave!

      Eek! I was nervous. It was so dark! We made it inside and began our journey. I'll tell you a little secret... Allison was in charge of the lantern because Chelsi and I both had our cameras. Here's the secret... both of them fell once... and they fell hard... Allison broke her lantern and Chelsi kept falling... but I didn't fall a single time. Don't tell anyone I told you! Here are some of the pictures from the cave:

     Before we knew it, our journey through the cave was over. We had made it back to the gate and the sunlight was blinding. We met some really interesting people in our group, and had a lot of fun duck-walking and squeezing through the rocks. It wasn't an easy walk! Even though it was around 50 degrees in the cave, I was sweating from the trek. After our cave adventure, we went to the Visitor's Center and talked to the woman who rang up our post cards. We were asking her questions about Deadwood, and she had a lot to tell us about where to go and where not to go. She was really honest with us, and told us her recommendations. Upon leaving the park, it was off to Deadwood to see the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane and to watch the sun set. On the way, we saw Crazy Horse Memorial from the road. It was massive!

     Can you see the face carved at the top of the rock? I didn't see it at first... but it's amazing! On the way to Deadwood, we took a second to stretch our legs at a stop that had a beautiful waterfall.

    Little did we know that a bigger waterfall was awaiting us called Angel Veil Falls. We had to get out and explore... We decided to take our shoes off and walk across the water to the waterfall. Let me tell you... that water was COLD! Poor Chelsi dropped her shoe in the water and I fell trying to get down a rock... but it was totally worth it to get up close and personal with the waterfall. Allison, the wild child, decided to climb up further and throw rocks into the water to try and splash us.

     After we enjoyed our voyage through the freezing water, we had finally arrived at Deadwood. We stopped downtown at the Visitor's Center and got some information. We wanted to go see some graves. In the visitor's center, Allison met a photographer who lives in her hometown. Small world moment!

      We decided to go to the cemetery while it was still light out. We paid $1 to get in, and went to Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane's graves. We took some interesting pictures. The first one is the town of Deadwood. We took some pictures in front of Jane's grave trying to pose how we thought she'd pose, but they look stupid so I didn't post them!

     People had put all kinds of strange things on Calamity Jane's grave... anything from a pill to lipstick, lotion and a bottle of Jack Daniel's. After we enjoyed the graveyard and had fun looking at all the animals (such as chipmunks, which I'd never seen before), we were getting hungry so we headed to town.

      Upon asking a woman at a souvenir shop where a good place was to eat, she gave us a few ideas. We really wanted to eat at Saloon #10, which held the chair that Wild Bill Hickok was shot in, but it was closed for 'remodeling'. So instead we ended up eating at another Saloon restaurant which had an excellent reputation. The inside of the restaurant looked like a mine.

     I decided to be adventurous and order a "tatanka burger with cheese". It was delicious! The other girls enjoyed their meals as well. I think it was because we were so hungry from driving and going on adventures all day long! We were so high on life (and hungry) that we decided to order dessert. We ordered Fruit of the Forest Pie, and it had northern spy apples, red raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and rhubarb. I was excited! The picture does no justice to the absolute deliciousness.

     After we were yet again full, it was time to go downtown and poke around a little bit. It was nothing but casinos! We finally gave in and went into one of them that had all different kinds of movie memorabilia (a lot of it looked fake) and signed guitars. Time to gamble with $1!

     After we had our fun and were ready to settle down, it was time for our two hour drive to the city of Keystone. The next day we were going to Mount Rushmore! However, since it is close to 12 and I am tired and have to work early in the morning, part 2 will have to come tomorrow!