August 5, 2013
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Epic Road Trip, Day 4, part 1
In the morning, Quin ran off to play with some other boys while Kendrah and I broke camp. They wanted to stay to play in the pool which didn’t open till 10 but I said no. Too much to see and do to “waste” time in a pool at some campground. Not that they’d consider it a waste but I knew what was coming up so I put my foot down and we took off.
We meandered back down the mountain roads and back to the main highway and tried to get out of town, but we couldn’t do it. There was a rock shop to explore.
So we shopped. 
And looked at big rocks and small rocks.
Blue rocks and bluer rocks.
And rocks that made us laugh.
Then, on to rocks that awed us.
There was a place to pull off the side of the road with a good view of Mt. Rushmore so we did that rather than pay $11 to park a little closer.
We did, however, pay $15 to go into Custer State Park so we could drive the Needles highway and see more cool rocks, and other peek-a-boo views of Mt. Rushmore.
I thought the back side of the mountain was pretty cool, too. Can you see Washington’s head in that second photograph?
And this one?
There was a place here to park and the kids were able to climb on some rocks.
It’s obviously a tough life for trees in this rocky terrain but many of there were there clinging to watcher soil they could find.
This is a wall of rock that somehow trees managed to get established in. It was fascinating to me to see. Also, just looking at how the rocks themselves weathered the years was interesting. I love seeing erosion and nature doing it’s thing. That alone is enough to make me wonder how the theory of evolution got accepted. Is there really any examples of something getting better over time? Well, there’s wine and cheese, but given enough time that also degrades into chaos. The world is constantly evolving but nothing is improving.
Anyway, I like seeing the changes. Dead logs providing nutrients to new trees, soft rock wearing away, leaving large, hard rocks balanced on top of mountains….that kind of stuff.
So we wandered through the Needles Highway and ohhing and ahhhing over the scenery when the big black clouds rolled in.
And the rain started falling pretty hard.
Our Unhappy Frog almost cracked a smile at the rain pouring down and he had to hang on to the GPS cord cause the windshield wipers and the excitement of the rain were making him dizzy.
At least that’s what we pretended.
There was a lot more we saw that I want to show you so I’ll post another blog later on today.
