Custer State Park

On Friday, our plan was to go to Custer State Park and see the sights until dinner time where we had reserved a Cowboy Dinner & Hayride. But, while traveling to Mount Rushmore, we drove through the town of Keystone. We were quickly taken in by its charm and decided that Friday morning would be spent here instead. So after a quick breakfast, we got in the car and drove to Keystone to see what fun things they had for us. Keystone is the definition of a tourist town. It has every little tourist trap that one could possibly want, from coffee shops, to mini-golf, to old-timey photo businesses. Once again the joys of traveling the week before Memorial Day became apparent. This bustling metropolis of 240 people is the first thing that the majority of 2 million visitors every year will see while making their trek to Mount Rushmore. But almost all of them come between Memorial Day and Labor Day, so while almost everything was open, the streets were not congested at all. We easily found a parking spot near the Maverick Trading Post (a place to get your South Dakota paraphernalia) and wandered in. We quickly realized that this was Trump Country. You could get yourself any number of Pro-Trump (or Anti-Biden) T-shirts, posters, hats, or really anything. The possibilities were truly endless. I was reminded of when we went to Duluth, MN had were overwhelmed with woke garbage. This was exactly the opposite. You would be hard pressed to find anywhere in America that was more Pro-Trump, Pro-Christian, Pro-USA than right here in Keystone, SD. 

The one thing that was closed was The Borglum Story, which tells the story of how Gutzon Borglum carved Mount Rushmore. That would have been neat to see, but that is the price you pay for avoiding crowds. Then we walked over to Dahl's Chainsaw Art. This place was incredible with all kinds of small to gigantic sculptures carved out of the Black Hills' Ponderosa Pine. We stopped to get several pictures and then walked through the rest of the main town area. The next placed we stopped was The 1880 Train which travels between Keystone & Hill City. It looked like a great idea if you stayed in Hill City and wanted a unique way of getting to Keystone. On Sunday's throughout the summer you also get to witness an Old West Shootout.

Next came the reason that Matthew Jr wanted to visit Keystone. When we were driving to Mount Rushmore, we saw a coffee shop with a playground and a huge chess set. I was immediately challenged to a game of chess and I accepted. So on Friday morning the two of us met outside Grapes & Grinds for a show-down on who is the best chess player. But since we already knew the answer to that one, I was just hoping to not look too bad. Luckily, Matthew is a lot better playing chess on the computer in real life, and at one point he mistook a pawn for a bishop. That mistake allowed me to force him to a draw -- which I take as a pretty large victory. The girls played their own game of chess (in a quarter of the time), a game of Foosball, and used the playground equipment while waiting for us to finish.

We ate lunch in the same area. While eating lunch a family with younger children started playing the chess game, and Matthew had to teach them how to play the game. While eating, we were able to see the exciting Rushmore Tramway Adventures. An adventure park with ziplines, alpine slides, & ropes in trees. But instead, we went the educational route. Our next stop was the National Presidential Wax Museum. This place was amazing. It had a wax model of every president from George Washington to Joe Biden. And while some wax models looked closer to their real-life counter part than others, the attention to detail was incredible. They give you an audio remote that gives details on every sculpture. If you listened to everything it would probably take a solid 2 hours to walk through the museum. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time for that, nor did the kids have that sort of interest or patience. The first stop is a podium where you can pretend to be the president. On the podium is a speech from Biden and one from Trump that you can read while imitating whichever one you prefer. We all took a turn, but everybody agreed that Julia was the best speech giver. Her delivery was passionate and confident. We had no idea what she was talking about, but it was by far the most animated. Next, you have a video where they take you through the process of how to make a wax figure. After that you can walk through all the exhibits and listen about each president. The lesser known ones tended to just be a head behind glass, but the more famous would have detailed scenes with them in it. The most impressive was probably George W. Bush standing on the rubble of the Twin Towers holding a bull-horn and standing next to a fire-fighter. They also had a cute one of JFK seated at the Resolute Desk with John Jr crawling out from under it.

It was now time to mosey on over to Custer State Park. It was a long and winding road between Keystone and Custer. It was absolutely gorgeous, but I was quite surprised that Stacy didn't need to pull over. She handled it very well and soon enough we made it to the park. We first stopped at the Visitor's Center and watched a short film about the park. Next time we come, I want to attend during the Buffalo Round-up in late September. That looked like an experience you would never forget. Next we asked the ranger what trails she recommended. The lady took one look at our kids and said forget the trails, we needed to go to the Peter Norbeck Education Center. I said we would try to fit it in, but was immediately shot down that this was the most important thing I could take my kids to see in the entire park. We thanked her and starting looking for it. We got a little lost as we drove down the main road and eventually asked another ranger where the Norbeck Center was. We were informed that it didn't open until tomorrow. So much for that must-see attraction. 

There are many great trails in Custer State Park, with several of the most impressive being in the north part of the park. However, we had two problems with going there. #1 this is one of the 10 largest State Parks in America, and #2 we had to be at the south end of the park at dinner time. So instead we chose the Grace Coolidge trail. This was a fun trail that crossed a creek several times. It was fairly flat, but lots of trees and the creek crossings kept it fun. Julia had had enough fun at this point and was a bit grumpy. The trail ends at Center Lake, but we didn't get near that. We had to turn around in order to get to the dinner on time. But there was still enough time for a little silliness.

Once we got back to the car, we had to drive all the way to the south side of the park. It was a scenic marvel as we traveled through the Black Hills. The views were amazing with several places to pull off and enjoy the view. We stopped at one place where there was a short trail and view of the mountains beneath us. 

I was a little off on our estimation on how far the Custer Resort was from our trail. We ended up arriving an hour early. So we decided to drive on the scenic road to see if we could catch any wildlife. That turned out great as we were stopped in the middle of the road by some mountain goats who didn't seem to care that there were cars trying to get through. Then a ranger waved us down and told us where to find a buffalo herd. We drove over there and came right up to the largest herd of buffalo I have ever seen. Okay the only herd of buffalo I have ever seen. While in Keystone, a popular T-shirt (besides Trump) was "Don't Pet the Fluffy Cows". I certainly understand why this is necessary. Buffalo look extremely docile, without a care in the world. Which explains why so many people are enticed to get near them. But they are almost 2000 pounds of pure muscle and can kill you without really trying. But all the buffalo we saw could barely be bothered to look in our direction.

After driving around, we got to the resort at just the right time for the hayride. They gave everybody a straw hat and bandana and loaded us up on the wagon. We got to ride with Kowboy Keith. He sang folk songs like This Land is Your Land & Home on the Range and told stories about old mountain men and the Sioux Indians. He had lived in South Dakota all his life and enjoyed telling his stories to all the people who would listen. He quickly pegged us for a home-school family. There was one couple that tried to bring up politics, but he gently shut them down and recommended we stay on less contentious, but also more important topics. There were also some inappropriate songs. They were old rock-n-roll songs that seemed to hit the nostalgia factor hard, so I don't think the people on the wagon realized the message of what they were singing. 

After an hour or so hayride, we arrived in a valley and they fed us a steak dinner. The singing continued, with fun songs like They Called the Wind Maria. The steak dinner was absolutely amazing. I don't know if we were just hungry, but that was about the best steak I have ever had, and that is including steaks from Pastor Logan. The beans were also way better than expected. While there we met a Christian couple (Timothy Touw) from New Jersey. We chatted for a little while, they attend Hardingville Bible Church. While talking to him I was struck that he looked like somebody I knew, but I couldn't place it. A couple hours later, I realized that he looked just like Glenn Beck (although, he didn't sound like him at all). After a delicious meal, we got back on the hayride for a short trip back to the Resort. On the way back we sang Amazing Grace which was wonderful and unexpected. I will never understand how people can sing about worldly relationships one second and famous Christian songs on the other.

It was late now, and we had over an hour drive back to cabin. It was after 10pm before we got home. Everybody went straight to bed, and we decided not to rush the morning.