We never intended on going to Jewel Cave National Monument. Instead the plan was to go to Wind Cave National Park. However, some time around April, the announcement was made that Wind Cave would be shut down for the summer of 2024. Amazingly, the Black Hills are home to not one, but two of the longest caves in the United States. Only Mammoth Cave is bigger in the United States. One mystery that remains is why Wind Cave got the National Park designation and not Jewel Cave? Perhaps we will never know exactly why one cave lucked out and the other didn't. Perhaps Theodore Roosevelt visited one and not the other.
Regardless, since Wind Cave was not accepting visitors the year we wanted to visit, we simply switched our plans to see Jewel Cave instead. Jewel Cave is on the other side of the Black Hills, so we got to drive over and through the best part of South Dakota. We saw several towns along the way, including Keystone, Hill City, & Custer. These all look like great locations to stay if you didn't want to stay in the big city of Rapid City. Next time we go, I hope to stay somewhere close to Custer, SD. Which of course will be a necessity since we failed to see all the National Parks in South Dakota this trip. We also passed the Crazy Horse Memorial. This is a supposed to be a carving of Crazy Horse on a horse and may one day be the largest mountain carvings ever made. It was started in 1948, but work has progressed extremely slowly as currently only the face is complete. I was the only one who saw it on the way up, which shouldn't have been a problem since we were taking the same road back.
After a long trip, we arrived at Jewel Cave at around 10:30 am. We took a quick look around the area to get our bearings. The Visitor Center isn't especially large, so it didn't take long to figure out our plans (although truthfully, we had it figured out before we got there). We decided to take the 3.5 mile Canyon Trail, eat lunch on the trail, and return in time for our 2:30 trip into the cave. All went along swimmingly with warm temperature and a gentle breeze. After about a mile, we came to the old visitor center, which is now closed. But there was an out-house and picnic tables. This was exactly what we wanted for our lunch. So we all sat down and enjoyed a nice sandwich. Until our first setback of the day, the septic truck came to empty out the out-house while we were sitting right next to it. They worked very efficiently and swiftly, but it absolutely made everybody lose their appetite as the lovely smells of an out-house rolled out from around the truck.
After lunch, took a short stop at the old visitor center and the old circle that people used to sit around in the evening. The girls decided to do a short show for us by jumping up and down and in general being silly. Once the show was over, we took off for the remainder of our hike. However, above us ominous clouds were forming and while we hiked down the canyon little raindrops starting slowly falling on us. We weren't too concerned as it was just a little rain and it was still nice and warm. But the rain didn't stop. The kids had left us long ago since we are old and slow, but soon everyone was soaking wet. The rain continued to get harder and the temperature continued to fall. Soon not only were we soaked, but incredibly cold as well. Everybody else had a sweater on, not that it did them much good. But since it was warm when we started, all I had was a T-shirt. Eventually, we caught up to a miserable little Joanna who just wanted in out of the rain. I took her hand as we started climbing out of the canyon, while Matthew Jr helped his mother on the long journey up.
Eventually, we made it to the Visitor Center again, drenched and freezing. We took a look at the temperature gauge which read 40 degrees. I am not sure it was that cold, but I do know that I physically couldn't open and close my head with any amount of normal speed. I actually had to focus on making a fist and opening back up. We stayed in the Visitor Center waiting for the rain to stop and trying to dry off, which was mostly a futile endeavor. Finally, I decided to get everybody in the van and drive back to town which was almost 30 minutes away. We turned on the heaters full blast, took off our socks and sweaters and tried to dry them as best as we could. We stopped at a gas station for hot chocolate and drove back to get there in time for the cave tour that we still had to go on. Stacy was of the opinion that we call it a day and go back home, but stubborn as always, I insisted that it would be fine. Matthew Jr agreed with his mother, worrying that he would freeze to death in his soaking sweater. I had got my jacket out of the car, and traded the only dry piece of clothing among us for his Alabama hoodie. And with that simple switch, we spent the rest of the day confusing everybody over who was who.
While we were waiting for the Scenic Tour of the cave, the girls started earning their Junior Ranger Badges. They thoroughly enjoyed this as they were able to earn their badge at Mt Rushmore, the Badlands, and now Jewel Cave. They were able to earn it and get sworn in by the funniest ranger they had ever seen. Julia and Joanna were laughing their heads off with the oath that he administered to them.
Then it was down the cave, which starts with a long elevator ride into the cave. I was able to take a couple of pictures of the cave, but because it had been in the rain for so long it eventually quit and I thought that it was dead forever. It did come back to life on Wednesday, but the picture opportunities were in short supply after about 5 minutes in the cave. This turned out to be a good thing, because not only did the camera go into a coma for a couple days, but I also filled the 8 GB SD card and had to delete a picture for every one that I took on Wednesday. The cave tour was amazing and the ranger guide was very good at his job. He showed us all around, and at one point asked for a junior ranger volunteer. Julia ran up and she got to lead the tour into the next room. There was several neat rooms, bacon formations, and other cool things. Eventually, we were led out of the cave and it was time to go home.
Tuesday was a long day. We left the house at 6:00am, which was 7:00am at our destination. We made it all the way to Jefferson City, MO were we spent the night for one more vacation day before heading home.
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