Technical complications intermixed with grand views were the general themes of the day.
Day started off with Barbara needing to make a call for a meeting in the AM. Since cell phone reception was mostly non-existant, I went through the hastle of hooking up the satellite internet and the VOIP phone, which worked during dry runs at home, but of course ended up not working when we needed it... Then, I had plugged in B's cell phone to charge last night, but the plug had come out of the charger, so it wasn't charged.
Finally, after walking around the little burg, we drove up towards Mt. Rushmore, and along the way, we got cell reception, so we pulled over, and B made one of her calls as I fiddled with making sure the charger wouldn't misbehave again.
Visited Rushmore, and of course was impressed with the place. They have added the flags of the states along the prominade going to the upper viewing area, and it was interesting to see how many of the states didn't actually become states until the 20th century. Rushmore is interesting, and one of those "must see" things, but all said and done, half an hour staring at the faces and your pretty much done.
Then went down the road to see the Crazy Horse Native American monument. It is much lesser known, but a very interesting work in progress. After Rushmore was built, a number of the tribes of the Indian Nations got together, and decided that they wanted to have a monument built as well "So that the white man would know that we have great heroes also". The commissioned a fellow who had actually worked with the guy that did Rushmore and had him talk with different Indians. They finally settles on Crazy horse, in a pose on his horse.
There was a famous quote from Crazy Horse, when a white man asked him "So, where are our land now?" he answered, pointing and sweeping with his hand "My lands are the places that our dead are buried." The carving is all privately funded - no government money is wanted. Started off making money by selling cokes, etc. The thing is 565 feet tall - making it taller than the Washington Monument. The entire carving of Mt. Rushmore could fit in an area smaller than just his head. It is a moving monument on many fronts - it is a testament to the Native Peoples (and will eventually have a university, medical center and even an airport nearby), and to the artist and his family, that have devoted their lives to this project.
From there, we drove over to the Wind Cave National Park. It turned out that since Delilah was badly in need of the nap that she was finally taking, that from lack of stretching, B has been kinda sore and the 300+ of steps didn't sound interesting to her, and that we also wanted to try to see Mammoth Park before we feared it would close, I just wandered around the museum for a few, and went down just to the opening of the cave, then headed back. Another cave, another time.
On the way out of the park, we saw a number of prairie dogs all calling to each other, then some Bison and also some Antelope like things. Pulled over for a few for B to commune with nature, which she enjoyed.
Then on to Mammoth park. This is a place that in the 70s, it was discovered that there were rich deposits of mammoth bones. About 26k years ago, a sink hole formed with a warm spring - plants grew around the sink hole year around because of the spring, and critters would come in for a bite to eat, and fall into the hole. Thus, they have recovered more than 50 mammoth skeletons. Also interesting in that the bones actually didn't fossilize - they were just encased in something like likestone. Thus, the bones actually still have DNA in them.
All was well, and we headed out of South Dakota, into Nebraska when BANG - FLAP FLAP FLAP... the familiar sound of tire trouble. This time, a full blow out. That would be three out of the back four tires that have now gone south on us. I checked it out, and drove slowly on the shoulder down the road for a few miles. B called AAA again, and after a few minutes, I decided that we should figure out where we were, so I pulled over to fire up the laptop and GPS. Then, an ambulance passes us, and quite suddenly flips around, and turns their lights on. The pull over on our side, and asked how things were, if we needed help, if we needed a ride, etc. Real nice couple of guys, with not much to do in this neck of the woods. They told me we were only a few miles from a berg, and off they went. We crawled on in to town, talking with AAA the whole time. Ironically, we saw the Ambulance at a drive through along the way. AAA couldn't find any place open to even swap out the spare at the late hour of 7:20 PM, and so we ended up having to stay in this little berg until morning.
Pulled into a Safeway parking lot to get some groceries, as Barbara made a business call. After I came back we settled down to a light dinner in the Safeway parking lot, as B was still on the phone. I had the window open for fresh air, and the inside lights on, and up walk two very scruffy looking Indians - one of them has a black eye swollen up, with stitches on the side of it, and had the extra red-ness and odor of being drunk, the other stood back a few feet. The one with the funny eye walks up to the window -
"So, where are you from?" he says
Delilah peeps out "San Diego!"
"Where are you going?" the two of them standing outside the window. I look over at B who is still on the phone and look back to them and do the finger to the lips "Shhhhh - she's on the phone..."
The feller looks at his friend for a moment, then says to me "Ok, I'm gonna go to the store, I'll be back in a few minutes."
Now the reality is very probably that they were an innocuous bunch just looking for some interesting story, but they were scruffy enough, that I was glad to be able to wait just a minute, and then tuck tail and run...
Ended up staying an a motel 8 for the night, waiting for the stores to open in the AM to get at least one, and perhaps two (avoiding other unforseen complications) tires. The good news is that the Motel 8 had a pool and Jacuzzi, and internet and was only $60 for the two beds.
Tomorrow, our standard errand - new tires...
