Summer Travels 2019: Mount Rushmore, Sylvan Lake, Jewel Cave

In the Black Hills, we stayed at the Buffalo Rock Lodge.  It was a big log cabin with three guest rooms; we were in the Gideon room which had three beds.  They provided a yummy breakfast each morning and had dessert each night.

There was a jetted tub in the room which Sarah and Matthew used.

Sarah enjoyed watching TV out in the common area.

The owner's granddaughter Lily loved having kids visit.  They had a lot of fun together.  Lily called them "her guests."

Megan and Lily spent a lot of time together.

This was a really neat picture of the Black Hills area from the sky.

One of the claims to fame of the lodge is that you can see Mount Rushmore from their deck.  This is at night when it is lit.

Here it is in the daytime.  Just look right in the middle of the picture. It's about 3.5 miles away from the lodge.

We took Iron Mountain Road to get to Mount Rushmore.  Parts of it were designed specifically to see Mount Rushmore.  It was rather narrow and winding.

There they are!

This tunnel specifically opens out right to a view of Mount Rushmore.

At the Memorial, we could see them a lot closer.

Sarah and Megan with the Memorial.  You can see a couple sister missionaries at the right edge of the photo.

We found Arizona on the Avenue of Flags!

Me and Matthew
Matthew really wanted the audio guide. He enjoyed listening to it and shared what he learned with the rest of us.

Someone is missing.

There he is!

Megan, you caught some presidents in your hair.

We hiked the Presidential Trail which had lots of information on the presidents and the construction of the Memorial.

President Lincoln

President Washington

There was a spot on the trail where you could get this picture of Washington through a crack in a rock.

At the base of the memorial, or at least as close as we could get to it.  You can see all the rock they blasted off the mountain to carve it.

Lincoln's eye

Jefferson's nose

Nicely framed by the trees.

In the Sculptor's Studio, they had the model of what they had initially intended the Memorial to look like. Funding shortages and WWII eventually led to the project's scope being reduced.

Swearing in as Junior Rangers.

A model made for designing an eye on the sculpture.

Megan, Matthew and Me at the Borglum View Terrace

Just hanging out, being a teenager.

Another shot of the mountain.

Guess who wanted to be taller than Mount Rushmore?

Washington's profile

The backside of Mount Rushmore.

Next we drove into Custer State Park to go to Sylvan Lake which is breathtakingly beautiful.

The lake is beautiful and very busy with people swimming and boating.

Sisters, there were never such devoted sisters.

Panoramic of the lake

Lots of big granite rocks all around.  We saw some rock climbers and did some rock scrambling.

It is striking to see the rocks come right down into the water.

These stepping stones took you across to see the dam that makes the lake.

And here you can see U taking the picture above.

Look at that cute lady!

And here comes a little red head. 

Megan thought this tree sticking out of the rock looked like a good place to hang out.

The path went through this narrow cleft.

In addition to the dam, we found another outlet for the lake making a little waterfall deep between these rocks.

Seeing the lake from up among the rocks.

Sarah and Matthew taking a break.

"Wait! There is a rock here.  I must climb it."

Just don't step on that crack.  You might break your own back.

This little guy made his home underneath the step outside the bathroom.

These bison were being raised on a farm.

We were glad to go to Jewel Cave.  It is really big.

This shows the area of the cave we were going into on the tour.

The folks who discovered this cave initially thought they had found a cave full of diamonds; that is why they call it Jewel Cave.  A large portion of the cave surface is covered in these calcite crystals.

A neat shot of some of the calcite growth.

Here you can see the calcite growth on the wall but the section in the lower right has broken off.

Here you can see pieces of the calcite that have broken off the wall.  They are about eight inches thick.

This is some of the boxwork formation in the cave.

This section of the cave was called the "New Wet Cave."  It used to be dry but when they put the elevator shaft in, they disrupted something so it redirected water into this section of the cave again.

A soda straw with a curl at the end.

Shield formations.

Hanging out underground.

This is a water erosion feature where the water is cutting into the rock below.

Cave bacon looks delicious.

We were excited to see robins.

Swearing in as Junior Rangers.

This passage is the size of the smallest passage on the wild cave tour.  Matthew fits.

Megan fits too.

Custer had lots of these bison statues around the city that had been painted by artists.  Megan liked this one.

Another painted bison.