Day 2 (back on June 2)

Happy Belated 31st Anniversary Sis and Kurt!

We continued the insanity of "seeing it all' on the second day of the trip. You gotta love hotels that provide hot breakfasts (esp when bacon is involved). It was a five minute trip to Mt. Rushmore. For $10 we can go back and see it as much as we want for a year (provided we are still in the minivan). We hooked up with a tour and ran off the path to give two mountain goats the right away (we saw some later by the side of the road too). Seeing the presidents is quite impressive (seeing how the workers actually did it was down right scary... esp hearing about how the cart broke one day). We also did some wildlife sightings at Custer State Park (great buffalo, pronghorn, birds and wild burros (Margie and Soph's favorites). We headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours of swimming and then into town for some pizza (something we could all agree on). The waitress told us we could make the Needles drive in enough time to be back for the evening laser show. The drive was a repeat of the one to Custer (great tunnels through the Black Hills with incredible views of Mt. Rushmore). We saw elk and the Needles formations were gorgeous (pictures won't do them justice). Really the only disappointment was the laser show... basically it is a soliloquy of a park service employee followed by the "lighting of the heads". A cool part was when they invited all the veterans in the audience to the front and took down the flag for the night. All heads were quickly asleep!