![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MtRushmore0002.jpg\")
<\/a>I got back and we headed off to Mt. Rushmore.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a short half-hour ride over and surprisingly they have parking garages.\u00a0 Shade!!\u00a0\u00a0 The pups weren’t allowed too close. \u00a0 I guess they are worried they might pee on the granite.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was an awe inspiring place.\u00a0 Hard to imagine guys on wooden ladders with pneumatic tools did that.\u00a0\u00a0 I have always wanted to see it in person.\u00a0 They are huge!![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MtRushmore0003.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOn the way there from Custer, you can see the beginnings of the Crazy Horse sculpture off the 185 highway.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s going to also be massive but only the face is close to finished.<\/p>\n
There is no entrance fee at Mt. Rushmore, but there is a $10 parking fee, \u00a0and as I said, the parking garages are awesome on a warm day in the Dakota’s.<\/p>\n
We stayed there about an hour, it was a bit too warm to hike the mountain and there isn’t anything else to see there… just the chatchski shop and some food joint.<\/p>\n
We leave Tuesday morning for the Badlands, staying across the street from Wall Drug.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We got up early and I headed over to Jewel Cave to purchase tour tickets as we heard they sell out very early and only sell them the day of the tour.\u00a0 I picked a tour time of 4 pm so we would have plenty of time for the rest of the day’s activities. I … <\/p>\n<\/a>From there we headed out to find Iron Mountain Road.\u00a0\u00a0 I read about it and a tunnel carved into the rock that had a great view of the dead presidents’ heads.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And they were right.\u00a0 What an awesome view\u00a0 it was. \u00a0 And one of the windiest roads I think I have ever been on.\u00a0 (and me a brain dead motorcyclist)\u00a0 Turns our there were three square tunnels blasted out of the granite, and two of them lined up directly <\/a>with the monument.\u00a0 They had even cut down the trees in a straight line so they would be visible.\u00a0\u00a0 What a great road.\u00a0\u00a0 There were also a lot of wooden bridges that were shaped in like a spiral staircase so you curved around and went under where you just were.\u00a0 Thank god we weren’t in an RV for this road.<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a>After all that fun we headed back to the coach to eat some lunch and change clothes for the tour.\u00a0\u00a0 I neglected to tell Kathy there were 750 stairs on this tour.\u00a0\u00a0 It was awesome!\u00a0\u00a0 Although climbing all those stairs to get back up to the elevator was a real bear.\u00a0 Thankfully it was 49 degrees down there so we weren’t sweating as much.\u00a0\u00a0 It was very different than Wind Cave.\u00a0 I had a lot of fun,\u00a0 but I think Kathy is done with caves for a while.<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n