Day 11

I guess I am getting older. Rolling out of bed proved to be a chore, as I was stiff and tight from yesterdays hike. Two days ago, we decided to rent an ATV from the campsite. It is one of those Kawasaki mule type ATV’s with seating for 6. We had it for 4 hours. We took everyone out at first, and did some fun offroading on the miles and miles of logging trails that snake through the Black Hills. I had a blast, but Gramma and Alex didn’t like getting muddy and bumpy driving through the woods on muddy trails. We headed back to the campsite and left Gramma and the kids by the activity tent to do tie die T-shirts. Amy and I went back out, and Amy drove. I thought I was driving fast but Amy put me to shame. She was tearing around there like a woodsman. We picked Grant back up and strapped him in and went out some more. It was good fun. In the afternoon we headed back into Custer state park for some wildlife viewing. It was crowded but we got some good sightings of Buffalo and Bighorn sheep. The kids were able to turn in their books for their junior ranger badge. We left the park via a scenic route and ended up at Mount Rushmore. July 3rd is actually when they have the primary festivities for Independence Day and today the place was busy. They had people dressed up as the presidents, and presentations. They had a special ceremony for POW/MIA and had a swearing in of new military recruits from the area. I was looking forward to a flyover of the sculpture by a B1B bomber at 8:10. We went into the concession area to get some ice cream and all of a sudden I heard the scream of jets and the glass rattled on the building. I ran outside to see two jets specks in the distance. A little older lady was standing next to me and looked mad, as she had run out behind me to look for the jets. I asked her, “Did they do the flyover early”? She responded, “They better not have, my some is the pilot, and I cam all this way to see him do a flyover, I’ll kill him if he did it early and I missed it.” I laughed and we came to find out it was a last minute flyover by two F-16’s of the South Dakota National Guard. At 8:10 the B1 did its flyover and we stayed to watch them light the heads up. They are not doing fireworks this year on account of the huge dead stands of trees from the Pine Bark Beetle. Looking across the forest at the amount of forest these little bugs have killed, it is going to be interesting to see how they deal with this problem.