Day Eight: Black Hills

Now we've all seen Mt. Rushmore (Mark has seen it twice) and can check it off our lists forever. The place was overrun, smelled a little like a latrine, and reminded Jennifer of the Washington Mall during Spring Break. 

This was the low point of our otherwise fine day in South Dakota. 

Rapid City: pleasant town, distinguished by bronze statues of all the presidents on its street corners. 

That's Jimmy Carter. 

 

The Black Hills: not black, but densely forested and dark green. The Lakota Indians thought they looked black from a distance hence the name. The fact that they are not black was a little bit disappointing to some of us. Also, they are populous and filled with junk shops, sort of like the Santa Cruz of South Dakota.

We had some fun experiences anyway. 

The kids had their first Dairy Queen soft-serve cones.

 

Owen: It made me feel sick.

We went to a shop selling antlers, furs, and purses made from buffalo scrotums (yes! and very ugly.) Owen became fixated on acquiring a turtle shell. Unlike Isabel, whose wants are few and elegant, Owen's wants are many and bizarre. He wanted an arrowhead and beads, gems and some antlers, but mostly he wanted a turtle shell.

Mark: Wouldn't you rather have a live turtle or tortoise?

Owen: Of course, but I love turtles and the shell makes me think of turtles.

Mark: You know they didn't just find the shell. They probably had to kill the turtle.

Owen: I know, but keeping the shell honors turtles.

Honors turtles? 

Jennifer wanted to get a buffalo skull and horns to put on the hen house, but Isabel nixed that: "We don't want our house to look like a junkyard."

The girl has good taste and sound judgment.

We didn't buy anything from that shop, but we did buy some stones at a place down the road stones we will use in the garden.

Then we went on a tour of Jewel Cave and spent almost two hours a few hundred feet underground. It was cold and wet.

Isabel: I liked the temperature. It was the perfect temperature.

Owen: I didn't really like that cave.

We had dinner at a Rapid City brew pub. Owen was uncharacteristically silent through the entire meal because he was drawing characters from Garfield as carved into the side of a mountain.