#28 Going to Mt Rushmore gift shop, sort of

We wanted to drive the big Badlands loop but without towing the RV. Check out time was 11am and we were just getting warmed up at 10 am. We needed to keep the site for another night or vacate. I asked the park ranger if we left at 11am could park the RV somewhere for awhile while we were touring. She said we could use the amphitheater parking lot and I thought that was very friendly. When we got back to the house at Badlands it was really time to leave so we went down a very scenic yet very bumpy road to Rapid City.

A week later I would find out my sister Sheila had been in Rapid city along that same week but neither of us knew schedules so we missed seeing each other.

We got to Rapid City at what seemed like maybe 7 o'clock in the afternoon and before we went on to the Rushmore area we needed to get diesel fuel and propane. We stopped at a Flying J truck stop and by the time we got fuel and some dinner from the greasy grill I guess it must have been close to it to a 8:30 because he was getting dusk.

I think we were just tired but India and I thought that maybe we had seen Rushmore on enough postcards and if we just rode by and saw it lit at night that would be enough to satisfy us. We would also ride by Crazy Horse and just see it lit up and then end up at Bismark lake which was a boon dock site in a national forest in Custer state park. None of this was my best thinking so foolishly and sort of impulsively but we decided just to do the ride by plan. We should have just stayed at the Flying J till the next morning. Actually, Mt Rushmore is on a 2 lane remote road up a hill. You don't just ride by. It was a bad plan altogether.

I had the idea that if I put Mt Rushmore into the GPS it might just take me to the general area and not the actual site. I plugged in a coordinate for something called Mount Rushmore gift shop. I figured that would get me right to the heart where the memorial was. As it turns there is an establishment called Mount Rushmore gift shop about 30 miles past Rushmore in a little town that truly has only one horse on a dirt road and the horse is elderly. It was called Fairbiurn. Like a fool I ignored my instincts and followed the GPS methodically which said we were getting really close to the gift shop even though we were on a narrow dirt road at 10 pm at night. We were so lost and this was really not the right Mt Rushmore gift shop at all. I assume the coordinates I plugged in were very wrong.

A nice couple pulled up beside us and asked if we were okay. Its funny now but they asked because it was obvious we were blowing it and they just wanted to ask to be polite. They assured us we were nowhere near the memorial and if we could find a u turn we should get back on the road and head to a KOA . We thanked them and I tried to take their KOA advice.

I figured at 10 at night you're just paying KOA 60.00 for a nap so I went toward the boondock site we had intended to sleep at. We turned off highway 79 and got on 36 which was about12 miles long and not a bad road really until we got to Custer State Park entrance. We weren't sure which way was best to go but we decided not to go up the steep hill on 16a. I decided to stay on Hwy 16. I got to tell you its the most twisty, turny little 25 mile an hour road you ever been on. In an RV late at night it is really difficult and I am also not alone so we've all about had it. After about a mile of this at 11 pm I just wanted the day to end. I saw a roadside table and kind of gave up for the night.

We had not actually registered to be allowed to be in the park so we were kind of running from the law again and so about 6 am I felt like it was time to go.

As we were sliding in and preparing to leave I looked over an saw a family of deer and that was nice.

I went on down 10 miles and believe me it was easier to driving the daytime. It was actually gorgeous and when I got to the National Forest campground which was called Lake Bismarck. It wasn't much more than a one lane road but it was paved. At the top at the entrance is a big sign that said no vacancy.