Day 33: Wind Cave

Thursday July 14

Thurs July 14 is going to be a hot day and we decided to stay cool by going to Wind Cave National Park.  It is about 1.5 hours south of the campground.  I had really wanted to do Jewel Cave National Park instead but several people had told us they were having elevator trouble.  At Jewel Cave there are tons of stalactites and stalagmites, which I have never seen.  But we don’t want to chance getting stuck in a cave so we head to Wind Cave NP.  We get there and booked our tour (Natural Entrance Tour) before we headed to a picnic area for lunch.  The cave is a constant 53 degrees so we all grab sweatshirts and the girls change into long pants.

Wind Cave

The cave tour begins at the natural entrance where the park ranger showed us the small hole that 16 year old Evan McDonald crawled through to begin exploring the cave.  It was a hole barely big enough for Isabella to crawl through.  It’s at this point that I start to panic about going into a cave.  I am claustrophobic and have to fight with myself to keep from leaving the group and waiting out the tour at the visitor’s center.  Bu then we make it to the opening of the cave now used by groups and we begin the descent.  There are some 300 stairs on this tour, mostly at the beginning.  The stairs are steep (I am thankful we don’t have to go up them!)) and narrow.  The air is immediately cooler and the cave is lit by lights along the path.  We are going 200 ft below the earth’s surface and I void all thoughts of cave ins or getting lost in these mostly unexplored caves.  We stop in the first room and notice how high the ceilings are (at some points on the path, we had to duck).  The caves used to be covered with an ocean and the limestone was partially dissolved by the water to form the boxwood- spiderlike protrusions from the walls and ceilings.   Because the cave is now dry, the boxwood can be preserved.  The ranger tells us that a few years ago they surveyed the caves and only 3 bats were found living inside. 

Custer State Park

He mentioned that the only other living things would be found at the beginning of the cave (where we had already passed) - a few snakes, rodents, etc.  Thankfully he didn’t tell us this before or I might have not passed by!

Isabella is in front of me and Alexandria and Scott right behind me.  Being surrounded by the family keeps me from panicking.  At one point, I even turn and insist Scott take a picture of me as proof that I actually made it into the cave.  At one point the ranger turns out all the lights and shows us how Evan McDonald would have seen the cave with only a candle in a box.  It is dark and you can not make out any outlines in front of you.  Our tour took us about a half mile through the cave and 200 ft below the surface but I am glad to take the elevator back to the surface. 

We decide to take a scenic road back to the campground through Custer State Park.  This road is full of wildlife and we soon see a few bison, pronghorn, prairie dogs and mule deer.  Once into Custer State Park, we watch a bison walking in the middle of the road.  A park ranger comes up behind him in his truck and tries to move him along since he is creating a traffic jam.  The bison does not like this but does continue to move off the road.  We are driving the Peter Norbeck Highway and we have to go through 3 tunnels and many switchbacks and some pigtail bridges.  It is really neat to see Mt Rushmore framed by these tunnels as you drive through. 

We get back to the campground for a nice dinner and then we head to the pool.  Unfortunately the pool is adult swim only and the girls are very disappointed.  So we have our first campfire of our trip!  Hard to believe we haven’t had another fire before this but we are so busy traveling, touring, spent a lot of time in the desert where fires were not permitted and some campgrounds just didn’t have any room for fires.  We play another game of Oh Hell.  Isabella loses by a lot but doesn’t complain too much and we are proud of her for this.