Black Hills Trip - Day 5

Monday, June 28th:  Hill City/Keystone, SD

Monday started with a breakfast of a different sort.  Crooked Creek Resort, where we were staying, offered an all you can eat pancake breakfast for $3.00.  We were SOOOOO there.  They were great pancakes - each one the size of a Styrofoam plate!  We had our fill and headed to Mount Rushmore, just 9 miles away.  Below are some pictures of our time there:

Outside the entrance to Mt. Rushmore

Diane and Nathan

Your standard postcard picture of Mt. Rushmore

Once we got around to this view, we realized there could be a 5th face up on the mountain.  Seen here to the right of honest Abe, we affectionately named him "Monkey Face".

From here, we headed to Black Hills Glass Blowers, just outside of Keystone.  Two local glass blowers work out of their small (and very HOT) studio, which could be seen from the 1880's train ride the day before.  We had not called ahead to find out when/if they were doing any blowing that day, but boy, did we get lucky- they had just started when we got there.  If you haven't seen someone do this, put it on your list of things to do.  We were all fascinated.  Over the next hour or so, we watched a chunk of molten sand turn from what we thought was going to be a glass into what we thought was going to be a vase into what ended up to be a decorative platter, much like the picture below:

Karen and I found a decorative bowl and a Christmas ornament we liked, so we purchased them:

From here, we headed for Rushmore Cave.  This cave was discovered by miners in the mid-1870's.  Although no gold was found here, several rooms were discovered containing various forms of stalactites, stalagmites and columns.  We took the 1-hour tour which took us through narrow passages and sometimes up and down steep steps to view several of the rooms in one part of the cave system.  Below are some pics:

Stalactites on the ceiling of one of the rooms

A "ribbon" form of a stalactite

More stalactites

This was formerly a column (where a stalactite and a stalagmite meet), but it was later separated by an earthquake

Back into Keystone for some nourishment.  We ate outside on the covered porch of the Railhead Family Restaurant.  Nathan ate his first Buffalo Burger, which he darn near inhaled!   Apparently, it was good!  

The last stop of the day was back to Mt. Rushmore for the night lighting ceremony.  We were disappointed they were not doing fireworks this year because it had been too dry. 

During the lighting ceremony, they invited all current and veteran service men & women on stage to be honored

Six of the service men were invited to assist in lowering and folding the flag, which concluded the ceremony

Mt. Rushmore lit at night (duh)

Back to our cabin at Crooked Creek, where we spent the night.