Captain_Oblivious
DIS Dad #257, Galactic Salad Dodger
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
Chapter 7: Ten Thousand Years In A Cave Of Wonders Ought To Chill Him Out.
Somewhere around the time our first child was born, I lost the ability to sleep in. So it doesn’t matter how much walking we did the day before, or how late we got to bed. I will stir and/or need to use the bathroom somewhere around 5:30 a.m. and will be awake by 6:00. If I make it to 7:00 a.m., I’ve “slept in”.
On weekends, when I definitely want to “sleep in” until 7:00, it is virtually guaranteed that Drew will start making noise right at about 5:30, calling out for Mommy and raising his demands until somebody comes to get him. Also, the same older kids we have to drag out of bed early on school days somehow manage to get themselves up around 6:00 in order to cram as much weekend video game time is as they can. It’s really a remarkable phenomenon.
The rest of the family seems to operate on much the same internal clock, especially when we’re in a later time zone than Eastern Standard time. So, stop me if you’ve heard this before: we got up early, got dressed, had a free hotel breakfast, and then headed for our first destination bright and early.
There are several worthy attractions in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, and many of them operate on a first-come, first-served basis. So at the risk of being redundant, it’s a great idea to go early and get to your attraction when it opens. Also, it really helps to go early at opening time.
We arrived around 8:30 a.m. at Jewel Cave National Monument.
Located several miles west of the town of Custer, SD, Jewel Cave was discovered by two brothers, Frank and Albert Michaud, in 1900. They found a hole in the ground with a steady blast of cold air coming out, eventually enlarged the hole with dynamite, and found a huge network of caves underground. The cave is full of calcite crystals, and at first both the Michaud brothers and several others thought they would be able to mine the cave for “diamonds” and rare jewels. Obviously, this is where the name came from. However, the calcite had little value, and so the only business venture that had any chance of success was simply to market the cave as a tourist attraction. The brothers built a lodge and trails within the cave and offered guided tours, but struggled to make the venture a success due to its remote location. In 1908, Jewel Cave was designated as a National Monument by President Teddy Roosevelt (there’s that guy again) after buying the Michaud brothers’ claim to the land for the princely sum of $750.
My property assessment skills are rusty, so I’m not sure of the going rate for a hole in the ground.
There are some surface hiking trails, but the cave tours are the main event here. The park offers four tours: the Discovery Talk, the Scenic Tour, the Historic Lantern Tour, and the Wild Caving tour. The Discovery Talk is for anyone, and is just a simple ranger talk by the entrance to the cave. All of the other tours are restricted—it used to be ages 5 and up, but now they’ve removed the age requirement and just stated that all participants must be able to walk the entire tour without being carried. This foiled my plan of having Sarah carry me on her back.
The Scenic Tour is by far the most popular and easily accessible, and that’s the one we were looking to do. It takes between 60-90 minutes, and tours depart at specific times throughout the day. Unfortunately, tours are not free, so you need to get to the ticket window early in order to both purchase your tickets and ensure you get the time you want.
The cave is currently the third-longest cave in the world, with over 180 miles mapped so far and many more still to be discovered. We’d be seeing about a mile of it.
Our friends hadn’t arrived yet, so we bought tickets for them and picked a time later that morning. In the meantime, we wandered the visitor center and got the kids started on Junior Ranger programs.
Meanwhile, Drew found a small tunnel for kids to crawl through in the visitor center and we spent a good hour trying to fish him out of there. I would have crawled in after him, but you saw the burger I’d eaten the night before. We might have needed to call the fire department to get me out.
That seemed to kill enough time for our friends to get there. Once again, my friend’s wife had no interest in going underground, so she took the littles while the rest of us lined up for our tour.
We lined up when they announced our tour time and proceeded in groups down the elevator to the cave entrance. We all waited outside a heavy glass door that was covered in condensation. The ranger paused before opening it and said it was his own weather station. He pulled open the door a crack and let one of the kids feel the air rushing out of the cave. That meant it was warm outside—hot air rises, so the cooler air in the cave moves out towards the exit.
The tour was pretty simple. We moved through several large, cavernous “rooms” in the cave while the ranger explained the history of the area and the geology of the various formations. I can’t remember all of the various minerals, but we did get to see plenty of the famous calcite “jewels” that first excited explorers. I’m not going to post many photos of the tour, for the simple reason that most of them look the same. You can only look at so many photos of rocks, right?
Calcite formations:
We just thought the lighting was cool here:
This might be the most important formation in the entire cave. I present to you…cave bacon.
We all enjoyed the tour. If you’re claustrophobic, you might have some issues, but for the most part the rooms you enter are fairly large and open, with generous metal platforms to stand on. The temperature in the cave is in the 50’s (Fahrenheit), so we all wore sweatshirts inside. It wasn’t very strenuous—a generally easy walk and a few flights of stairs. We managed to pause for a bit so my friend could get a photo of our family. I’m guessing Scotty wasn’t quite ready for the flash.
It always feels like you’re on an adventure when you’re exploring a cave. This was no exception. The only thing missing was a large boulder rolling after us as we exited.
We met up with the rest of the crew and worked on finishing everyone’s Junior Ranger books. As we waited, Sarah decided to try out the “test box”. Anyone taking the Wild Caving tour has to be able to fit through this space.
Drew had no problem with it, so we promptly signed him up for the tour and left him there.
I didn’t try the box, but I did file a complaint saying the tour discriminated against fat slobs like me.
By the time we were ready to leave, it was almost lunch time. We stopped back at our hotel room and ate lunch there. It’s a rare perk for us to be able to relax in a room mid-day. On the way, we spotted another bighorn sheep, also working on his lunch right by the side of the road.
We actually had a somewhat lazy afternoon. Our friends invited us over to visit their campsite in Custer State Park, and we decided to take the scenic route—the Needles Highway. This is a small road in Custer State Park that traverses the “Needles” section of the Black Hills. The Needles are the rock formations—lots of thin granite towers reaching for the sky (probably because someone’s poisoned the water hole). To get there, we drove east through Custer, turned left onto Rt. 89, and then right onto Rt. 87. There is a $20 fee to enter the state park, but it’s good for 7 days.
As you can see, a rain storm was moving in fairly quickly, so that prevented us from getting out and doing any hiking. The drive was fun, though. In a couple of locations, the road narrowed and led to a small tunnel through the rock formations. If you had a large truck in front of you—say, a Chevy pickup truck, for example—it would block your view enough to the point where you’d wonder if there was actually a way through the mountain.
We were in a rental van, though, so who cares? I floored it.
Wait, Julie reminds me that I never sign up for the extra insurance. So, we crept through the tunnel very carefully. Looking back at the mountain, you can just make out the tunnel behind us. And the line of cars waiting to go through in the opposite direction.
Looking east over the Black Hills:
I love drives like this. So much more memorable than the average interstate highway.
We found our friends’ campsite and hung out for a while under their shelter while the rain fell. The kids all disappeared into the tent with their friends, so we had the rare chance to have some adult conversation. I think we talked about whether you could actually light a fart on fire.
Later in the afternoon, we left the campsite. We had procrastinated a bit in order to try and allow the peak visitation time for our next destination to pass. We left around 4:00 p.m. to drive Iron Mountain Road.
This is Rt. 16A, and it’s another fun drive. It uses features such as tunnels and pigtail bridges (where you drive over a bridge and then immediately swing down and under the same bridge) in order to traverse the mountain. Most of my research indicated this was the way to approach the most famous tourist attraction in the Black Hills.
I agree with the research. This is the way to go. Not only is it a fun drive, but it’s best to get on the road driving from east to west. There are three tunnels along the way, and each one of them is cut specifically to give you a view of the destination ahead.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
Wait, that wasn’t good enough for you? Fine, here’s a better photo. You’ll never guess where we’re headed in the next chapter.
Coming Up Next: This clue was too cryptic. You still haven’t guessed, have you?
Somewhere around the time our first child was born, I lost the ability to sleep in. So it doesn’t matter how much walking we did the day before, or how late we got to bed. I will stir and/or need to use the bathroom somewhere around 5:30 a.m. and will be awake by 6:00. If I make it to 7:00 a.m., I’ve “slept in”.
On weekends, when I definitely want to “sleep in” until 7:00, it is virtually guaranteed that Drew will start making noise right at about 5:30, calling out for Mommy and raising his demands until somebody comes to get him. Also, the same older kids we have to drag out of bed early on school days somehow manage to get themselves up around 6:00 in order to cram as much weekend video game time is as they can. It’s really a remarkable phenomenon.
The rest of the family seems to operate on much the same internal clock, especially when we’re in a later time zone than Eastern Standard time. So, stop me if you’ve heard this before: we got up early, got dressed, had a free hotel breakfast, and then headed for our first destination bright and early.
There are several worthy attractions in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, and many of them operate on a first-come, first-served basis. So at the risk of being redundant, it’s a great idea to go early and get to your attraction when it opens. Also, it really helps to go early at opening time.
We arrived around 8:30 a.m. at Jewel Cave National Monument.
Located several miles west of the town of Custer, SD, Jewel Cave was discovered by two brothers, Frank and Albert Michaud, in 1900. They found a hole in the ground with a steady blast of cold air coming out, eventually enlarged the hole with dynamite, and found a huge network of caves underground. The cave is full of calcite crystals, and at first both the Michaud brothers and several others thought they would be able to mine the cave for “diamonds” and rare jewels. Obviously, this is where the name came from. However, the calcite had little value, and so the only business venture that had any chance of success was simply to market the cave as a tourist attraction. The brothers built a lodge and trails within the cave and offered guided tours, but struggled to make the venture a success due to its remote location. In 1908, Jewel Cave was designated as a National Monument by President Teddy Roosevelt (there’s that guy again) after buying the Michaud brothers’ claim to the land for the princely sum of $750.
My property assessment skills are rusty, so I’m not sure of the going rate for a hole in the ground.
There are some surface hiking trails, but the cave tours are the main event here. The park offers four tours: the Discovery Talk, the Scenic Tour, the Historic Lantern Tour, and the Wild Caving tour. The Discovery Talk is for anyone, and is just a simple ranger talk by the entrance to the cave. All of the other tours are restricted—it used to be ages 5 and up, but now they’ve removed the age requirement and just stated that all participants must be able to walk the entire tour without being carried. This foiled my plan of having Sarah carry me on her back.
The Scenic Tour is by far the most popular and easily accessible, and that’s the one we were looking to do. It takes between 60-90 minutes, and tours depart at specific times throughout the day. Unfortunately, tours are not free, so you need to get to the ticket window early in order to both purchase your tickets and ensure you get the time you want.
The cave is currently the third-longest cave in the world, with over 180 miles mapped so far and many more still to be discovered. We’d be seeing about a mile of it.
Our friends hadn’t arrived yet, so we bought tickets for them and picked a time later that morning. In the meantime, we wandered the visitor center and got the kids started on Junior Ranger programs.
Meanwhile, Drew found a small tunnel for kids to crawl through in the visitor center and we spent a good hour trying to fish him out of there. I would have crawled in after him, but you saw the burger I’d eaten the night before. We might have needed to call the fire department to get me out.
That seemed to kill enough time for our friends to get there. Once again, my friend’s wife had no interest in going underground, so she took the littles while the rest of us lined up for our tour.
We lined up when they announced our tour time and proceeded in groups down the elevator to the cave entrance. We all waited outside a heavy glass door that was covered in condensation. The ranger paused before opening it and said it was his own weather station. He pulled open the door a crack and let one of the kids feel the air rushing out of the cave. That meant it was warm outside—hot air rises, so the cooler air in the cave moves out towards the exit.
The tour was pretty simple. We moved through several large, cavernous “rooms” in the cave while the ranger explained the history of the area and the geology of the various formations. I can’t remember all of the various minerals, but we did get to see plenty of the famous calcite “jewels” that first excited explorers. I’m not going to post many photos of the tour, for the simple reason that most of them look the same. You can only look at so many photos of rocks, right?
Calcite formations:
We just thought the lighting was cool here:
This might be the most important formation in the entire cave. I present to you…cave bacon.
We all enjoyed the tour. If you’re claustrophobic, you might have some issues, but for the most part the rooms you enter are fairly large and open, with generous metal platforms to stand on. The temperature in the cave is in the 50’s (Fahrenheit), so we all wore sweatshirts inside. It wasn’t very strenuous—a generally easy walk and a few flights of stairs. We managed to pause for a bit so my friend could get a photo of our family. I’m guessing Scotty wasn’t quite ready for the flash.
It always feels like you’re on an adventure when you’re exploring a cave. This was no exception. The only thing missing was a large boulder rolling after us as we exited.
We met up with the rest of the crew and worked on finishing everyone’s Junior Ranger books. As we waited, Sarah decided to try out the “test box”. Anyone taking the Wild Caving tour has to be able to fit through this space.
Drew had no problem with it, so we promptly signed him up for the tour and left him there.
I didn’t try the box, but I did file a complaint saying the tour discriminated against fat slobs like me.
By the time we were ready to leave, it was almost lunch time. We stopped back at our hotel room and ate lunch there. It’s a rare perk for us to be able to relax in a room mid-day. On the way, we spotted another bighorn sheep, also working on his lunch right by the side of the road.
We actually had a somewhat lazy afternoon. Our friends invited us over to visit their campsite in Custer State Park, and we decided to take the scenic route—the Needles Highway. This is a small road in Custer State Park that traverses the “Needles” section of the Black Hills. The Needles are the rock formations—lots of thin granite towers reaching for the sky (probably because someone’s poisoned the water hole). To get there, we drove east through Custer, turned left onto Rt. 89, and then right onto Rt. 87. There is a $20 fee to enter the state park, but it’s good for 7 days.
As you can see, a rain storm was moving in fairly quickly, so that prevented us from getting out and doing any hiking. The drive was fun, though. In a couple of locations, the road narrowed and led to a small tunnel through the rock formations. If you had a large truck in front of you—say, a Chevy pickup truck, for example—it would block your view enough to the point where you’d wonder if there was actually a way through the mountain.
We were in a rental van, though, so who cares? I floored it.
Wait, Julie reminds me that I never sign up for the extra insurance. So, we crept through the tunnel very carefully. Looking back at the mountain, you can just make out the tunnel behind us. And the line of cars waiting to go through in the opposite direction.
Looking east over the Black Hills:
I love drives like this. So much more memorable than the average interstate highway.
We found our friends’ campsite and hung out for a while under their shelter while the rain fell. The kids all disappeared into the tent with their friends, so we had the rare chance to have some adult conversation. I think we talked about whether you could actually light a fart on fire.
Later in the afternoon, we left the campsite. We had procrastinated a bit in order to try and allow the peak visitation time for our next destination to pass. We left around 4:00 p.m. to drive Iron Mountain Road.
This is Rt. 16A, and it’s another fun drive. It uses features such as tunnels and pigtail bridges (where you drive over a bridge and then immediately swing down and under the same bridge) in order to traverse the mountain. Most of my research indicated this was the way to approach the most famous tourist attraction in the Black Hills.
I agree with the research. This is the way to go. Not only is it a fun drive, but it’s best to get on the road driving from east to west. There are three tunnels along the way, and each one of them is cut specifically to give you a view of the destination ahead.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
Wait, that wasn’t good enough for you? Fine, here’s a better photo. You’ll never guess where we’re headed in the next chapter.
Coming Up Next: This clue was too cryptic. You still haven’t guessed, have you?
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Parenting is not for the weak.
