Monday, July 10, 2006
Day 15
Custer State Park/Jewel Cave National Monument

Today was cloudy and cool for most of the day. We chose the right activity for today, because we spent time at Jewel Cave today. Jewel Cave is the second longest cave in the world at 135.5 miles long (and it is probably longer, they are still discovering more tunnels and rooms every day). We took the “Scenic” Tour of the cave, which cost money, but was worth it. There were quite a few stairs to climb, many of them down, but a few up. We saw many different types of cave formations including boxwork, stalactites and stalagmites, soda straw, flowstone, nailhead spar, cave bacon, and calcite crystals everywhere.

It is fascinating to learn about this cave in relation to what we have already learned about the Badlands, because the two are interrelated. This whole area was once covered by a sea, an ocean really, so what is now the mountains of the Black Hills was once underwater. The sea dried up as climates changed and as the tectonic plates moved around the Black Hills uplifted. As they eroded they caused the formation of the Badlands. At the same time the caves here were formed due to the limestone (from the bottom of the sea) and water forming a saturated solution of calcium carbonate. The rest is history…

The kids earned their 3rd Junior Ranger Badge today at the Jewel Cave monument. They completed there booklets and passed their quiz by the Park Ranger. They also stamped their Passports, but there were no stickers to buy at the monument today.

On the way home we stopped to purchase more propane for our almost empty tank, we also stopped to get gasoline for tomorrow’s trip. We stopped at an auto parts store for a new spark plug for the generator, and finally we stopped at a grocery store for groceries. We’re now well stocked for our next few days at Devil’s Tower and at Yellowstone! SOON!!!

I also did chores this afternoon, such as laundry and cleaning up in here. Fun, fun, fun, but at least it was a cool day for it. Rodney even got to take a nap. He earned it yesterday! Oh, and all appliances seem to be functioning properly as of right now! Halleluiah!

This evening we went on a second drive on the Wildlife Loop Road and we actually saw an entire herd of bison! Boy are they ever graceful and they really can run fast. We all almost suffered heart-attacks because one was honestly running right toward us in the road. We were parked and it looked as if it was going to ram us, but it turned t the last second. The herd went on and on and on. We also saw female turkeys and their polts. It was the first time any of us had seen polts. Today a used the video recorder, so hopefully we’ll have some decent video.

I’m becoming incoherent because I’m falling asleep as I type this. It is 11:45 pm here, 1:45 am home in NY. Goodnight all!