We hit our 5th National Park today! We had just a short drive (1.5 hours) from Badlands National Park to Mount Rushmore National Monument. Hooray! We have been doing A TON of driving, so this was a nice break!
After only having seen pictures of Mount Rushmore, it was really exciting to get to experience it in person.
In my ignorance, I imagined South Dakota would be quiet and non-crowded, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Check out all the people at Mount Rushmore the day we visited!
Seeing Mount Rushmore was a really cool experience! Unfortunately, the theater was closed, so we didn’t get the chance to watch the movie about the construction of Mount Rushmore, which we had been looking forward to. Overall, we only spent sbout 30 minutes there, then we drove an hour to Wind Cave National Park.
Wind Cave National Park is also in South Dakota and is known for its unique boxwork formations. Sadly, we didn’t get to see the inside of the cave because the elevator to the bottom of the cave was closed for maintenance and they wouldn’t let anyone take the stairs. There were no cave tours being offered while we were there. We were pretty disappointed, but there were options for “above ground” activities which we were excited to check out.
We saw our first bison and we were so psyched!
We walked to the natural entrance to the cave where we could feel the wind blowing out of the cave… it felt like air conditioning!
Next we went on a fun trail called Rankin Ridge Nature Trail which led to the highest peak in the Park. We spotted a large herd of bison from the top.
After Rankin Ridge, we hiked on Prairie Vista Nature Trail, which leads to a Prairie Dog town. We loved watching and listening to the prairie dogs; they are so funny with their crazy chatter and entertaining antics.
We had a full day experiencing both Mount Rushmore and Wind Cave National Park!
Bonus question… do you know all the Presidents at Mount Rushmore? We didn’t, but we do now!
