Custer

Woke up to find it pretty damp this morning. Headed off through the Black Hills further into South Dakota and I had to stop and get a pic of me at the Deadwood town sign (another Calamity Jane reference - yes, another eye roll from Craig).
We stopped in the town for breakfast. Wishing we'd had some more time here too. So many things to see and they really push the historical side of the town. Some stunning old buildings here.
Unfortunately Blake still feeling a little unwell.
Pushed on to visit Sturgis for Craig and to find the Full Throttle Saloon (yes, of the same tv show - my turn to eye roll)
They let us wander through the place and even let us bring the boys in for a quick stickybeak. Craig was just a little excited to say that he's now been there, and a little shattered that he wasn't there during bike week.
After some souvenir hunting, back in the car and on towards Rapid City. Today was reasonably busy. We didn't have to travel too far, but we had a few stops that we wanted to make, Sturgis being the second.
Driving through Rapid City, we discovered that this town obviously has its sights set on family tourism. There were so many places we passed by that the boys were upset we didn't visit - Old MacDonald's Farm (with goat bridge), Reptile Gardens, Dinosaur Museum, not to mention the numerous "Putt Putt" Golf and Go Kart places.
The boys did win out when we saw the signs for Bear Country though. Mostly because Craig looked at me and was somehow shocked when my response was "it's animals, like I'm going to say no!". So in we went to ANOTHER drive through animal park. This place was again bigger than those we'd visited previously. And again, oh my goodness, the bears they had here!
After a quick lunch whilst watching the baby bears playing in their pen it was back in the car and keep moving.
Today was really overcast and on the chilly side compared to what we've been experiencing. We found our way up to Mount Rushmore and again, had to convince Craig to actually go in to the place, rather than taking photos from a moving car! So glad we did go in though. An impressive thing to see. Very busy too. The little township we passed through on the way in, Keystone, looked great too. Unfortunately didn't have time to stop though.
We were so glad that our next destination was where it was! When we left Rushmore we exited a different way rather than heading back the same way. It was only because of this that we discovered the profile view of Rushmore which was kind of cool AND we came across to Rocky Mountain Goats on the road. All the others of these we'd seen had been in the drive through parks so it was a little exciting to be able to see them in the wild.
From Mt Rushmore we headed on to see the Crazy Horse Monument that is still in the process of being built, forty odd

years or so after it was begun. What makes it even more impressive is seeing the video that explains that the four heads at Mt Rushmore fit into just the head of the Indian in this mountain monument.
We all really enjoyed this place, learning about why and how it was being built, seeing how the place was all set out. Great place. The man who started the project was a phenomenal artist/sculptor. His family continues the business and the building of the monument.
Our plan was to head into Custer (only about 10 to 15 minutes away), have dinner and then head back out for the evenings laser show on Crazy Horse (didn't cost any extra - just had to ask for a readmission ticket when we first entered the visitor's centre). Those plans got changed when we had dinner and then headed across the road for a quick game of mini golf. As we played, the weather set in more and more, the clouds completely swamping the hill tops till you couldn' see very far away at all. Having already visited the monument we knew how far away it was from the viewing area and figured we'd be wasting our time heading back out.
Little bit of an earlier night than we'd intended but that wasn't a bad thing really.