Shabbat in Lowell's house

This morning our plan was to go to shul, and then Robin would drive me over to Debbie B's house to play Mah Jongg.  Mark was going to go back to Cindy's for awhile and then come pick me up.

Forget all that!

We could NOT get our act together this morning.  We both felt so slow and sluggish.  I blame part of it on the dogs.  We didn't go to bed until nearly midnight, and about thirty minutes after I turned the light out, Trillian had to go out, despite having taken them both out an hour earlier. That meant going down two flights of stairs to the basement to let them out into the little fenced back yard.  Yes, she really did have to go, so at least she wasn't playing.  Then they both decided that they needed to get up at 4:50.  I let them out, so then it's breakfast time as far as they are concerned.  I fed them and laid down on the couch around 5:10, hoping for more sleep.  Mark came downstairs about 7, so he let them out again.  I got up briefly and then went back to the couch until 9:30.  Even though I slept a lot, it was constantly disturbed, so I barely felt like I slept at all.

Even so, we tried to get ready to go.  Pretty soon it was almost 11 a.m. and not much point in going to shul.  So now Mark is sleeping on the couch with the dogs while I'm typing a blog.  I'm going to head over to Debbie's house by myself in about an hour to play Mahj for a few hours.  When I get back here, we will take the dogs out for a walk and try to wear them out a bit.  We took them for a walk yesterday morning, but then they were in the crate and "dog room" for about five hours as we were out for a retirement party dinner last night.  I guess that meant they weren't too sleepy all night.  They seemed quite restless.  We need to wear them out more!

Meanwhile, I have gained two pounds since we got back from the trip.  I guess I'm eating too much for the activity I'm doing, despite walking the dogs for 25 minutes yesterday and constantly going up and down two flights of stairs, which we are not used to. Mark and I are both really feeling these steps.  We miss our one floor living! 

So, as promised, here are some pictures from the next two days of the trip.  We went to Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, and Wind Cave National Park in those two days.

Yep, it looks just like I thought it would.

Getting my passport stamp in the visitor's center.

This has been on my bucket list for decades, so it was very satisfying finally being here.

Mark ended up enjoying it more than he thought he would.

We walked up Presidential Trail to get right to the foot of the mountain, which gave interesting different perspectives on the carvings.

Afterwards, we got ice cream in the cafe.  Thomas Jefferson invented the recipe for ice cream, so I'm having what they called TJ's Vanilla in a cone. I feel patriotic!

This is only about a 20 minute drive from Mt. Rushmore.

This is a 1/34 model of what the final carving will look like.  Because it's being done entirely by private money and one family, it's taking A LOT longer than Mt. Rushmore.  Rushmore was done in about 20 years.  Crazy Horse started in 1947 and isn't even halfway done yet.

Korschak, the Crazy Horse original sculptor, was a famous sculptor in his time and helped on Rushmore the last few years.  Here's a beautiful bronze of Fighting Stallions that he did.

Portrait of him and his wife.  They had 10 children.  7 of the children are still working on this memorial.

Interesting drawing over a picture of the mountain to show what the finished product will look like.

In Custer, SD, these buffalo statues are everywhere.  This one was on the corner by our motel.

The old county courthouse, across from our motel, is now a museum.

Mark enjoyed reading about Custer's encampment nearby.  One of the men on this expedition discovered gold in the Black Hills not far from here.

I can't resist getting my cowboy husband in a saddle whenever possible.

Or escaping from a jail.  This one is in the basement of the courthouse.

A hand crank mimeograph machine is in the museum? I used one of these for decades when I was teaching.  Maybe I should be in a museum, too.

Custer State Park Visitor's Center

Ya think?

We had a picnic lunch from Subway at the State Park.

We drove through the Wildlife Loop and did, indeed, see LOTS of wildlife.  This is a pronghorn antelope.

The fairly large herd was crossing the road when several pairs decided to butt heads and hold up the traffic. Fun.

Wild burros

We did see two different herds of buffalo, also, but they were on a hill across the way, so I had no close up shots.

Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park actually border each other.  Both have many protected animals.

Of course I got another stamp!

Original entrance hole to Wind Cave, which is how it was discovered.

Dinner in the Blue Bell Lodge restaurant back in Custer State Park.

As we drove back to the motel after dinner, we saw a huge herd of elk along the side of the road.