Custer South Dakota

We rolled into Custer on the evening of the 10th.  I will walk you thru the day, it was an interesting one. 
The drive from Rawlings WY to Custer S. Dakota is beautiful, if you like the desert.  More colors than a crayola crayon box.  Rock formations that would blow your mind.  Rising either out of the dry desert floor or out of a lush grassland. 

We left early to avoid some of the heat.  That worked very nicely for the truck.  She ran like a top.  Until we ran into the black hills at about 90 degrees.  I guess when I say that the day was an interesting one, I really mean the last hour or so.  We cruised thru the thunder basin area and saw the most gnarly coal mining operation I have ever seen.  GIANT!!!  Big trucks, shovels, tankers and enormous piles of dirt everywhere.  The thunder basin national grassland was not what I was expecting.  Basically hills with grass and scattered oil and gas drilling rigs.  Not much to report on that.  Once we hit the foot of the black hills we were still cruising along, enjoying the change to a conifer forest.  Pines and aspen all around.  Still going strong until we ran into a small string of campers at the steepest, most narrow spot in the entire mountain range.  None of which was doing anything to the speed I was looking for.  I am a big fan of momentum.  They were not.  Once we lost the big "MO", it was all over.  Traveling at a snails pace with a big load was hard on the temp. gauge and the transmission.  No matter what I tried I could not find that gear that the truck and I could agree on.  High RPMs to low RPMs back and forth.  What a nightmare.  Tres was not comfortable due to the erratic engine and the steep winding road crammed with traffic.  Needless to say, we made it out of there.
Once in to Custer, we decided that we should get our home for the next few weeks.  Something we should have done earlier in the day when we were calmer, cooler and more level headed.  Tres started making calls,We had wanted to stay at the Crazy Horse but they were wanting something like $660 for the two weeks.  NO!!  By the time she was done talking to them we were now out of town and I was as hot as the truck.  Frustrated!!!  We need to call some more places.  Oh yes.....her phone just died.  This is her iphone, the one with all of the internet connections to find rv parks.  Now we are thru town with no way to see who has what unless we go to every park and get rates.  FRUSTRATED!!!!!  She suggested that we pull off somewhere, keep in mind that I have a long bed truck with 26' of travel trailer behind it and not a ton of experience.  Well folks, faith is still the theme of this trip.  Around the next turn is a great little turnaround spot that just happens to be Custers germinate camp from back in the day.  I pull in and after dragging out the power inverter to charge things up, notice we are right in front of a sweet little rv park.  We decide to check the rates.  Thank you lord.  Less than half of what the crazy horse wanted.  Super quiet little spot with no one behind us.  We have a great view of the hills, pastures, wildlife and did I mention No one behind us.  What really blows my mind was that as we were leaving Rawlings that morning, we did our morning travel prayer and I asked the lord to watch over us and to "show us what he wanted us to see".  I don't know about you, but I believe we were where he wanted us to be.

July 11th.  Today was a tourist day.  Mt. Rushmore in all its glory.  Much smaller that I remember.  It was an educational tour.  We walked the presidence trail and saw the artists studio.  What a feat.  Looking back at the technology that they used, it was quite a feat.  From Mt Rushmore we were toying with the idea of the Crazy Horse monument, but the clouds were aaaarollin in.  Antique shop! might as well hit it.  As we walked around the first corner to the outside displays we are greeted by a 19 year old donkey named Donk!!  This little fat thing has free roam of the store.  Up and down the isles.  Crazy.  We picked up our first license plate and a sweet old jar (ha ha Jenny) for our squished commemorative pennies.  Off to the Custer county courthouse museum.  That was a 2-3 hr tour that we all learned from.  The kids did the scavenger hunt and we helped.  What a great way to learn some history.  So much history in this neck of the woods.