Al has been visiting the past few weeks and we have done a lot while he is here.
On Saturday we visited....not on the bike.... Sanibel and Captiva Island. We crossed the three bridges that I did last year by bike...and our first stop was.J.N. Ding Darling Wildlife Sanctuary.
J N Ding Darling Wildlife Sanctuary
Here are some photos from our visit.
On Sunday we met Bob S and his wife Meg. Bob, Al and I took a bike ride around the island. The most interesting thing we saw were burrowing owls at their nests.
One of the many sites on Marco. This is a replica of a old Mercedes but the real Al. There is no replica for Al!!
This section of Marco is more of a fishing village with motorcycles visiting on Sunday for an afternoon
at Stan's for an Idle Hour ( instead of happy hour) The boats can idle while you drink.
On Tuesday Al and I went to South Dakota to visit the Badlands National Park and Mt. Rushmore. We flew into Sioux Falls ( mistake....should have flown into Rapid City) and traveled 336 miles to the Badlands Park. It was a long trip looking at the plains as there was nothing else between Sioux Falls and Rapid City.
There was one site to see along the way to the Badlands. We stopped at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site but learned that we would have to travel 15 miles to see the missile itself in an underground silo.
We decided to do the 20 mile scenic loop in Badlands which was also on the way before checking into our cabin. On the way we saw a sign to see prairie dogs so we decided to stop and take a look.
Here are some views of the park.
We stopped in Wall which is a cowboy town near the Badlands and the only city for miles. Luckily we didn't have to hitch the car to this.....
We headed back to the main entrance to the park to check in to our cabin.
Although the Badlands was beautiful the hiking trails were made of sandstone and looked like pinnacles and we didn't think that there was any beauty to see. Wrong.
We headed to the next destination.....Wind Cave National Park where the bird watching was suppose to be great.
Enlarge the photos. The black dots are bison!!
We continued on to the Crazy Horse monument.
You can take a bus to see the carving which is where I took these photos but that's as close as you can get unless you want to pay $125 for a private tour up to the face of the mountain. There is no federal funding and the family of the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, is carrying on the project since his death in October 1982. It's going to take a long time to finish this project!
We continued on to Mt. Rushmore National Memorial which was another reason for this trip. Unfortunately I was not able to get more than one photo because I ran out of photo space on my IPhone.
Ugh... Here is a link that will give you a closer look
https://www.nps.gov/moru/index.htm
Here is a photo of the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who oversaw the carving of this wonderful site.
We went back at night to see Mt. Rushmore lit up at night. I was not that impressed. I was unable to take a decent photo of that. There is a hour long program during season.....which it was not...... which runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
On Friday we decided to visit Custer State Park. It was an open house weekend so entry fee to the park was waived for the weekend. Custer is known for its free roaming bison of which there were many.
We stopped at the visitor center and the guide told us of two hikes we could do in the park. The first one was the Badger Clark trail. I didn't get any photos as I was distracted by a bison standing at the trailhead and wasn't sure if we would do that trail. We eventually did hike this wooded trail and learned a lot about this poet laureat who leased land from the state and built a cabin where he lived his life until he died.
The second hike was the Cathedral Spires hike. It was a 2.2 mile hike....and it was not easy. We were not prepared.....I had sneakers and Al had sandals but we decided to try and hike this trail to the top. We climbed over a rocky trail near the top but the view was worth it.
We continued on the Needles Highway ( Rt 87) which twisted and turned on a narrow road with one lane tunnels. It was a white knuckle drive but again worth the effort.
Lake Sylvan below was also along the Needles Highway and we stopped for a photo before we headed back to the hotel for a rest.
Al was tired but I wanted to see a cave so I took a solo ride to Jewel Cave National Monument, which was closer to the hotel than Wind Cave National Park, late in the day. I had hoped to get on a tour of the cave but all the tours were sold out for the day so I ended up going back to the hotel cave-less..
The weather turned bad Friday evening with 3 inch hail and flash floods. Luckily we were on the fringe of that bad weather and decided to stay put in the hotel and wait till the morning to see if we could do or see any more in the area before driving back to Sioux Falls.
On Saturday morning it was extremely foggy. One thing I would have liked to do was the Mickelson Trail which is 108.8 miles of paved trail from Edgemont to Deadwood. You can rent bikes in Custer but with the weather not condusive to riding we headed back to Sioux Falls.
Here is a link with more information about the Mickelson Trail in case you decide to visit.
http://gfp.sd.gov/state-parks/directory/mickelson-trail/
