Normal Is Boring: 4000 Mile Drive (Part III)

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

4000 Mile Drive (Part III) - SD

Day 3: Badlands, Mt. Rushmore and Wind Caves - SD

"Beeep.... beeep..." The alarm went off at 5:30 AM. Just about four hours of sleep once again. But already missed one Sunrise and did not want that to repeat. After all, these things will not happen everyday and I could afford to live with little sleep for a week. Since the place looked pretty plain last night I figured it wouldn't be difficult to get a glimpse of the rising sun from our cabin. I put my shoes on and went out fully equipped with my camera and extras. "DUDE WAKEUP!" I went into the cabin shouting at my friend. "Please get out of the bed and grab the car keys. We got to drive a bit to catch the Sunrise." When I went out the first time I realized that we were actually in a valley surrounded my huge hills. Whatever we saw the night before (the sand dunes sort of things) were actually sort of mountains. It took a bit of driving mostly guessing the direction of Sunrise and finally we ended up at this which, I would say, can be marked as the "Sunrise spot". I was extremely lucky to find this spot. Perfect for my photography.

After a hundred shutter clicks, feeling the magical touch of the golden rays and absorbing the warmth of the mighty fireball in the sky we headed back to our cabin. Time was very precious for us. That doesn't mean we had to skip something we wanted to do though. We happened to manage our time just right. I wish this time management works out in all other aspects of my life as well. We pulled over an overlook to look around a little bit. "Driving all the way from NY?" I asked the guys (most probably father and son). I saw the NY plates on their car. "Yep!" they answered looking excited. I came to know that they were actually doing a round trip. I just wish I had the time to do something like that. We went back to the cabin and got ready for the day in no time.
We went to the Visitor Center and handed over the keys to our cabin. We then got some breakfast and decided to take the guided tour. The tour started at 8:00 AM and lasted for about 45 minutes. It was very informative and the guide was well versed with the park. It was interesting to know that literally every inch of this park was accessible to the visitors. I mean, there was nothing "off-limits". The reason is that the analysis showed that the erosion occurring in the park was mainly due to natural sources like rain and wind. The affect of human influence was insignificant. After the tour we strolled around a little bit into the gorges, onto the formations and around some puddles resulting from a earlier downpour. It was not easy to roam around in 108 degrees of heat. We repeatedly saw signs that said "make sure you drink at least a gallon of water a day". Are you kidding me? I would gulp down a gallon an hour in that weather. Finally we picked up our car and headed to Mt. Rushmore. Luckily we could pick a road that went around the park before getting onto the main road. We made couple of pit stops to get different views of the valley and the mountains around.

It was almost 2:00 PM by the time we reached Mt. Rushmore. We still had Wind Cave National Park in our itinerary before heading to the Rockies. We were not that concerned though. This being a national monument, there is only so much time we could spend here. None of us was interested in any of the light shows in the evening or the rock climbing. It was a very nice place and shows you what people can do. We grabbed some lunch from the cafeteria and proceeded to the Wind Caves.

Wind Cave National Park was just about an hour drive from Mt. Rushmore. It was almost 6 PM by the time we reached there. We had an idea about the cave tours. Both my friend and I have been to Luray Caverns in Virginia before and were not very keen on spending a lot of time here. Even my friend's wife was on consensus with us. Cave enthusiasts might say one can not compare Luray Caverns with Wind Cave and that each of them are unique in their own way but I'm sorry I'm not a "cave" man. We took the "Garden of Eden" tour that costed us $7 per head. It was 1/4 mile long and lasted about an hour with 150 steps along the route. The park claims it to be the least strenuous among all their tours.

Good bye South Dakota. Our next crash site was the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. It was roughly 350 miles from here with most of it going almost due South in Wyoming. "I'm pulling over guys. There is no way I can drive staring into the marvel." I said to my co-passengers and puled over the car on to the shoulder. The horizon was on fire. I have never seen so much land sky at the same time and actually the horizon stretching into the infinite. The only place I see horizon where I live is from the beach with the sky above the Atlantic. Of course, that view is also breathtaking. But this was something totally new to me.

We just stayed there gazing into one of the most beautiful natural scenes I have ever witnessed. I got behind the wheel only after the Sun fully set and it was dark. Now the weather started to get nasty. This unexpected stopover pushed us behind our schedule and we wanted to catch up. The only way we could catch up to our schedule whenever we fell behind it was to speed. This comes naturally to people from where I'm used to driving :-). Now the elements started to compete with each other and there came the thunder storms. I stepped on the gas a little more, passed a pickup and got back into the right lane. "flash flash" there were the most unwelcome lights flashing in my rear-view mirror. I got pulled over by a cop for the first time ever. Damn! Luckily the cop let me go with just a warning. That was relief and I stayed within the speed limits (not literally) thereafter till we reached our destination. It was almost 2 AM by the time we reached our campsite and luckily it didn't rain here. We had to pitch our tent very carefully so as not to wake our neighbors up. "Good night!" We retired for the day.