We
woke up surprisingly early today even though we were on vacation.
We lounged around in the room for a while then headed out to Rushmore
Cave. We found the cave with
little trouble. There were many
stairs to reach the entrance, but we finally made it to start our spelunking
adventure. Our tour guide was
Dustin and we couldn’t understand a word he said.
His excuse was that he spoke “South Dakotan”, but I really believe
it was due to a speech impediment.
Derek
and I had a great time crawling around in the cave.
Derek said that it was “spooky, but fun”. We saw stalactites, which grow down, and stalagmites, which
grow up. There are many
different formations inside the cave, one of them being, the “wedding
chapel” where an actual wedding took place about five years ago. Also, the caves boast that they have the “butts” of Mount
Rushmore. That is Derek on the
preceding page underneath them.
The
excitement didn’t end with the caves. I
had parked on what I thought was a level surface, but was actually a downward
slope. As I put the car in
reverse (I thought) and proceeded to back up, we found ourselves actually
rolling forward towards a cliff! I
slammed on the brakes about four feet from the edge, took a breather, and
checked out the situation. We
decided to give it another try. This
time I made sure I was in gear (really sure), and roared backward, Derek
cheering, “You did it, Mom!” while I was shaking so badly that I could
hardly drive. We decided to call
it a day and headed back to the hotel for a nap and some swimming.
