Heads of State Rocking On and a Crazy Horse Oh My

May 10: Today’s trip was only 106 miles or should I say was supposed to only be 106 miles. Well we needed some groceries and rapid City on our way sort of had a Super Walmart. Why go out of our way to get groceries well it was because there was a Cannabis dispensary there called Puffy’s. Lots of marketing went into that. Well we got close to the outskirts of Rapid City and I knew if we got stuck in traffic My AM coffee would be an issue in continence. So I pulled off a few miles from Puffy’s address to use the bathroom in preparation for city driving pulling an Airstream trailer. Jo looked up and next to the random gas station was a giant sign for Puffy’s. Turns out there was so much demand for Cannabis that had stores on both sides of Rapid City and we just happened to find the one we weren’t even going to. A Miracle. Oh you may be wondering if one of us needs Cannabis fortunately we don’t. That said our greyhound is on CBD oil and we were running low. Plan….Jo you go get the CBD….check….I will use the bathroom…check. Oh if it only was that simple. I came back to the truck mission accomplished. Jo comes back to the truck sans CBD oil. After speaking through bulletproof grass they said they couldn’t give her CBD because they only dispensed Cannabis and only to people with a card. But they were very nice and called another store, they had CBD and off we went. As we got closer my spider sense went off with detour signs and closed road warnings. But there was the “Grass Roots” CBD store and across the street another Walmart. After a roadblock my GPS declined to recognize…turn around…make a u turn..but we made it out of Rapid City unscathed, got the CBD oil and grocery bags full.

After climbing and climbing and climbing toward our campsite we arrived to a very nice level spot (I may do a less wordy post on leveling someday lets just say my trailer leveling doesn’t always stay level more later maybe).

This campground was a stagecoach stop on the way to Deadwood in the 1800s. The barn and building are still standing. Pretty amazing.

The campground was nice and was close to a cute town with wineries and restaurants etc. It was also just a few miles from Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Needles highway. We set up camp, made dinner and headed to Rushmore.

Rushmore was how I imagined it, impressive. It was amazing the amount of stone removed with crude equipment, no predictable power (they had problems with the power the same day every week. Turns out almost all the women in town used their electric dryers and washers the same day. They fixed it by getting a supplemental generator lol). And to top of the day we had two very generous scoops of ice cream at the shop there.

The next day we went to see the Crazy Horse memorial. It frankly was amazing not just for the size (crazy horses head once finished will be the size of all the four Rushmore presidents put together) Once finished the monument will be the height of the entire mountain with Crazy Horse seated on his horse. The work was started by one man who refused government money to ensure it would be finished one day and not subject to the whims of politicians. When he started he climbed over 700 rungs of a ladder by himself. He often would get part way up carrying over a 100# of equipment only to have his compressor die and have to down again. The third generation of his family are still working there. Just an amazing story and man too long to go into her but you should read about it if you have any interest.

We went from Crazy Horse to Needles highway. That road on the North end was amazing for the weirdest shaped humongous rock formations. There were two tunnels one so narrow Jo and I had to pull our side mirrors in and still held our breath. On the way there we drove the wildlife loop at Custer state park. The high point of that trip was when Jo got to pat wild burros. First prairie dogs now we need to get a burro. Kidding but she can’t pass up a chance to pay a four legged equine type critter. Arriving back at the campsite it started raining. I thought there might be a pause and I would hook up the trailer the night before leaving to save time in the AM. No pause and it rained all night and I ended up hooking up the trailer and breaking down camp in pouring rain. Thankfully we have great rain gear but it still put a “damp”er on our departure! But the weather had been spectacular forever so no biggie. On to more adventure!!

Almost forgot. While on our wildlife tour in Custer State Park we had a buffalo taunt us by go back and forth across the road every time wet tied to drive around after waiting forever. Hilarious buffalo “my road not yours moment!