Well another weekend was upon us so we headed out to explore some more of the Black Hills. This time we headed under the hills by going to Rushmore Cave and Big Thunder Mine located near the town of Keystone which is near Mt. Rushmore. Which is in South Dakota located in the central US. Which is in North America on the planet we all know as Earth.
The caves were quite enjoyable! We decided to drag Preston along by using our hiking backpack carrier as the cave was not stroller accessible and we did not want to carry him for the 1.5 mile trek into the mountain. It turns out that the cave was a little more narrow than we anticipated and we ended up abandoning the pack and using the front carrier to avoid bashing the poor little guy into the low ceilings and tight corners. He was perfect throughout the whole tour even adding in his own commentary at parts of the tour.
The pictures we took did not do the cave justice. Taking pics in the dark was pretty difficult so I apologize for that. Some of the formations and caverns were breath taking! It was amazing to see how much there is underground in these mountains and this is one of the smaller caves in the area! It was a good mix of Geology and creativity in looking at the various rock formations and then seeing that it looks like Dumbo or Jabba the Hut's child.
We left the caves and headed into the little tourist town of Keystone, which is pretty much there because of Mt. Rushmore. While there we sampled (or bought every flavor of) a local taffy shop where you can watch the stuff getting made. We then headed to one of the local gold mines.
Big Thunder gold mine peaked our interest because, in our guide book, it was the only one that was stroller accessible and the description seemed promising. We were in for a surprise or I guess lack there of would be more appropriate. The outside of the mine had me very optimistic as it seemed very authentic with antique equipment and buildings. The tour started off pretty neat with each of us getting our own hard hats (which proved very useful as I swacked my head not 20ft into the shaft!). It quickly went downhill from there as our teenage guide admitted that this was only his second tour and it was quite obvious that public speaking was not his strong point. He had a veteran guide (another teen) tag along to help him out and he did.......several dozen times. The story behind the mine was interesting as it was owned by to German immigrants who decided to mine for gold as a hobby after their normal jobs. They started blasting away into the mountain after a vein of gold that was discovered in a nearby mine was found to be headed through their claim. Apparently this was some tedious work back then as we learned it took them 15 years to travel maybe 30 yards only to discover less than 3 ounces of gold. But on they dug. Now the guides seemed to keep us interested as they made it seem that there was a wealth of gold to be discovered in this vein, they just had to find it. It ends up that the whole mine is only about 100 yards long and in the end when these two crazy old Germans finally decided to stop (both in their 70s now!!!!) they found a total of around 10 ounces. The whole tour was of a totally failed attempt at striking it rich. Very depressing. Just like at Wall Drug, we had fallen victim to another tourist trap! It also turns out that our rookie guide is an aspiring actor! He told Karley that he is going to acting school and wants to get into the entertainent industry. Yeah, don't think you'll be seeing him anytime soon on the ol boob tube.
All in all it was a fun little expedition. Preston seemed to enjoy bouncing around underground and never gave us any trouble. We know there are lots more caves to explore so we will be definitely be headed back into the earth in the future.
Until next time. Hope all is well with everyone and we look forward to seeing you all soon.
-Regan, Karley and Preston (Spelunker Extraordinaire)
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