Day 7 - Custer State Park

On Day 7 we headed to Custer State Park.  On our way out of the RV park on the 4th of July, we ran into Custer himself.  Of course we had to get a photo.

Custer State Park is made up of 71,000 acres.  A herd of 1,300 bison roams freely throughout the park, often stopping traffic along the 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road (We were lucky enough to get to see the herd). The herd is one of the largest publically-owned herds in the world.

Our first stop in the park was at the Visitor's Center.  They had a nice display of the animals that are in the park.

They were just starting a program for the kids so they decided to stay.  They got to pick out a footprint of animal and make one out of plaster.

 Katie chose a beaver.

 Jack chose a badger (they're actually mean little buggers)

And of course Grace chose a jack rabbit.

Next we were off on a hike.  The Lover's Leap Hike.  It's listed as 3 miles and moderate to strenuous.  I'm never going to make it. 

Ready to Hike

Pooped already.  It was a lot of uphill. 

Sam and Grace (and John) made it to the top.  Katie, Jack and I stopped. 

Here's those herd of Buffalo.  Impressive.   There were lots of babies too.

 We saw wild Burros and Prong Horn Deer too.

 Looking at the buffalo

 He's a lone buffalo sitting all alone on the hill.  John decides to try and get closer.  I'm not fond of the idea but I lose out. 

As John gets closer, the buffalo stands and starts to move.  I yell, "John, he's moving".  John moves his but back to the RV.  They warn about people like John who try to get close to wild animals and get gored, or worse.  Why do men always think they can outrun/outwit wild animals?

 

Anyway, we move on to look for more animals.  Once we left the park, everyone was hungry so we headed to Hill City, SD for dinner.  Another cute little western town.

 

 

We decided to eat at the Bumpin Buffalo. It was nice to sit and eat in a restaurant. The RV is great and all, but it can be tiring.

 

Jack loves his soda.

Then it was back to Custer where we saw a pie place we wanted to hit for dessert.  It was so bright and colorful and everyone recommended it.  "The Purple Pie Place".  The entire restaurant was purple and pink.  So cute.  Plus, who doesn't love pie????  Well not all of my kids.  Jack, Sam and Katie all had ice cream.

 I had blackberry and it was definately homemade.  Crust and all.  Yum!

Jack's plain vanilla ice cream.

Grace had peanut butter pie.

Emergency #2

I'm going out of order of days because as of now I'm so far behind and I think this post needs to be posted now.  We have been going non-stop day and night and I haven't had much time to work on it and we haven't had great internet either.

Well if you thought the propane incident was bad, it doesn't even compare to what happened in Glacier National Park. One of the main sights to see in Glacier is driving the Going to the Sun Road. It is a narrow, winding road built through the mountains in the 1930's at an altitude of around 6,500 feet with 1000 foot dropoffs from the edge. Since the road is so narrow, there are vehicle size restrictions on the road. We decided to take one of the historic red jammer buses on the tour. 

These were fabulous old buses built in the 1930's and have a rollback convertible top.  They hold 17 people. 

The day started out beautiful.  First thing we saw a black bear off to the side.  The driver, Parker, then pointed out a bridge we crossed that was used in the Forest Gump movie.  We made several stops along the way for photos.  This is one of the most scenic stops we saw the entire trip.

Our next stop was Logan's Pass.  There is still snow on the ground there.  The kids had a blast playing in it and throwing snowballs.

We continued on the road down to Lake McDonald for lunch.  I was nervous the whole time as the road was very high, very windy and had only about a 2 foot high side barrier made out of stones.  It was beautiful, but intense.  After lunch we turned around to head back on the road.  It started to drizzle.  Our driver thought we could outrun the rain so we didn't stop to put the top up.  It started to rain harder so we finally had to stop to put the top up.  The sky started looking darker and the clouds were getting lower and lower.  The lightning started and the rain came down harder and faster. 

All of a sudden our car hit something.  I yell, "What the hell was that?"  We see a basketball size rock fly off the car over the guard rail.  We just figured we hit a rock in the road.  We go another mile or so and all of a sudden another rock hits the car.  Then we see other rocks (of various sizes) coming down the mountain, bouncing off the road and over the side.  Bam! Another rock hits the car.  I yell to the kids, "Get down, get down".  Everyone gets down on the floor.  We can see rocks and mud sliding down the mountain and into the road.  Rocks continue to hit the car.  The car in front of us turns around.  Our driver starts trying to back up.  He's yelling, how much room do I have.  Someone says about 20 feet.  He backs up and then has to stop.  Stuff continues to come down.  We are all scared and panicked.  Finally I yell, "Get out, get out".  John and I grab the kids and he tells us to hide on the side of the mountain.  There are some areas that are caved in and we figure we'll be safe there as stuff continues to come down the mountain.  Our fear was we weren't sure if there was going to be a bigger slide that would push the car over the side of the mountain, plus we were in a vehicle that had a canvas convertible top.  Not much protection when rocks are hitting your car.  Finally we grab the kids and start running towards all of the cars behind us.  I'm knocking on windows saying "Is there any room in there?  Please let us in.".  I feel like we're literally running for our lives.  There were a few more red jammer buses behind us.  They start throwing ponchos at us (as we are completely soaked as we have been out running in the pouring rain".  We get in the cars (we're in separate cars as there wasn't enough room in one car for all of us).  Finally the slide stops.  We get out and inspect the damage.  The road is blocked.  Then we hear there are several slides on the road.  We are essentially trapped on top of the mountain.  But we are all safe.

 Look at the bigger rocks laying in the road.

Were we 60 seconds earlier, our bus would've been a this exact location.

Look at the huge rocks that bounced over the side.  The bus behind us stated they saw a huge rock/boulder hit the road and bounce behind our bus.

Everyone evaluating the situation.  There is no cell phone service on top of the mountain.  Our saving grace is they were doing road construction on this road a few miles back.  Some people walk down to find them and they call the Park Rangers.

I'm still concerned at this point that something else is going to come sliding down the mountain.  Once I realize that's over, the rain has stopped and I know we're okay, I break down.  I fell like I'm in shock.  Katie's still upset and crying.  I finally get out to evaluate the situation. 

 Jack doesn't even realize what just happened.  This is just pure excitement for him. 

It's like a scene out of a movie.

 

 

After the shock has worn off.

There were 12 landslides that happened in the same area.  John and Sam walked down and took these pictures.

 

The only positive is that they were working on the road a few miles back so there was equipment available to clear the roads.  First they had to turn everyone around to head back down the mountains so they could get the equipment through to clear the slides.  We ended up waiting for about 2 1/2 hours before we were allowed to head down. 

 

The buses we ended up getting in were full of people on "Adventures by Disney".  They were a bunch of teenagers.  They were great trying to play games with the kids and get their minds off of what was happening.   It really did help them pass the time.

 

Once we were able to leave, one of the construction people told us she had been working in the area for 16 years and something like this had never happened.  The news said we had gotten 1 1/2 inches of rain in 30 minutes.

 

Look at these 2 pictures and compare the color of the water before the landslide:

 

 

 

And after:

 

 

Look at the path it created through the trees.

 

Here's a link to the story that was in the news.  Someone was able to get some video of it.

 

going-to-the-sun-road-reopens-after-landslide

 

http://www.ktvq.com/news/glacier-national-park-mudslide-caught-on-tape/

 

Once we were able to make it down the mountain, we still had to make it back to the campground.  We stopped at Lake McDonald again, for dinner, bought dry clothes and socks and headed out.  It took close to 3 hours to get back.  Poor Katie started crying on the way back with a stomach ache and we had to stop.  Made it home in bed by 11:00.  Katie slept with us that night.  Not a good night's sleep for John or I.

Day 6 - July 4th - Custer, SD and Mt. Rushmore

Happy 4th of July.  Today started out much better.  We were staying in Custer, SD and decided to spend the morning in Custer.  They were having an Old Time Country Fourth.  Custer is such a cute, western town with a lot of charm.  Everyone there was very friendly and welcoming.  We found parking for the big behemoth and found a place to watch the parade.

 They have these bison all over the town where artists have decorated them all differently.

 Looking pretty patriotic.

 Check out his hat and boots.  He fits right in.

They even had a B1 Bomber fly over to start the parade.  What a sight.

 Waiting for the parade to start.

Fred Flintstone (the Flintstones theme park is located in Custer) 

Check out the road sign.  Very patriotic.

 At this point we love the fire department very much.

 Love the carving on the side of the fire truck.

Remember Smokey the Bear?  The kids had no clue who he was.

Jack loving the John Deere.

Next we headed off to the Crazy Horse Monument.

Now for the history lesson:

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument complex that is under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota. It depicts Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. The memorial was commissioned by Lakota elder Henry Standing Bear to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a private non-profit organization.
The memorial consists of the mountain carving (monument), the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural Center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet (27 m) high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet (18 m) high.
The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is still far from completion.^[1] If completed, it may become the world's largest sculpture, as well as the first non-religious statue to hold this record since 1967; the last being Russia's Mamayev Monument

It truly is an amazing sight.  It drawfs Mt. Rushmore.

 Checking out a teepee.

Finally we headed off to Mt. Rushmore.  We were afraid of how bad the crowds would be here on the 4th so we wanted to arrive early. 

As you can see, there were lots of RV's already there when we arrived.

Good thing we have Sam to carry all of our stuff.

Jack in the midst of one of many meltdowns.

Love all of the state flags. 

And we had to get the patriotic fourth of July Rushmore shirts. 

While John took Sam, Grace and Katie on a hike, I took Jack to meet the Presidents.

Meeting Teddy Roosevelt

Love this picture.

Meeting Thomas Jefferson 

Meeting Abe Lincoln (he looked amazingly like the real man)

And of course George Washington

And some great pictures as the sun is starting to set.

Love this photo

 Just Beautiful.

 They called all of the veterans and current service members forward.

Taking down and folding of the flag.

From the time we started planning this trip, all John wanted to see was fireworks over Mt. Rushmore.  We based our whole schedule around that.  Unfortunately, fireworks were canceled, as they were everywhere in the area, due to an extremely high fire risk in the area.  It was still a very patriotic and moving way to spend the 4th.