October 29...Custer State Park (Day 2)

(Kim's Perspective)
Today was exceedingly cool. We took Iron Mountain Road - one of the coolest roads we've ever seen...





...and headed for Mount Rushmore. Wow. Our first glimpse of the monument was from Iron Mountain Road...


Our second glimpse of the monument was as we drove through one of the many small tunnels carved out of the rock...

Whoa. That was tight! Bravo Mr. Norbeck.

When we arrived, we parked in the parking garage, let the Boys potty and got them settled comfortably in the truck.

Along the path to the monument we spotted these two...


Ow...that's so cute it hurts. Neither one of us had ever seen wild mountain goats before and I was content to stand and watch them awhile.

We walked through the Avenue of Flags...

This is where we currently live...


...and this is where we want to... ;P


We spent a long time at the exhibit hall/museum. I'm not normally enthralled by these types of things, but this exhibit had me fascinated. The video on how the monument was made was pretty cool, too.





We had lunch at the cafe. The view was pretty sweet. Bison stew and a salad for me. Pot roast and chili for Bill. Weelll..okay, I wanted the chili so we split it. ;)


After we were finished eating, we sat by the fire and looked through a few books before making our way to the gift shop for the requisite postcard and magnet.


On our way out, we spotted more mountain goats. So fuzzy and cute.


We continued the drive...


and found a cool place to play...





Sometimes the self portraits can be a little challenging. I nearly lost my balance and fell backwards in my haste to make it for this one. :)



This tunnel was tight. Literally. :)




The drive back towards Custer State Park provided some interesting views.


We took Wildlife Loop Road and encountered...uh...wildlife. The Boys were enthralled with the buffalo.



And Twist was intrigued by the pronghorn.


The sunset was a nice wrap up to the day.



I was really surprised that I enjoyed Mount Rushmore as much as I did. I'm really glad we decided to extend our trip long enough to see it. :)