3am wake up again, but I manage to doze until 6am.
It is not a good wake up. There were other ailments. Ailments that are connected to medication causing a lack of a certain type of toilet visit. I will say no more. Other than I am not taking Co-Codemal any more.
Healthy breakfast of cereal and fruit to aid said lack of toilet visits.
Today we started in – Custer South Dakota
We finished in – Lead, South Dakota
Miles travelled today – 120
Miles so far this trip – 500
Tonight we are staying at – Hampton Inn, Lead
After the heavy driving of yesterday, fuel was needed. Getting petrol was easy, using a Post Office Cash Card it operated like a Credit/Debit card, and was accepted at the petrol station. We also need to inflate one of the tyres. The same petrol station provided this free of charge. Take note UK petrol stations!!
First on the list of things to do today was Mount Rushmore.
But, we could drive by the Crazy Horse Monument without stopping for a quick photo!
We continued and on the way we came across a pretty lake, and after some quick thinking and even quicker braking from Suzanne, we stopped at the view point for a few minutes.
We wanted to get to Mount Rushmore before the crowds, and it seemed to work. We drove straight in, although Card Payments were not being taken thanks to the Global IT outage that was happening.
Easy to park, although to avoid lifts and stairs, try to get to the top of the multi story car park. We parked on Level one, so had to use the lift. Had we not, we wouldn’t have had a nice chat with a man that had obviously been before. I don’t recall him telling us to see anything we hadn’t planned on seeing anyway, but the exchange was pleasant nonetheless.
We wandered up the main concourse, and you don’t have to wait long for the 4 heads to come into view.
Flags line the walkway, as you get closer to the founding fathers. The walk was stopped by the outdoor theatre that I am sure is busy in the evening with people watching the presentation and the light show.
Plenty of photos, a visit to the indoor theatre to learn all about how the sculptures were made.
Did you know that the heads were made by drilling into the rock, and detonating explosives to leave behind the correct shape and size of the facial features? And that Jefferson was going to be to the left Washington, but that due to the space available, and quality of the rock, he was moved to the other side?
No, neither did we!!
Another wander around, a few more photos and a trip to the ice cream seller for a treat in the 80+ degree heat finished off our 2 hour trip to Mount Rushmore.
We leave, and head west into Keystone.
A $20 pizza and a go on the luge for Suzanne and Max videoed by me. These photos are screen grabs from a video so not the best quality.
We leave Keystone, and head down North Playhouse Rd, to reach the Iron Mountain Road visitor centre. The man in there was nice enough, although scathing when the subject of GPS and Sat Nav came up, insisting they were wrong, and showing us a paper map. As far as we could tell, they were the same, but hey, his decades of knowledge of this area has to count for something.
The road was, as expected, a windy one, with tight turns, blind corners and switch backs. We also encountered a few hairpin bridges, much like PigTail bridge we encountered yesterday
Overlooks and view points made us stop a couple of times, capturing Mount Rushmore from further away.
Eventually, we turned left onto the 244, and found ourselves a few roads and a few miles later negotiating the Needles Highway, and ultimately the Needles Eye Tunnel.
12 inches to spare as Suzanne expertly navigates it, then turns around, and navigates it again.
The turn around was purely to save 30 minutes for our drive to Lead
Other than a 15 minute delay to navigate road works which involved a 5 mile or so drive on a gravel road, we made it to our hotel by 5.30.
A walk that will turn out to be too long for my knee, as I will wake up suffering tomorrow took us to Main Street and dinner was had in the Stampmill.
Very nice people, and after dinner of a mixture of chicken, pasta and salad in varies formats for the three of us, it was back for another much needed sleeps, with light out at 9.30.
See you tomorrow