July 6th: Honest Abe'll keep an eye out for you

So I'm figuring out that staying in remote campgrounds with very spotty cell signals is a mixed blessing.  The scenery is spectacular, the internet access is much less so.  It seems that getting text uploaded isn't too much of a challenge but getting pictures to upload is a real struggle.  So I'll make my text entries and then when we are in towns or have stronger signals I'll go back and edit in the pics.  The pics are the real story, these words are just place holders.
Friday morn we were up early to join a geology walk led by Ranger Rick in the Badlands.  Very interesting learning about how the erosion of the rocks that formed the Black Hills caused the sedminentary layers a hundred plus miles away in the Badlands.
                                     

                                     
Then it was on to a deactivated Minuteman Missile silo that is now under the auspices of the National Park System.  Not their everyday type of park!

And then we were on to Mt. Rushmore.  I had been there as a teenager with my parents and while the mountain is still the same (okay no cheap jokes about how Washington was the only President we had had when I was a teenager) the displays and access points to the memorial are so very much improved.  We got to walk right up to the base of the mountain and could even look up and see inside Teddy Roosevelt's nose. :)  We're going back in a day or so for the evening lighting ceremony, can't wait.  The way from Mt. Rushmore to our campsite in Custer State Park took us through some tunnels that were barely bigger than our RV and on some roads that reminded us at times of Ireland they were so narrow. Cool stuff. An evening talk by a naturalist on Guns, Ghosts and Gold of the Black Hills topped off the day.

 And here's the best pic I got.  It was on the face of the Coke machine.