Thursday, July 31, 2014

Rapid City & Black Hills of South Dakota


We arrived at Rapid City on the 21st of July and headed right for Mt Rushmore in the Black Hills.  The lines into the park were 5 lanes deep and backed up on the highway, but well worth the wait.  The Avenue of Flags looks nice in the picture with the presidents behind them and at night looks even better(didn't put the night pics up, should have brought the tripod). 

Keep in mind most of these pictures are in the Black Hills in South Dakota, I can't believe they're not mountains!  When we were driving to the top of the hill in Custer State Park and I looked down, it sure felt like we were in the White Mountains.  Take a look at the picture Al took of the tunnel in the park, you can see Mt Rushmore if you zoom in.  We both like looking for bison in the parks, so here is another picture of them.  What I didn't realize is, that the younger bison's look like cows, they don't take on the shape of the bison until they're older.  I put a couple more pictures of the park because I liked them and thought you might want to see them.

Off to Bear Country USA, a safari style park, where you travel through with your car as you look at the wild animals.  It was bumper to bumper moving at a snails pace while you looked at Mule Deer, wolves, bison and, of course, bears.  Even though it took allot longer then it should have, it was worth seeing.

Crazy Horse, also in the Black Hills, is a work in progress with no end date but a must see.  From Crazy Horse we headed to Belle Fourche, which is the geographic Center of the Nation, when Alaska and Hawaii were added.  Next stop, Spearfish Canyon, which had waterfalls and the Belle Fourche River. Janet & Roland, they were fly fishing in the river, do you want to come join us, I'd love to learn how to fly fish?

The "City of Presidents" tour was the last thing we did before we left Rapid City.  It was 12 blocks of life like statues of the first 42 presidents.  As we crossed the street, we tried to guess which president it was and didn't have a difficult time with the last 30 or so presidents but failed horribly with a small portion of the rest. 

Off to Yellowstone Nat'l Pk where we don't think you'll be able to reach us so email me if you need me at lezleacasey@gmail.com


Avenue of Flags, which features flags from all 50 states and 6 U.S. Territories  

Faces of Mount Rushmore

Carved granite tunnel in Custer State Park


A herd of bison in Custer State Park(there are 1,300 bison in this park)

A scenic shot of Custer State Park


Needles Highway tunnel(wouldn't fit the motorhome through here)

Bear Country USA(looks pretty relaxed considering there are hundreds of people watching him)


Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of SD 

Belle Fourche Monument


Spearfish Canyon waterfall

Spearfish Canyon river


Rapid City, City of Presidents

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