Ahh, fresh cabin smell! We woke up early, and Buck started
the pioneer blend coffee we’d discovered at the cute little grocery store. Soon
he had eggs, bacon, and hash browns adding their breakfasty aromas to the air.
The kids were thrilled to discover hot chocolate and cider were breakfast
beverage options; I, of course, had my chai.
Perhaps to all our amazement—we had breakfast eaten, were dressed,
out of the cabin, and on the road by 9 a.m.! We had a big old bag of laundry—I
mean trash—to toss at the dumpster :) When we originally packed, almost one
whole suitcase ended up being worn out undergarments, pajamas, shorts, t-shirts,
etc. Normally, I’d take these up to the cabin to fuel the fire in “the cave,”
but this year our annual burn didn’t take place. Instead, I decided on this
trip we’d do laundry . . . by throwing it away, ha!
Due to our shortened stay in the Black Hills, we decided to
squeeze in a trip to Crazy Horse on Day 3. The kids didn’t know any other
mountainside carvings existed in the Hills and assumed that this was the back side
of Mt. Rushmore. Just one of the many surprises of this adventure (or . . . we
forgot to tell them). I feel like our vacation was one long homeschool field
trip. There was so much history and culture and nature the Crew experienced on
this “education vacation” (I think that’s what they’ve called similar trips in
the past :)
The Crazy Horse visitor center was really beautiful—all
wooden pillars and stone. It was also huge! We knew ahead of time that the
museum hasn’t and won’t accept government funding as they strive to chisel a
Native American hero into the rock near Custer. Although the process began more
than half a century ago, they’ve still only gotten the face carved, but hey,
the visitor center is rad! Graysen read a sign that said the hand (which they
are working on now) will take 15 years to complete! I don’t know when they plan
to finish the man, horse, and all, but it’s cool that the third generation
descending from the original designer/carver continues to pursue the project.
The original fellow and his wife had 10 kids, so there are plenty of
descendants to help out :)
After peering at the carving, we explored the Native
American history museum, saw a movie about the carving family, and visited with
some local artists who have a whole room in which to make, display, and sell
jewelry and crafts. Noticing the unique stacked stone walls, we asked one of
the ladies about the structure and she said it was built from rock blasted off
during the carving process. I suppose they had to do SOMETHING with all that
rock they removed. They could probably build an entire city.
In one of the many museum rooms, we discovered a tiny,
wooden post office. We debated dropping off my growing stack of postcards at
this odd location. It seemed to have collection times, but also kind of looked
like a piece of woodwork relocated to that location as a historic preservation.
Rather than take a chance that the mail dropped through the still-functioning
slot might only be collected when discovered by the cleaning crew once every
couple years, I went with the blue postal box out front :) Hopefully those who
received such missives enjoyed a Crazy Horse cancellation across their stamp.
Just as we were about to take our gift shop purchases to the
van in order to exit the premises, Buck started noticing people heading the
opposite direction. “I wonder if they’re going to have a pow wow dance or
something.” Two seconds later over the intercom: “There will be a Lakota dance
presentation on the viewing veranda beginning in five minutes . . .” He’s so
observant :) We decided to join the huddled masses (it was cold!!) for an open
air view of the Lakota lady giving a presentation about her culture with Crazy
Horse looking on. She was funny, dispelling some of the ideas that the Native
American people still live in teepees and don’t utilize technology etc. She
said they have fashion trends just like any other culture, and her very shiny
dress was a reflection of that (rather than deer hide). She also ran her dance
music from her iPhone connected to a speaker system through a boom box—no traditional
drummers for this gal!
It was so cold. I ran to the van to get our sweatshirts and
hoodies. We didn’t stay for the second half of her program (which involved
joining in a friendship dance near the platform), but we were amused by the
little squirrel with a pine cone in his mouth who seemed to be running in
circles through the crowd in his own kind of panicked dance.
Oh, one more thing I should not neglect to mention—wifi!
There is very little service, mobile data, even texting connection in the Black
Hills region. So when we finally had a chance to connect, you bet we did. Buck
and the kids updated all their fantasy football teams, while I (much like the
frantic squirrel) tried to find us a last minute hotel that would sleep six in
Cody, WY. After trying to buzz through some reviews from other websites, I
called Buck over and said, “This is the weirdest place we will ever have
stayed, but what do you think? They have three queen beds in the same room.” He
took one look at the pictures of the King’s Inn and was like, “YESSSS!!!” I’ll
leave you in suspense, as we did the kids ;)
By now, we were an hour behind schedule. Our next stop was
the much touted Black Hills Burger and Bun Company in Custer. Only five minutes
away, we figured we’d make up some time and then drive the Needles Highway into
Custer Park after lunch. Well, what we didn’t know was that this was a tiny,
little restaurant with not a lot of tables for a family as large as ours. While
I waited in the looooong line to find out the wait time, I visited with a local
lady from the library and another gentleman who knew better than to wait for a
table. I was wondering if we should just get take-out as well, but the owner
thought that’d take about as long as a wait for a table—30 minutes.
So, we stood outside in the snow/sleet (the sun was shining
too, so not entirely miserable) for 25 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes . . .
I’d go in and check and the two big tables of full grown adults were just
sitting there, looking at their phones, like this was a coffee shop. Buck and
the boys decided to walk to a nearby trading company, which resulted in texted
photos like the two I’ll post right here, lol!
Truly though, Buck and I were getting really frustrated, as
people who’d arrived after us were finishing their meals and leaving. Finally
we insisted we’d be fine getting split up into various tables, we had our
entire order ready to submit, just let us eat! The owner, who was from our same
area originally felt awful (and frustrated at her rude customers too). She sat
us at two booths across the room from each other, and then hustled a waitress
over to take our order. Before our water even arrived, a table opened up and we
got to sit together. Almost immediately our food arrived. And it was DELICIOUS!
We’d decided to split shakes; they were amazing. Three of us ordered bison
burgers—Buck had to pause after his first bite . . . there might have been a
tear in his eye :) He said it’s one of the best burgers he’s ever had in his
life. Yes, the 45-minute wait meant we didn’t get to see the Needles Highway,
but I suppose it will still be there the next time we come to the Black Hills.
And if we see EVERYTHING this time, Buck won’t have an excuse to come back as
soon as he wants to, right? Oh, and just as we left, the restaurant owner motioned us over and handed Buck a free hat to apologize for our wait. He was very excited!
Our next adventure took us on a direct path into Custer
State Park. Here is where I impressed the entrance attendant with my trip
preparedness ;) We drove the wildlife loop and didn’t see an abundance of
animals, but we did see where they were setting up for the buffalo roundup, taking
place later that week. Eventually we did come across big pockets of bison out
grazing the hills. The landscape was so pretty, rolling hills and grasslands.
Every so often we’d see one giant bull off by himself. Later we learned that
these fellows are either younger guys who got into a bunch of fights over the
summer trying to be the leader of a herd section (broken ribs, etc. that need
rest to restore) or they were old animals that were finding a quiet place to
die. Either way, we realized that many tourists are way too eager to ignore all
the posted signs about getting too close to wild animals. There were several
places we left quickly, because we didn’t want to see what happened next as
people moved in for photo ops. Eeek!!
Our visit to Custer State Park concluded with a very
exciting splurge. From their Blue Bell Lodge, they run nightly chuckwagon
shows/meals. Our kids had no clue what was happening when we pulled up to the
lodge and (the rather famous; I’d watched videos online during my trip
planning) Cowboy Keith started handing out straw cowboy hats with red bandanas.
I told them, “We are going on a one-hour wagon ride to a secluded canyon, where
we are going to eat steak out in the open air; we’ll see wild animals along the
way, and . . . there will be a sing-a-long.” Oh boy were the girls excited to
hear that!
We soon climbed into our straw-filled wagon (no horses, we
had a big old truck pulling us) with some folks from the Dakotas, New York, and
even our own state. There were maybe two dozen with us, including some small
children who were very restless and not sure about this whole wagon thing.
However, when they’d start getting fussy, Cowboy Keith would take a break from
his story and history telling to play Twinkle
Twinkle or the ABCs and the
little ones would perk up and sing along—super sweet.
The evening was very chilly and all passengers were
encouraged to snag a blanket from the gunny sacks in the middle of the straw
pile. We were very thankful for those blankets! Along the way, we saw our lone
bison from earlier and a whole prairie dog town we’d somehow missed on our
afternoon drive. We could hear the funny creatures barking at each other, and
we laughed as they’d pop in and out of their holes. I told Buck we should
probably get a prairie dog town for our backyard too, it wouldn’t likely bother
the bear cubs. The prairie dogs are so much fun to watch, they’d of course live
in harmony and friendship with each other—it could happen :)
After our hour of hay wagon riding elapsed, we arrived at
the meal site—a quiet little valley filled with trees and Jeeps (they were from
another park tour option). Cowboy Keith offered a prayer of thanks for the
beauty around us and the food. Our numbers swelled to about 50, I’d guess,
including a family from England celebrating a birthday. As we all stood in the
food line with our blankets around our shoulders and our straw hats on our
heads, Cowboy Keith and another gentlemen (whom he’d said he’d been playing
music with for 25 years) entertained the crowd. As Buck walked by, Cowboy Keith
said, “When this young dad got on the wagon this afternoon, there wasn’t any of
that silver in his beard. It must have been quite a ride!” That made Buck
smile. His beard has grown almost record long on this vacation, and I’d noticed
the white looked more pronounced. I like the distinguished look of it, and now
to have it described as “silver,” well, that was pretty neat!
Onto our plates went coleslaw, cornbread, beans, watermelon,
an 8 oz steak, and a cookie. We also had the options of water, lemonade, and
coffee. As it was decidedly chilly, the boys asked if they could have some
coffee too. I said, “Only if there’s
decaf.” There wasn’t. They got lemonade :) As the first round of vittles
(that’s a good chuckwagon word) disappeared from plates, our cowboy song
entertainers announced seconds were available. Brennen hopped right up and
filled himself another plate with another steak! We teased him, but boy can
that boy eat right now. He got our money’s worth out of the food portion of the
evening. And in his straw hat and blanket cape he reminded us of someone . . .
the Black Hills Bandito! Not to be mistaken for the Vineyard Bandito (that’s
his grandma) ;)
Somehow those cowboys continued to strum their guitars,
though everyone else’s fingers were near frozen. We hopped back on our wagon
with full bellies, dropped the side covers down to conserve warmth, and headed
back to the lodge just as the sun was setting. The girls were delighted when
“Doe a Deer” appeared on the play list, and Graysen requested Old Time Religion. The ride back only
took about 15 minutes, which worked out great because we wanted to see the
laser show at Crazy Horse.
At least we thought we did. Our vanload of sleepy tourists
arrived at Crazy Horse about 20 minutes later. We cracked our windows just
enough to hear the Native American music they piped through the speaker system.
When the show began, we realized it was basically a retelling of the
orientation movie we’d seen in the visitor center earlier that day. Yes, the
lasers were colorful, but we were ready to be the annoying people who flipped
on their headlights in the middle of the show to drive out ahead of the crowd.
It turned out to be a short program, so we spared ourselves the ire of other
visitors (or maybe their admiration). My favorite part actually was the ending;
they showed with lasers what the completed monument will look like (probably
several hundred years from now :).
I tried to snap a photo as we drove away.
That night a huge, bright, full moon accompanied us back to
our cabin, where we dropped into bed exhausted, but gladly remembering all the
adventures of our full and busy day. And honestly, the best part was absorbing
the natural beauty God poured into this region of our country. Maybe our
pictures can help with that part of the adventure, because my words are
ridiculously insufficient.
Here's your next spot the animal in the picture challenge! Oooh, what could it be and where is it hiding??!! Scroll down for the zoom in answer :)
Bison Billy! You are correct! Right in the middle of both photos. He's a big fella! Probably one of those bulls off healing his ribs.
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