SD-4: Sylian Lake

As our adventure in South Dakota continue we were headed back towards Keystone to stop at the Rushmore Cave.  It was another walk through cave, but this place had some other attractions to try out along with touring the cave.  There was a zip line but this one was different then any zip line I've ever seen.  Instead of a harness, we sat in a 2 person chair and got strapped in for a trip down the hill, but then it pulled us back up.  After that we got to try the gunslinger game.  We sat in a chair that would move and watched a 3-D show while shooting the robot cowboys.  Like in Disney when Shari and I had a shooting game challenge, we bet ice cream on it.  Unlike Disney, I won!!

Since we were in the area we decided to stop by Mt Rushmore for lunch.  Finding a good place to eat had been an ongoing issue and we knew what to expect there, plus the weather was much clearer then the day before so we took another stroll around the monument after lunch.

A hike was on the agenda for the rest of the day.  We had driven by Sylvian Lake when we were on one of our scenic drives and it looked like the lake I had seen in the travel guide. So we were off!!  The lake was beautiful!! We made a loop around the lake and then started out on one of the other trails. It was quite the hike up, and a much easier trip back down :)

Our trip back to the hotel took us down 385, and road we've learned well.  Part of the road takes us through the Wind Caves park where we've become very familiar with the bison that roam those fields.  I don't know why but I love seeing them on the side of the road (sometimes in the road) everyday.  I never get enough of it!

A little further down the road we pulled over to see a bunch of prong horns grazing, as we were about to leave up on a ridge a little ways off a herd of elk had come up to graze.  It was actually sort of funny, there was one male who was obviously the dominant leader of the herd, he would sort of push the herd along when he wanted, then if any of them wandered off too far he'd run over and shoo them back to the pack.

One more day of adventures.  What else will South Dakota hold for us?

Cheers!!