The 2 hour drive to Custer State Park after our mid-day hike up some of the steepest inclines of the Badlands was a welcome resting period – particularly for the adults, as you might imagine. And, once there, we had a fantastic introduction to the park as we drove to our campsite via the “Wildlife Trail,” which certainly lived up to its name! Huge herds of buffalo were roaming across vast fields, and then teams of them (and their galloping young) were crossing right in front and all around our car at one point. Wild horses, donkeys and llama were walking up to cars and sticking their heads in open windows for food, which afforded us the opportunity to learn the art of feeding a few of the donkeys with open palms well-extended from the RV window. And, wouldn’t you know it, too many deer and antelope to count were prancing all over the place, which meant that our own Clark Griswold was able to make good use of having reinforced the lyrics of “Home On the Range” to the children just the evening before. We ended our drive through the park at a horse stable that also happened to serve as the entrance to the park campground – our home address for the next two days. We set up camp (OK, so we just hooked up our electric), built a campfire, encircled it with our chairs, and cooked some burgers, wienies, corn on the cob, baked beans and S’mores – some directly over the campfire and some on Grandma’s camping grill. Then we had to make sure that the fun wrapped up a bit earlier for the kids today, because….
We sang “Happy Birthday” to Katie first thing this morning (6:30am in South Dakota, although it still kind of felt like 8:30am to some of us?) on a spectacular hot air balloon ride. It really was beyond-words amazing! Walter, the particularly skillful pilot of our balloon, couldn’t have been better cast by Hollywood - with his dry wit, comfortable draw, cowboy attire and no-nonsense approach to all this business. And he REALLY knew what he was doing! He took us to heights exceeding 1,000 feet, and then brushed our basket across treetops so that we could reach out and pick pine cones from them. He identified all the mountain ranges, and pointed out which ones were actually in other states - Nebraska and Wyoming. He pointed out a single tree among the thousands that he noticed was on fire, and quickly called it in to the rangers with some pretty impressive directional precision (although I suppose any direction would have appeared amazingly precise to a woman who had no idea from where and to where she happened to be floating?). He navigated us directly toward a huge rock structure, and elevated us slowly upward so that we were eye-to-eye with it and then, hovering, and almost sitting right on top of it! Although he had instilled a great deal of confidence in his ability to pilot this craft by then, I can’t deny that this particular rock structure maneuver was as terrifying to me as it was thrilling…. And my thoughts kept cycling through the dis-connected mantra of “He really knows how to do this!!! I hope he really knows how to do this?!!!” while I kept a forced smile of calm on my face for the kids… LOL! Exhilarating!
The balloon landing was much gentler than I had imagined it ever could be (perhaps partly because he had trained us in the “windy landing position” before we left – which I assume is the kindler, gentler term for “crash landing”?). Soft or not, however, the landing itself was adventurous in and of itself. Although a balloon pilot can control the height of the balloon, he has precious little control over the course the balloon takes and where it will ultimately land – that’s up to the wind. Our first intended site for landing had some electrical wires across it, so back up into the air we went to look for another! The second intended sight looked like the perfect spot (a wide open field with a road within reasonable distance), and so down we went. As we came in past the tree line, however, a herd of cattle began running across the field -- presumably fearful of this loud, colorful blob moving in on their pasture. Our pilot wasn’t at all concerned, and put us down easily in the soft, wet grass while at least 60 cows that had accumulated in the far corner of the pasture stared us down like we had just arrived at their black tie dinner in Led Zeppelin t-shirts and ripped jeans. But there we sat, eye-to-eye with all that bovine goodness, while Steve jumped out of the basket to help guide the balloon over the barbed wire fence by rope in order to separate us from the cattle while we waited for the crew to find us and return us to our home on wheels.. While waiting, our pilot mentioned that he hoped our landing had not agitated the rancher who may be one of those types who are inclined to threaten us off of his property with a shotgun. Sweet, right? As it turns out, the road was a private lane with a locked gate about a half-mile away, so we had to hike it to the gate to meet the crew and get back. God only knows how they got that balloon out of that pasture sometime later today!
We wrapped up the experience by receiving certificates for being “Aerostatic Adventurers” over mimosas for the adults, orange juice for the kids and light breakfast fare otherwise. This little ceremony occurred at a picnic shelter at the random meeting point the balloon company had established to begin this adventure…. A Flintstone-themed campground which was VERY heavy on theme, with every character represented and every building looking like it was made of boulders, or purple fur with rough-edged white spots, or the like. But, interestingly enough, I learned that Steve had actually camped here with his family when he as little! Ha! Pretty funny….
The birthday girl directed the rest of our day from there, which included hitting a local bakery for her Oreo cookie cake, purchasing a book of real “Wanted Dead of Alive” posters from the days of the Old West, and then going back to the campsite for some R&R before going on to a nice dinner. Most of us had buffalo for dinner, straight from the herds of Custer State Park… those heartless children of mine, right?! Ha!
After dinner we went on to Mt. Rushmore for the 9:pm show at sunset and to see it lit up after dark. We trusted the GPS to lead us there efficiently, but it took us through the horse trail path up there if I’ve ever seen one! Several hairpin turns, some pigtail turns (that’s a new one on me!), three one-way tunnels cut out of the mountain rock and then just generalized winding, back-and-forth all the way up the mountain…. In short, it was like driving an RV through a set of small intestines with a 10’6” diameter. Not a lot of room for error! But the destination, of course, was inspiring to say the least. We watched a movie highlighting George, Tom, Abe and Teddy, saw their 60’ likenesses lit up, and sang “America the Beautiful” and the national anthem with the hundreds of others in attendance. I was proud of how “into it” all of the kids were, particularly since we had pushed them so hard by getting them up before the crack of dawn and winding down at Mt. Rushmore at 10:pm.
So now, after a fantastic day and some late night birthday cake, I’ve fully updated you and am finally signing off!
No comments:
Post a Comment