May 28th - Mt. Rushmore

Today we explored the area around Mt. Rushmore. First we stopped at a winery. After seeing many, many, many billboards advertising Red Ass Rhubarb wine we had to check it out. The grounds were nice. This is one of the nicest truck docks I've ever seen.

 The rest of the facility.

 We went on to Hill City. We drove around it but didn't see anything that caused us to want to stop and look. We then drove over to Keystone. We parked and walked around there for quite a while. We had lunch and then walked down to the "old city". This is an old riveted tank that someone is using for a building, maybe even a home.

We decided to ride the "1880" steam train that travels back and forth between Keystone and Hill City. This is the train coming into the station at Keystone.

Taking on water before heading back to Hill City. I talked to one of the train guys and he said the engine uses 900 gallons of water going from Hill City to Keystone and about 1,000 gallons going the other way. The difference is due to the grade.

I just heard on the local news that even though the 1880 train was out of service for a week this year the ridership so far this year is over 30% above last year. It is about on par with 2010 ridership, which was one of their best years. They do a lot of the restoration work on the cars, in addition to restoring the locomotives. The wood work on the car we rode in was beautiful.

It was WINDY here today. The news just mentioned steady winds of 50 mph at one area community. It was also mostly sunny so the wind was tolerable.

 The view from the parking area at Mt. Rushmore was almost as good as looking the sculpture. It seem that you could see for miles across a valley. The grade on the highway leaving Mt. Rushmore is 10% for at least a mile. After that you still keep going down for a while but it isn't nearly as steep. We went into Rapid City for supper. Coming into Rapid City from Mt. Rushmore you again look out across miles of valley.

Since today was our 45th anniversary, and I am such a big spender, we went out to Golden Corral for supper. Actually while at Keystone I splurged and bought Kathy a $4 chocolate/carmel/almond turtle for desert.

The weather is supposed to be nicer tomorrow, minimal wind, and we think we are going to drive back west and look over Sturgis and Spearfish. We will probably pack up and head east again on Wednesday.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.