July 12th, Friday

Wow ! Sun again. We had a full day around the Custer, South Dakota area. Started off with a tour of the Jewel Cave Natural Monument in the Black Hills. The caves discovered are 160 miles but we only did a couple of kms. Up and down stairs and paths as we wandered 380 feet below the surface with a tour guide pointing out all the different formations. Totally different then the cave tour I did in Texas. I tried the small cave in the Info centre :-)

The next stop was Crazy Horse Memorial which is going to be the world's largest sculpture. It is being sculpted in the Black Hills of South Dakota to honour the heritage, cultures and spirit of the North American Indian People. It is huge ! 563 feet high and 641 feet long. 7 of the sculptor's, Ziolkowski, family are continuing on his work of the Lakota Chief Crazy Horse. It will take years. Truly mind boggling on how they carve 95% of it with explosives.

Then down the road to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial which represents the first 150 years of the democracy of America. It is a carving (done by sculptor Borglum and 400 workers) of 4 US Presidents - Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington and Roosevelt. You see it in pictures but it is amazing to see it

in person.

There are a lot of things to see in such a small area - our last "tourist" thing was Bear Country which is a game sanctuary where we saw black bear, grizzly, reindeer, elk, wolves, bison, and big horned sheep. Then it was cold drink time (up to 34 degrees today), barbeque, another rain shower and talk to campers.