Caving in the Black Hills

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There lies beneath the Black Hills a vast network of caverns. Jean, Leslie, Michale and I toured portions of two of the caverns. With Jewel Cave we considered going on a wild caving tour. However, there was a requirement that one be able to pass through an 8 1/2" by 24" crawl space to be allowed to go on the tour. We had set up a practice crawl space in our living room when Michael and Leslie had come for a visit in May. Jean and Leslie passed but Michael and myself do not do so well so we opted for the more pedestrian walking tour.

 
We booked a walking tour of Jewel Cave for the afternoon and in the mean time took a scenic drive tour. Here's a herd of buffalo we encountered.

This "begging" burro was sorely dissaspointed

In Jewel Cave




Back at camp I subjected  everyone to potato curry surprise

While Michael and I had taken the idea of vacation to include vacation from conventional bathing (there was a lake we swam in every evening) Jean and Leslie took advantage of the shower facilities. Here is Jean flaunting her cleanness.

In the evening we went back to Mount Rushmore for the evening lighting ceremony.


The next day we went to Wind Cave were the wild caving tour requirements were more lenient. Here we are strapping up. Unfortunately, cameras weren't allowed on the tour so this is the only shot I took.

This is the portion of the Wind Cave network of which we traversed on our 3 hour tour approximately 0.1%.


Roasting marshmallows over a coal/pine cone fire



Four days with Michael and Leslie and we didn't get a board game in until our last night. I'm ashamed of myself.

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