Crazy horse and caves

Monday 5/21 Day 31

Lost hikers

After riding a bike for so long it is great to get out and use those other muscles in different activities. Today we started the day out by doing a three mile hike around the outer area of Devils Tower. It went through these areas that were eroding red dirt hills. Very cool with the tower in the background. On the hike we were able to catch up on my recent biking experiences and share what was going on in the family. Once we finished the hike we made it to the visiting center where my mom got her national parks passport book :). The idea behind the book is to get a stamp from each of the national parks or national monuments in the book. It comes with a little map and tells where each of the 345 are located. Since they will be getting the lifetime pass next year it would be fun to go and explore them all.

Jewel Cave

After the tower we went south to Jewel Cave national monument. It is actually the second largest cave in the world, although it could be the longest because they think they have only discovered 5% of the cave. Right now 166 miles have been discovered. We took a tour of the inside of it, very interesting almost all of the walls were encrusted with minerals. The cave was very damp and had a substantial amount of water in it. There was one piece called the bacon which looked phenomenal, it actually looked like bacon. For new exploration of the cave you spend four days in there at a time, and you have to pass through a section that is only seven inches high. Creepy! But sign me up.
After the cave we moved onto Custer south Dakota where we stayed at a little Bavarian hotel which is owned by a friend. Reminded me of my time I spent in southern Germany :).
After unloading he car we headed out to go see the crazy horse monument. My parents has not been here for twenty years. The last time they were here the head was not even finished. The monument was impressive, they had a little museum and an overlook for you to absorb all the information one could. Currently they are working on the horse which if you have not seen what it is to look like I encourage you to check it out.
It seems like the construction of the monument is now a family legacy, starting with a man and his wife, now passing off to the ten kids. Pretty cool story, I'm excited to see what it will look like in ten years.
After the long day we were exhausted and went back to the hotel and watched some hokey and went to sleep.