Tom says: Hot Springs is a very interesting town and it would be nice to spend more time there. As we rode out, as the early morning sun did its special things, we saw many beautiful old stone buildings, maintained in excellent fashion, all in a very coordinated style. The downtown was built for a significant distance along the banks of a pretty stream, which I expect was geothermally warm. It is the only town I've experienced where the hot water spigot puts out water about about the same temperature as the cold spigot. The water in my Camelback was distastefully warm as I forced it down to stay hydrated. The beautiful valley shown here swept down from the road to the mountains and had many horses grazing peacefully.
We rode through the very hilly Wind Cave National Park. Its grassy hills are home to many buffalo. Although we saw some buffalo at a distance, we saw more of their trails crossing the road and a lot of the grass that they redeposited after taking out the nutrients. This sign warned of their potential presence and below it are some of the wildflowers we saw.
The most populous residents of the park, by far, are the prairie dogs, which I hope you can see here if you strain your eyes. From a bike we could watch them closely and hear their calls: something like keuuu-k-keuuu.
Continuing north, we entered beautiful Black Hills National Forest. This shot shows one of the many small homes nestled in valleys between the hills.
Soon, but not without some pretty serious climbing, we passed in the distance, the Crazy Horse Monument (above the grassy field). What a massive thing it is! It's far from complete, but is very impressive.
After a lot more climbing and flying down hills, we again had the honor of seeing Mount Rushmore. It is awe inspiring and the many improvements at the base are also in good taste. Imagine how we felt when one of the tourists came up, congratulated us, shook our hands and stated "You guys rode your bikes up here and my van could hardly make it up those hills!" On one of the downhills, I was zooming down at about 35mph, when our ride leader appeared next to me, and said with a smirk, "Wasn't that fun?" He then zoomed on past me!
Leaving Mount Rushmore, the climbing was not done. This short tunnel shows the steep road to Rapid City. Close to Rapid City there were miles of high speed downhills. Holding the brakes on for all those miles is a definite contributor to Carpo Tunnel Syndrome.
This was a very good day! Beautiful scenery and places to visit. How blessed and fortunate we are.
Ken says: Tom pretty well covered the day. A day when the climbing never ended, but worth it in the end. Just to see Mt. Rushmore. thousands of tourists at the site itself and in the surrounding attractions. The Mt. Rushmore site has changes totally since I visited there with my Dad about 15 years ago. Tomorrow we go to see Wall Drug, we have been seeing billboards advertising it for miles.
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