Mammoths, Wind Caves NP, Mt Rushmore

Our last full day in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We definitely didn’t have time to do everything but it’s just more reason to come back! We started the morning with taking the dogs to a vet to get their health certificate needed to cross back into the US after we go to Canada. Then we headed to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs. What we thought was a museum is actually an active dig site!! So much cooler than we thought it would be. In 1974 a bulldozer found a mammoth tusk while working land for a housing development. It quickly became evident that there were a lot of bones so a paleontologist at a local college was contacted. The developer actually sold back the land to the professor at cost and it continues to be an active dig site. They have uncovered at least 60 different specimens so far and some are nearly complete skeletons. They aren’t fossils, they are the actual bones so they’re very fragile. There were also giant bears and ground sloths. Overall, it was well worth it to stop.

Then we headed to Wind Cave National park (our 22nd together). We knew ahead of time you couldn’t access the cave since they’re installing a new elevator at the entrance, but we had a good short time there. We saw bison and prairie dogs close to the road, and saw the natural cave opening which is sacred to the Lakota tribe. It’s thought that the opening is where humans first emerged onto the earth. The cave was “exhaling” while we were there and you could feel the cool air moving fast.

From there we drove by Crazy Horse monument but only viewed it from the road since we were in a time crunch. Very neat to see the progress so far and hope it will continue.

We finished our drive with a quick stop to Mt Rushmore. The post office was unveiling a new stamp while we were there but we didn’t stick around long enough to see the ceremony. The video explaining how Mt Rushmore was made (90% of it was done with dynamite) and how long the process was made you really appreciate the craftsmanship and the skill that went into it.Read more