My week in South Dakota
I’ve got to make this quick because I’m exhausted and in no mood to be doing this. (How’s that for a little honesty, eh?) I got the car fixed on Monday which cost me $267. The rest of Monday was spent cleaning the cabin and just relaxing. It was a good idea with the stressful weekend I had and the busy days ahead of me…
Tuesday:
I went down to Hot Springs, South Dakota. First on my list was the Wind Cave for the earthcache there. Jen told me I needed to take the tour because it was well worth the money. I grabbed up the last ticket on the 12:00 pm Natural Entrance tour, and I agree — WELL worth the money. Going through the cave was awesome. The box work was amazing, too. And learning through the tour how it was all formed will stick with me longer than any science class I’ve ever taken. After the tour, I drove to Mammoth Site. I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to do, but I paid the money anyway and I went for it. Now, THAT was cool! They talked about how the sinkhole formed that eventually brought the Mammoths to their demise and how they discovered the remains there. It’s awesome that they’re leaving the bones right where they find them.
Wednesday:
This was the busiest day. I drove out to Jewel Cave because I really wanted to take a tour of that one. There was also another earthcache there that I did (there are actually two, but I only did one). I arrived there at 9:30 am and because my tour didn’t begin until 4:30 pm, I had to find something to do. GEOCACHING!! Ohh yes. From there, I drove further West. I grabbed a cache down one of the dirt/rock, numbered paths in the Black Hills National Forest. It didn’t look too bad when I first started in, but some of those rocks in my way got pretty big the further I went. I was concerned about my car clearing some of them, and I probably shouldn’t have taken my little Aveo in there…good to know for next time! I also attempted a second one down another dirt/rock road. However, the second time there were large mud puddles I had to maneuver my car through. Again, I think I did that against my better judgment. Anyway, I did drive out to Wyoming to grab a cache that was JUST on the border. Nothing too crazy here. It was just another state for me to grab since I was so close 
After I did some geocaching, I went to find some other things to do. I found the Four Mile Ghost Town, which is four miles west of Custer. I also went to the National Museum of Woodcarving. I really thought I’d like this a lot because any time I go to a festival and see the vendors with their wood carvings there, they’re always so neat. But I wasn’t as impressed with this place as I thought I would be. I did get some cool pictures there though! After geocaching, the ghost town and the museum, I went back to the Jewel Cave National Park and still had a couple hours to kill. I was really tired from all the running around so far that day, so I took a nap. Haha! Yes, you read that right…I took a nap. In my car. At the Jewel Cave National Park. After my nap, I went on the Lantern tour for Jewel Cave. That was awesome too, but I couldn’t get pictures. We weren’t allowed to take anything with us that wouldn’t fit into our pockets. There were a lot of narrow passageways, a lot of ducking, a lot of squatting and zero light (with the exception of our lanterns of course). What an experience! I ended the day by making it to Crazy Horse just in time for one of the last bus rides to the base of the mountain. I grabbed a bunch of pictures there then stayed to watch the light show at the end of the night. On my way back to camp, I saw a HUGE herd of mule deer. There had to be about 100 of them…you just couldn’t count them fast enough. They were trying to cross the road, but as cars were passing they would stand at the edge of the road and just watch with curiosity. So cool.
Thursday:
This was my main geocaching day. At the first cache I stopped at, I bumped into a family of cachers called the Power of 5. We did two geocaches together, traded car trackable numbers and then went along our way. I cached down Iron Mountain Road, which started to get me a little car sick so I’m glad I was stopping for those caches! While on Iron Mountain Road, I saw a small herd of wild donkey. Oh yes…WILD DONKEY!! I had my window open to take pictures of them and a couple of them came to stick their heads in my car. I pulled back to take a picture and they’d walk away. Sadness. But they probably thought I was going to feed them because too many people are entirely stupid and do things like that.
Then, I took Wildlife Loop…where I saw a couple herds of buffalo and lots of white tail deer. I think I had more exciting wildlife experiences in other parts of the Black Hills!! I was starting to run low on daylight at this point, but decided I’d go for two more caches. Goldn 50th became my 300th cache!! And wow was it gorgeous up there! I also stopped at the Needle’s Eye for The Eye Has It. That one was frustrating a little because the GPS zero’ed out where there weren’t any hidey holes for caches. If there’s no hidey hole to look in, what next? I guess the answer to that is to branch out because I expanded my search and found exactly two good hidey holes for geocaches. It was in the second one I looked in
Friday:
I took my time getting checked out from the campground and on the road. I spent most of the day stopping at rest areas to grab caches there and by around 11:30 pm I was getting pretty tired. At that time I was in the Middle of Nowhere, Iowa though so there weren’t a whole lot of hotel/motel options. I opted to sleep in my car at the rest area. That wasn’t the brightest idea because it got cold (I did have two blankets) and with the Restless Leg Syndrome I have, I had to be careful sleeping in the driver’s side of the vehicle. It turned out that sleeping in the car on the driver’s side for more than about 30 minutes starts getting my feet caught up in the pedals. It just made for a very uncomfortable night.
Today:
I kept waking up through the night, but I woke up for good at 5 am and got back on the road. I spent the day geocaching, which was mostly at the rest area caches. Geocaching before the sun dried the dew from the grass turned out to be a sloppy mess for my socks…considering I was caching in my Crocs this morning. No good.
I changed my socks, put on my hiking shoes instead and then went for some more. Right now, I have found a total of 18 caches along my journey. I’m sure there will be plenty more tomorrow, too. For now, I’m staying in the St. Louis, Missouri area in a hotel and thank goodness! I need a nice bed to sleep in so I’m refreshed for the last bit of road trip I have left
To all of you who have been following my adventures, thanks…even though some of these posts were slightly (and sometimes more so) delayed. I’ll post again when I’m safely at home and then I’ll most likely update about the event my mom is hosting in Conneaut, Ohio over this upcoming weekend. But after this, ‘Back to School’ time is going to arrive quickly. It’s been so fun sharing my summer with you all and I hope you had fun reading about it So much for making this quick, huh? Haha.
Let’s have a vote: Where should my NEXT road trip be?
You know…I gotta have plans for the future!
lol. wanna know something funny.. I just wrote a post earlier today about a certain "sinkhole" a certain someone stepped it. lol It's mostly jsut the pics and a link to a cite that tells how they were formed. I think it is sched. to post tomorrow!
oh and I vote ALASKA! and if I was rich … and had a camper… I'd go with u
Ottawa, then you can go geocaching with me!
I love roadtrips.
I'm tired just thinking about all this traveling. But also envious.
@Erika Funny thing…before I wrote this post, I was at a rest area where I saw a plate I didn't recognize. I looked closer and it said Alaska. I thought that would be such a cool roadtrip when I saw that!
@Geonarcissa Ottawa isn't out of the question. I could actually probably do it relatively soon, too! We'll have to plan
@John The traveling is exhausting, but if you checked out my pictures you can tell I really had a great time. It won't be forgotten.