Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, First stop on our cross country RV trip

intro
Welcome to RView podcast where we talk about life travel and real estate. Join George and Lisa Hernandez each week as they share insights and parenting tips about their life as a blended family with for teens, their crazy travel and adventures and get Lisa’s input about real estate as she juggles it all while still managing her Top Producing real estate brokerage view properties.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, I’m Lisa RichartHernandez, and welcome to RView podcast.

George
I’m George Hernandez.

Lisa RichartHernandez
We have so much exciting stuff to talk about this week. Finally, on the road again, I’m so happy to tell you all about our trips and adventures. I think last podcast we talked about dropping our oldest son Ryan off at the University of South Carolina, moved him into his dorms and met his roommates.

George
I had dinner with his parents, his roommates parents, it was a little sad for me. I’ll admit it.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, it was it was a bit emotional. But I think that the sort of sadness of him leaving was more changed into like excitement for him being there. Once we got to moved into his dorm and met his roommate and knew he was going to

George
once he was settled in I felt a lot better as I think it was more emotional for me that night before we actually went up there once we got up there. Yeah, I was emotional. But I felt more excited for him than emotional, right? That’s my buddy.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know Ryan’s been like you’re kind of right hand man for Well, 18 years now. Yeah, he’s the oldest and when things were rough with their mom, who was, you know, helped you out so much with Tyler and around the house and kind of grew up a little bit faster than maybe you needed to. But thankfully, now, this is his opportunity to not be responsible for anybody else. And I think that’s awesome. Not even waking up his younger brother and getting him out the door. All the things that I think Tyler might take for granted a little bit, but that’s cool.

George
I don’t think it’s hit Tyler yet. And it won’t until school starts. That’s when it’s really gonna hit them that Brian’s not there to wake him up and give them a ride to school. I was doing a good job right now.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, he’s been going to his job and I have waiting tables and everything. So that’s, that’s good. And well, the week before that. We moved my oldest daughter Lauren, from her dorm into her first apartment with four roommates, and we moved everything out of her bedroom. And that was a little emotional for me. I had already gone through the grieving process of her moving out in the first place. But I think when she moved right in, you know, into her apartment, I think I went same thing you were gone. You were in Arizona helping your brother put in hardwood floors in his in his cottage for the week. So you didn’t get to join me to take Lauren to her apartment. But no,

George
I felt bad. I missed that whole fiasco.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, Ryan actually helped us with that and Lauren’s boyfriend so that that all worked out. Great. And hopefully she’ll have a exciting year, even though all of Lauren’s glasses are online, I feel like I’m just paying for her to have that. Whatever college experience she can have during all this COVID stuff.

George
I know those Corona things gotta go.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know. So over Well, let’s talk about some like, really fun, exciting stuff. So once we dropped off, Ryan, we hit the road. And I wanted to get as much under our belts as possible. Because when we first planned our trip, we thought that Tyler and the younger kids were going to be going starting High School on the 18th. And so we said Alright, we’re going to 16th of August, we’ll we’ll drop off Ryan, and then we’ll hit the road. And then two days later, you know, Tyler would be starting school, and we’ve got someone staying with Tyler while we’re gone. And a school got pushed back till September 8. And so we were like, oh, what if we, if we take the kids with us and let them drive as far as they can and then we’ll fly them home. So long story short, that’s what we ended up doing. And so once we did that, normally we wouldn’t do like three super long drive days in a row back to back. George does the lion’s share of the driving really all the driving and so it’s just too much to drive that far.

George
That was a lot of driving. The first day of driving was really rough. I didn’t get a good night’s sleep prior to the first night. And that was hard. But when we got into where Indiana, I got a good night’s sleep, went to bed early in the next drive was way easier. It actually went by really fast because I was rested. And the thing is, it’s it’s funny because are we always kept saying on the drive was corn, corn, corn corn everywhere. But the road is so straight. There’s like nothing to do but just hang out and drive.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, and we have cruise control right so you kind of just set that and

George
yeah, just sat back and watch the corn go by.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And fortunately we had good weather all the way so wasn’t Well, yes and the first day Don’t forget that driving Not only did you have not a good night’s sleep, but we were driving to the Smoky Mountains, which is a beautiful drive but in the RV towing a vehicle. It’s just a lot more your it’s a lot more intense. You got to be a lot more aware of your surroundings and your speed and going down hills and engine brakes. And yeah, it was a little more intense. The second day was Piece of cake compared to that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the first night we just stayed in this little campground in Roebuck, South Carolina, which is about an hour and a half outside of Columbia, South Carolina. And they were just the nicest people she like texted me and I guess they were in Charleston when we were there camping and and then she saw her post on Facebook and called me up just to tell me thank you for that. So hopefully she’ll listen in on her podcast too. But they’re real nice people that own that place. It was really, really nice once we got in there. Oh, yeah. Okay, so huge tip for any of our RV friends that are out there listening from the road. If you’re on your way into Charleston and like into South Carolina, and you decide you want to stop at the Pine Ridge campground, it’s 199 Pine Ridge campground, road robot, South Carolina, it’s kind of outside of Spartanburg. Do not use the GPS instructions. Look at the instructions on their website. Like she clearly texted me and told me to do, but I didn’t. And I think it even set it on my reservation sheet. But you know, George, is our specific GPS for the for the RV. Will it won’t let us go anywhere. That’s to like if there’s a low overpass or anything, so we don’t get stuck somewhere. And so he’s very adamant about watching that GPS. Well, this crazy GPS was gonna take us down like this treacherous road.

George
It took us down the craziest road. And then it wanted me to make a hairpin turn. I mean, a complete hairpin turn. And I said to Lisa, there’s no way I can do this. Plus, we’re towing the jeep and it was Darko, so I decided to just keep going straight and see if it would reroute Well, yeah. Did 10 mile reroute?

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, we had to get all the way off and all the way back on the highway. And I said, I mean, the whole time. I was like, babe, I swear to God, I know that you when we’re just doing an overnight stop, do not like to go far off the highway. I’ve gotten in trouble for that before, because I wanted to stay someplace nice or whatever. And so I was like, I swear this is right off the highway. And so when we started driving, like farther from the highway, it was like, I don’t think we’re going in the right direction. Well, I was right that we were going the wrong way. But I didn’t look that up. So anyways, we made it. It is literally only like three miles off the highway at most it was and we Oh easy to get to. When you know where you’re going.

George
We did a 10 mile loop for a three mile off the highway. Yeah, so RV, tip number, whatever number this is. If they have instructions on their website, use them. Don’t always trust your GPS and learn from us because that was scary. Plus, it was pitch dark. It was very late. I don’t like pulling into campsites that I’m familiar with at night. And

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah, he was happy I was not a happy camper as already had been a long day moving right and and stuff. So okay, lesson learned on that one.

George
But it was a beautiful place. And we really enjoyed it once we got in and the next morning. It was an absolute I would probably go back and use them again. If we Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
it was really it was a little lake and a nice pool and all kinds of stuff. So and we had I mean, she even texted she was like, oh, I’ve got you this big long pull through site. It’s paved. You won’t even have to unhook the jeep. And I also put like in reservation notes I always say that we’re you know, 40 foot towing a jeep. And a lot of times the camp people when choosing a site will kind of keep us you know, a late check in early checkout. I always let them know about those kind of things too. And that just makes for such an easy in and out.

George
I’m sure it makes their life easier to if they know what what’s coming. All right,

Lisa RichartHernandez
right right but it was really nice to not have to unhook and deal with all that with all that mess. So then we drove 10 hours and we stayed in crawfordsville k away in Lafayette Lafayette road crawfordsville Indiana. Nothing Nothing to see here, folks. It’s just a kayo a it was an overnight stop.

George
I think it was literally in the middle of a cornfield. Yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
It really was, but it was right off the highway. And oh, that

George
one was nice also, I mean, it, you know, for for one day stop

Lisa RichartHernandez
being pulled through a gravel spot. The pool was just okay. I mean, it was a little bit

George
a little bit old It reminded me of when I was a kid and we used to drive down to Florida. My parents always picked like the cheesiest hotel. And the pool was like, borderline swamp water. Yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
But you know what? The kids, the kids were fine.

George
They didn’t care. They just loved it.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And just like we said, it was just an overnight stop. We were on the road again, by seven o’clock the next morning. And, you know, a K always if you’re if you’re not familiar with it, or you’re new to Irving, I feel like they’re kind of like, a Holiday Inn. I mean, you can get a great one and you can get a crappy one. And but it’s kind of a brand and they’re all a franchise. So

you know, we’ve had,

George
but I don’t even know if I would ever say we I wouldn’t label it as crappy. It’s no, no,

Lisa RichartHernandez
like, it’s just not like, it’s not the Ritz Carlton. Right, right. But they’re definitely nicer. But they’re reliable. They’re reliable, reliable, and super easy to book because they always have online everything and I love that part of it. When you’re planning a big trip, the QA is the way to go. Yeah, especially for overnights. So then that was on Monday. Then we drove another 10 hours.

George
When she says we,

Lisa RichartHernandez
I mean, we wrote I fed you burn. We drove to Sioux City, North kayo a campground and this is the one that was on the South Dakota side. And that was after looking at lots and lots and lots of corn that day. Also, we listened to audiobooks, which ended up I think it makes the time go faster. Like you’re like,

George
absolutely helping the kids were even into it. They they wanted to listen to it. When we got in the campsite. They wanted to hear what finally happened. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
because it’s a mystery. So we’re working on mysteries. I’m sure we’ll listen to a lot of these as our road goes up. So I’ve been asking for input I just started at James Patterson, the very first Along came a spider book. There’s a whole series of those. Alex cross detective stories.

George
Yeah, that was that was really cool.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yep. And so then we finally again woke up early. The good thing was time was on our side too, because every every place we went was a new timezone. So we’re like, what, two hours behind Charleston right now?

George
Yeah, we picked up an hour on every drop.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So like when we were waking up at 630. It was really like our bodies 730 or whatever. And so we kind of ease our way over. Anyways. So we finally checked in to Custer State Park. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait,

George
hold on. One quick story. So we check into the Kiowa and South Dakota Right?

Lisa RichartHernandez
The last one? Yeah.

George
Yeah. And I’m setting up camp. And this other RV pulls in right next to us. And they were our neighbors at the kayo. A in Indiana, what are the chances 10 out, you know, 600 mile difference. And it was literally the same gentleman that was parked next to us in Indiana. And when he when he came out of his RV, I looked at him and I waved at him. And I said, Are you following us? stalking us? And he started cracking up was like, Oh, my God, what are the chances of I know not only going to the same kayo way but ending up right next to each other?

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, pretty well, they had a big rig to and they return a truck. So that that’s cool. And that’s one of the cool things about rvng is you do and you can run into the same people and meet new people all over the places where you go.

George
So so we left there and hit the road.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yep. And oh, that was a long day. I forgot what we got so much to talk about. First we stopped at Corn Palace.

George
Corn Palace. Yes. You heard correct.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Corn, which is located in Mitchell, South Dakota. what there is to see there

George
is a palace made of corn.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I think we did like a 20 minute stop there.

George
Yes. And you could have done it for at least 25 minutes.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Maybe you could spend a little more time. I if you wanted to read all the plaques and stuff. But it was definitely a good photo op and we got out of the car. And I don’t think we’ll ever stop at the world’s only Corn Palace again. But it was very cute. And if you’re looking for a place to just kind of you know, you

George
know it was one of those places that we just kept seeing and we were like, why not? Let’s just stop. Why not because we already passed the biggest ball of corn. We cannot pass up

Lisa RichartHernandez
the corn. So we did get what are they corn, corn, candy corn balls. What do they call?

George
I don’t know, I think but called the corn ball corn

Lisa RichartHernandez
balls we did buy their gigantic for $4.50 each. You can have all different flavor corn balls, which in they are actually good. And then on the outside of the building if you want to look at it on our on our Instagram is all these murals and they’re legit made of corn. So that’s pretty

George
cool side note that I found out from a friend of ours who apparently has gone to the Corn Palace multiple times. Oh, they change the exterior every year.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, I can imagine I was wondering all they petrified all that corn and kept it like that.

George
But next year, we got to go and see the numeral.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, maybe. Alright, moving right along. All right. So there was a Mitchell, South Dakota, and they have campgrounds there too. If you wanted to make a stop there. Don’t forget also it was COVID time so I don’t feel like anything is completely normal right now anyways, but we got back on the road. And what say three more hours to wall drug wall drug wall drug is like, and by the way, on these roads in South Dakota, don’t be expecting to stop and get something from Walmart. Or I mean, anything really pretty much anything. I mean, there is nothing, although I will say one of the coolest. There’s corn. And there’s windmills, windmills, and sunflowers.

George
That was when we got closer to wild dog.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it was before while drug between started. And while drug I was really cool, amazing fields. I’m talking about huge fields of sunflowers, and had been a little bit more Sunny, I think the photos would have been even more amazing. And it was everything I had, I mean not to get them to like just pull the car over on the side of the highway. And just I’ve always wanted one of those pictures, like standing in the middle of this huge field of you know, like sunflowers like, it’s just so cool.

George
I mean, the sheer amount of that we mentioned corn and corn. I mean, so as far as the eye can see. We know there was a lot of people but hold on, we drove literally 600 miles. And all there was was corn. That’s true. That’s, that’s pretty amazing. And then some flowers and then we figured out the other stuff was green beans. Yeah, it was fascinating. But again, nothing was

Lisa RichartHernandez
dressing eating for you know, 10 hours of looking at corn, sunflowers and with balance. Again, we will listen to another audio book but we got to wall drug which was one of those kinds of things literally, it’s on as a it’s it’s I don’t know if you ever drive on I 95 from North and South Carolina, we have south of the border. It’s the same kind of cheesy kind of style that Oh, border, you’ll see signs for like five hours, you get the border of North and South Carolina of this, like south of the border. And that’s basically what wall drug is. It’s like a wall drug. And the first wall drug sign we saw was five hours away from wall drug. It’s kind

George
of almost exactly like south of the border. I think the first sign for south of the border on either side, north and south is 200 miles away from south of the border. Yeah. And it’s just as cheesy.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so while drug is basically like a gigantic tours store, like it has all kinds of things from cowboy boots, and cowboy jackets. So you t shirts, trinkets, there’s some cafes and lunch like we were going to get I was like, oh, let’s just since we’re on the road, just get a burger and you know, some, you know, for lunch while we’re here. And then we’re like, a hotdog was like $8 on burger was like $14 and I was like, we can just go actually already in cooking our new air fryer. Which Oh, elaborate more on the new Cuisinart air fryer,

George
but we’re gonna give them a big plug. Oh my God looks like to a wall.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, so what else that wall drugs. We literally spent there for about what 3045 minutes maybe close to

George
an hour. I mean, it’s it’s if you’ve never been it’s one of those places that it just sucks you in because you’ve seen 500 billboards for it and you’d like Okay, we got to stop. We got to see what the big deal is. Yeah, it’s it’s fun. It was. It was cool. take some pictures, plenty of parking. It was very nice,

Lisa RichartHernandez
easy to get in and out with the RV, even a big rig towing and there was a lot of them. It’s just in and out very easy in a way The last stops honestly, before we got to Custer State Park, really? There’s not a lot of places to stop.

George
No, there really wasn’t. Yeah. So we did that. Got ourselves in airs. Did any? It was really a good stop to stretch our legs and check out wall drugs and see what it was all about and move on.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yep. And so we got to Custer State Park about what three o’clock in the afternoon. He is. And we’re seeing in the bluebell campground area. So it’s literally inside the State Park and we don’t have full hookups or we just have electric, which it’s only for two days and our spot is right across from the bathhouse though. It really is fine. We haven’t we haven’t done any laundry. But we haven’t. Haven’t complained really about anything. I mean, it’s been.

George
So let me do some complaining. No, I’m just getting this place is beautiful. the only the only thing was when we checked in and the lady tells you right away that you may want to unhook your Jeep before you drive to your location. That’s a first red flag.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, that was a good advice.

George
Yes. That was great advice. And I would completely tell anybody to do that. The roads to get to this campsite were winding hills. winding mountains, not hills mountain.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. Oh, and I was behind in the jeep. And my heart. My stomach was in my throat. I was like, Oh my gosh, one false move five inches to the right. And you’re going down the mountain.

George
Yeah. 5000 foot elevation and the EPS like, pretty much straight down. Yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. But you know, obviously, there’s tons of campers and tons of RVs. So everybody makes it up here. Don’t let that scare you away. But

George
yeah, but nobody wants to be the first one.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, for sure. For sure.

George
No, besides all the kidding. The roads are pretty narrow, pretty tight, but obviously, doable. very maneuverable. They were very, very smooth. So all kidding aside, it was a nice drive up. You just got to take your time. It’s like literally 20 miles an hour. Yeah, 20 miles an hour. And there are some steep climbs and some steep drops. So use your engine brakes, use everything you have and just enjoy the drive. There’s no no need.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, do anything. Everything’s slowing here too, because of all the wildlife. So we hit the ground running when we got to our site. We legit just plugged in to the electricity, popped out our sides and said alright, let’s go. And we went First things first, and went and saw Mount Rushmore. Yes. Oh, and we took needles highway to get to Mount Rushmore.

George
Val was super cool.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so that having a Jeep has been amazing. Do we take the top off on I think we took the top off. We

George
took off the top immediately. And just the first drive through this park convinced us that we made such a great move with buying this Jeep. It was so much fun.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it was very cool. So we took needles highway which has you can’t take the RV on its you can take a regular car but it was even cooler with the Jeep in the top down. But it’s like hairpin turns. And they have these one way. eight feet wide, nine feet tall tunnels that you go through in the rocks. To get up there there’s a whole bunch of lookout places to stop and you drive through that. The one thing we did not do we made a wrong turn. And I wanted to cut across Playhouse road and go up Iron Mountain Road. Highly recommend if you are going to San Custer State Park and you’re going to go see Mount Rushmore to take Iron Mountain Road to Mount Rushmore in your vehicle. Yes,

George
that was so cool,

Lisa RichartHernandez
because you go through all of these tunnels that you can see Mount Rushmore

George
it actually the tunnel frames Mount Rushmore perfectly it’s like I don’t know if they did that on purpose or not. But it is perfectly framed and we have some pictures. You got to check them out on our website. It I don’t know it’s just either the most amazing coincidence or they were really glad to have done that. I

Lisa RichartHernandez
know it’s crazy. It’s really really, really beautiful. So I would definitely go that way. Iron Mountain Road which is a road that we Hit today we ended up going needles highway which is also beautiful, very similar to Iron Mountain Road with the with the tunnels and all of that. But like I said, we just missed our turn. So, which is easy to do around here, by the way, got to keep your eyes peeled. So we drove past Sylvan lake which Tyler saw that and he was like, I’m gonna go there tomorrow and climb on those rocks and go swimming. went and saw Mount Rushmore. It looks like Mount Rushmore.

George
It was you know, you said something before we hit Mount Rushmore. I was like, going Niagara Falls, you see the falls and then you go, Okay, time to move on. Mount Rushmore was kind of like that. But maybe because it was my first time there. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the whole experience. I think it was perfect. We got to see it. We took the pictures, we hung out. Everybody was happy. We took a bunch of pictures. And we moved on. I mean, yeah, so not much to do there. Right except take a picture. It could

Lisa RichartHernandez
have gone a little bit longer on the visitor’s center. That was the place the only place around there where you’re there required masks. They did have people waiting there for you. But Mount Rushmore was not busy really that all at all while we were there. Fortunately, I was really worried about this being a busy season. I don’t know if most of the kids are back in school now or whatever. But we got in the parking lot. No problem. It was $10 to park

George
Yeah, there was just $10 to get in the park. Basically just for parking The park was free. Yeah. And they have the the counters for how many spaces are in the parking lots at six parking lot. And they all had hundreds and hundreds that flat hundreds of spots. So it was really really nice to kind of not have a massive crowd there.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah. So we got some great pictures. And there again, we were probably only at Mount Rushmore for maybe an hour.

George
Yeah, but everybody was happy. It was everything we needed to see. We got a scream Yeah, great pictures and we moved on.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, got some got some tourist trinkets. So $10 for parking. And when you do go there, take your parking ticket with you. Because there you you, once you pull it out of the little slot. You pay for it when you go up to the gift shop

George
or around. Yeah, they park they got parking machines that you just

Lisa RichartHernandez
save yourself a trip from your back to your car. So there’s a little tip for you.

George
So from there we went to Crazy Horse. Yes.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So Crazy Horse is located between Custer and Hill city. So it’s about 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. And the Crazy Horse memorial is, I mean, it looks like it’s going to be like the most incredible thing when it’s completed. out there. It’s going to be right right now is basically just a face. And it’s interesting, intricately carved in the Black Hills. And it’s been under construction since 1948. Really? Yes, like 80 years. its creator also worked on Rushmore, but only for 19 days. And an argument led to his departure and ultimately, to his own monument. crazyhorse.

George
Wow.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, Polish guy, right. featuring The Oglala Oglala akata leader, the statue will be 563 feet tall, the tallest sculpture in the world once it’s completed. After 70 years work is still underway. But that doesn’t stop over a million people from visiting the ongoing project every year. And the first full weekend in June, hikers are invited to volks March 6.2 mile trek that ends with a walk up to the monument. But we got there to see the nighttime laser light show. So we got there one was laid out. We saw that thing, the crazy wars. There’s five museums there, kind of wandering around those. The light show was at 830.

George
It was depending on

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, it depends on what time it is what what time of year it is, I guess. So it was at 830. For us, we got there about 745. So it was still light out as $30 for a carload of people to get in. And we just walked around and listen to the little show that a guy out there talking about the history of it, and they sang the national anthem. And then they had a laser light show on the side of the rocks with music and stuff about kind of the history of Crazy Horse and another insider tip, which we didn’t know of course, until it was later. You can park on the upper parking deck outside and see the same view that you get from inside. So if you want to sit in your car, if it’s you know different weather or whatever, you can do that or if you want to sit in your car and Be there, rush out. Watch it from your car. Yeah, there’s a restaurant on site, but nobody was really eating when we got there. It was just about to close down. And I don’t know if it was just COVID. But really wasn’t wasn’t very full there either. No, no, no. Granted, it was, oh, I guess a Wednesday. So yeah,

George
probably got to keep going on to least busy days. We saw their plans for the future of that site. And I guess they’re building an Indian College. And it was actually pretty cool to see the plans. They’re building a football stadium at the base of Crazy Horse. And so that’ll be interesting to come back in a couple of years and see the progress. But man, they got a long way to go. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know. It’s pretty, it’s pretty, it’s pretty cool. So the whole like area that we’re staying in is called the Black Hills area. The Black Hills National Forest spans more than 1.2 5 million acres and has the state’s tallest mountain Black Elk peak that’s coming in at 7244 feet. It’s located just a few short miles from Mount Rushmore in this summer says someone is the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains. But the name was changed in 2016 from Harney peak, William S. Harney was a general in the Mexican American and Indian Wars. And those were any idiom and logical I don’t even know how to pronounce that word.

George
Don’t look at me. You got the paper anyways,

Lisa RichartHernandez
because it was been up that name was abandoned in favor of honoring the original inhabitants of the region. So the new name of Black Elk peak recognizes the legendary Lakota, soy medicine man, as well as the state’s important Native American communities. There’s a lot of Indian communities around here.

George
Yes, yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So that was a long day. We did seven hours of driving while drove the Corn Palace. Needles highway. We saw a lot of corn. And then from that, we went to Mount Rushmore. And then we went to two crazy hours. And we got home at like nine o’clock and made dinner and fell sound asleep. But I have to say the kids have been troopers through this whole thing. They haven’t complained about anything. They’ve been gotten home. They’ve been wanting to do everything that we wanted to do. So just wanted to throw that in as a side note. Yeah, so we got all that knocked out in the first day, which was awesome. And so I had been doing my research. And I saw that it’s best to get up early in the morning to see the wildlife.

George
Okay, let’s take a deep breath for a second. Because this is where it gets good. Okay, go. Ladies. This is where it gets good with the animals that it was

Lisa RichartHernandez
George’s favorite part. So we knocked out all the tourist attractions that we had to see. And then we, so I told the kids, I was like, Listen, tomorrow morning, we need to get up at 630. And we’re going to take the wildlife loop, and we’re gonna go see the animals will be just like an hour to an hour and a half. We’ll come home, we’ll clean up we’ll make breakfast, and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do for the rest of the day. But I’ve read it and we really need to go early in the morning. And I promise we’ll come back. Awesome plan. Yeah, well, except that totally went awry. We were having so much fun. And it was so beautiful and so incredible. Four and a half hours later, we found ourselves in Hots hot springs, South Dakota.

George
Or our one hour will return back to have breakfast turned into a full eight hours a day of just exploring it. Let’s walk Let’s walk them through.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, so we we stay in what’s blueberry bluebell campground? And so we’re right where the wildlife loop starts. And we start driving. What a mile, maybe a mile and buy our first bison. He’s just hanging out. And then you’ve got to see the videos and the photos on our Instagram or website pages. Because it was just incredible.

George
But you know, it was one of those things. We saw the first bison and we were like, Oh, that’s cool. Check him out. He’s right there. He’s just hanging out. He’s just laying in his little spot. We’re like, kind of that set the tone. So I was thinking okay, it’s gonna be one here one there. May be if we’re lucky. We’ll hit one of those. Bison jams, bison jams. We turn the corner and bam. I mean, hundreds Yeah, yeah, they’re all over. The road cars are stopped everywhere. And we’re in the jeep no top when those down the Jeep have no top. We just pull into the middle of this herd and it was just the coolest. Even the kids were like, this is the coolest thing ever.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know Bailey said today when we got home, she’s like, I took 500 pictures today.

George
Yeah, that’s when all of us I think we probably took 1000.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, yes. So we, I mean, you just really couldn’t get over the whole bison thing. I mean, that was four miles. And definitely, you have to wake up. Okay, what time is early, I would say, seven on the road by 777 30.

George
And you’re good. But even what now we well, because we really had done that earlier. But that’s what, that’s what I was about to say we were there at seven 730. And we could already tell that the herd was already starting to head into the woods. Because when it gets hot, they just, I don’t know where they go. They go into the woods in the shade. That’s their air conditioning, I’m

Lisa RichartHernandez
sure

George
positive they’re not going to sit out in the sun. You saw the ones that sat out in the sun, just one here and there. They wherever they go. They didn’t tell us where they were going. But they somebody you could tell that they were on their way somewhere.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. And there was babies. Like you could tell like the cows were nursing and stuff. I mean, it’s really cool. Tip do not drive fast. Be careful. Like you know mud splatters up when you like, run over it. Yes, this might be out the window, maybe like taking a photo or something like that. And you drive over bison poop. It will get on you. It splatters all over my arm and all over the side of the Jeep.

George
Check our website. There’ll be pictures. Oh my gosh. The face attached to the Yes. I

Lisa RichartHernandez
learned my lesson the hard way right from the beginning on that one. So bring Oh definitely changes of weather pack as sweatshirt was pens on the seasons too, I suppose. But it’s August. So during the day, it was really hot in the morning. It was beautiful weather or like, low 60s maybe? Yes. And so after we saw the baseline, Hold on, wait. Okay,

George
two tips that I want to throw out. One is what you just mentioned, make sure you bring bring some clothes because the temperature changes drastically. Second tip, even if you think you’re just going out for an hour, pack water, pack some snacks, and just keep it in your car.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh yeah. In your car, for sure. And yes, we were we were kind of hurting. I mean, the kids are like after like four and a half hour via promises. I mean, we we literally made coffees got in the car. So we’re coming home in an hour and a half and five out. We didn’t get home till six hours later because we stopped for lunch and and, and hotsprings because the kids couldn’t make it back.

George
Oh God, we didn’t go with the original plan to go out there in our PJs and just because we’re coming back in an hour. Oh,

Lisa RichartHernandez
yes. So thankfully brushed our teeth.

George
Yes, yes. We cleaned up somewhat. So we saw the bison. Yes. And then we came across a pack of mules. That was cool. Oh, yeah. They literally reached in your car. They wanted some whatever you got like donkeys?

Lisa RichartHernandez
They were Yeah, there was all different. There’s probably a what 20 of them.

George
Yeah, there was there was a bunch of them Toros. That’s what they’re called. Burrows, donkeys asses. Okay. Yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
So there’s a bunch of those and they came right up to the window. That’s one another tip. Bring carrots. Carrots,

George
carrots. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
the girls love the carrots.

George
Worst case he got food to eat.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, true that true that we probably would have eaten those carrots. Yeah. This morning. We reserve laundry. Yes. What else did we see? Well, we were out there. So with them. We came across the herd of burrows. And they were getting fed by some other cars that were going by. We got great pictures. They came up to our literally had in our window of the car. That was cool.

George
Yeah. So we got distracted with all this wildlife and we were supposed to stay on the wildlife loop, loop road. And we did not we continued south on some other road and missed the loop. So as we were driving, we saw this dirt road which was so we ended up in Wind Cave National Park. Yes, we ended up on State Park Road five in wind Wind Cave National Park,

Lisa RichartHernandez
which is connected to Custer

George
State Park. It’s, it’s so connected that we didn’t even know that we

Lisa RichartHernandez
had left custard bar, there was a sign.

George
We completely missed it. So we got on this road because we got the Jeep we want to go off road and it says road open and public open to the public. So we got on this road. And if anybody ever comes out here and you can go on this road, highly recommended. Do it early in the morning. For me, that’s been the highlight of this trip so far. We were in the middle of nowhere with packs of bison, and then it buffalo wild bison first and then all sudden we came into an area that said it was buffalo something and we saw packs of Buffalo. got incredible pictures, then prairie dogs.

Lisa RichartHernandez
What were those? It was a whole herd of the well the Elks. elk. Yeah.

George
Yeah, it was super cool. So there’s that we were in like a prairie. Right on a dirt road. Yeah, just these beautiful hills again, go to our website. We’re gonna post all the pictures. It was unbelievable. We can’t even describe

Lisa RichartHernandez
a dirt road and we have the jeep. But it’s not. I mean, you could go through there with a regular car.

George
Yeah, we saw minivans. We saw regular cars. Yeah, like,

Lisa RichartHernandez
and there was hardly any cars. I mean, it was rare that we came across another vehicle. But you don’t have to have a Jeep is what I’m saying. It’s not like a rough road.

George
So there’s no cars on this road. We’re in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road. And we get pulled over by the police.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yes.

George
I repeat that we get pulled over by the police. So the park ranger

Lisa RichartHernandez
sees Tyler and Bailey standing up in the back of the Jeep. They’re like F on like an African safari to take in millions of pictures while they’re standing up. And we’re only going on what like 20 miles an hour. Anyways, he pulls us over. Oh, good news is the feds are not on the lookout for George Hernandez no middle initial.

George
And that’s what he said. He said Atlanta. He said, I’m just going to give you a warning. The kids need to stay in the seat. Please put a seat belt. You know, if you stop and you want to take a picture, it’s fine. Stand up. But you know, and I said, Okay, that’s fine. I understand. And he said, Well, I need to see your driver’s license. And as long as the FBI is not looking for you, you’re fine. And I said, Oh, just the FBI. Okay, we’re good.

Lisa RichartHernandez
You know what, though? He did ask a lot of questions. Like, I noticed they do that at like Border Patrol or whatever he was like, so you’re from South Carolina. whereabouts? What brings you here? What do you know, like one of those kind of like, yeah, we’re in the middle of road five in the middle of cave Wind Cave National Park.

George
I used to ask a lot of questions to child traffickers that go through. Maybe we maybe we were smuggling prairie dogs. Who knows? But it was cool. It was all yeah, it’s all fun. And he was very, very nice. And he was just doing his job.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So then we we just kept on going all the way through Wind Cave National Park. And we were going to go see the Wind Cave. And it was closed because of COVID. But fortunately, there was a rest room there. And I asked the park rangers were on site to answer questions, which everybody has been so friendly, and super helpful. And the park rangers are really nice. And they said, Yeah, hotsprings actually has some restaurants there. Even some chain restaurants. He said,

George
Yes. I don’t know what subway

Lisa RichartHernandez
pizza. He said. It’s kind of a big town. It’s got about 30,000.

George
population. Our kids High School has 4000s

Lisa RichartHernandez
No, it’s like 5000 at Wando. So it’s their whole town is smaller than our kids eye school.

George
It’s It’s crazy. So funny side note, I don’t know if you caught her or not. So we walked up to the, to the Ranger to get I wanted to get map and I wanted to ask him some questions. You know, when somebody says to you, I wouldn’t touch you with a 10 foot pole. Well, he had a map on this little table and to point out where he’s talking about, like he wanted to show us where the town was. He literally had this pole. That had to been 10 feet. And

Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah, he was at least six feet. Yeah,

George
he’s pointing to the to the map like from 10 feet away, and I was cracking up inside. I’m thinking this literally is Like, not touching you with a 10 foot?

Lisa RichartHernandez
I know, I know. But you know what here? Okay, so the I believe the governor of south dakota is like she’s not very strict at all. Not a lot of masks, not lockdown. Not. Well, now that I’ve been to South Dakota, I completely understand because they already have social distancing, just by virtue of like sheer land mass. And I mean, most of those farms don’t have neighbors for 10 miles. So I mean, I mean, the biggest

George
so far the biggest city that we pass was

Lisa RichartHernandez
3000 people.

George
No, no, no. The first one we stayed and that was that was pretty populated.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, Sioux City.

George
Yeah. I mean, that was already big. But everything else is like, I think the biggest town we came across was 3000. People.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, right. Yes. Yeah. So and I mean, you think about all those, like places that we what’s it called, you know, just even at wall drug? I mean, they weren’t really, I mean, some It was like a 70% of people maybe have masks on?

George
Yeah, I think that they’re kind of

Lisa RichartHernandez
it’s like when you’re in a crowded place.

George
use your best judgment kind of deal. Yeah. So I think a lot of people had it on but nobody shrugged. If you didn’t have it on.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, they had the Sturgis motorcycle rally is in Sturgis, South Dakota, which is like north of here. And I guess there’s like 200 maybe more 1000 bikers that come for that. I believe it was like last weekend or maybe the week before. It’s the first week of August. So we just missed them by a week or two.

George
Yeah, no, literally, which we saw the bikes going in the opposite direction. When we were coming. What’s a cool place to ride a motorcycle.

Lisa RichartHernandez
I see why they would come here and ride on these roads and beautiful, beautiful scenery, just like we loved it in the jeep. These smooth paved, winding roads through the mountains and just all beautiful views. It’s a great place. I think Jade motorcycle, but I’m glad we were here when they’re not here. Because it would have just been crowded and lots of

George
it’s just you know, it would have been way too crowded. Yeah,

Lisa RichartHernandez
yep. Yep. So, um, let’s see. We got to

George
the restaurant. So we went to the restaurant and had breakfast. And then we went we asked her about a grocery store. And she said, Oh, yeah, we got two of them. What are you looking for?

Lisa RichartHernandez
I just wanted bottled water. She’s like, Oh, I think Sarah’s or Lindsey grocery

George
room’s got a lens. The waters on sale.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yep. But we had breakfast at this little bakery place. It was kind of cute. Very, very homey, very home food. Like, like I could have made it. It was in a restaurant. Well, it was good.

George
Small Town. Small Town food. Yeah. I

Lisa RichartHernandez
mean, there’s only 2000 people in the town.

George
Yeah. It was it was fine. It was good. And then we were while we were there, we realized that the mammoth museum was in the same town. So when in Rome.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So we went to the mammoth site. That’s another tourist place that we needed to go. And we were like, Oh, perfect. So let’s just hit this. Now. We’ve been like on the road since morning. Thank God, we fed the kids. So after we all ate, we were like, all right, we had another spurt of energy. So we decided to go the mammoth site.

George
So this again, is still part of the one hour.

Lisa RichartHernandez
We’re gonna come back from breakfast thing. So now we’re at the mammoth site, which is like you pull up to it, it’s a building. And so I was like, What the heck is this? You know, but you go in how much? Was it a person $8 or something? Yeah, I

George
was super cheap.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so there’s like a little little video that tells you kind of about it. And then you go into the actual where they’re excavating these, these preserved like Mamet, like bones remains. So they have some 60 individual mammoth remains have been identified and preserved at the mammoth sprite, mammoth site in hot springs. And a construction crews stumbled across the mass grave site for the Columbian mammoth, and three woolly mammoth in 1974. And now, museum rides where the excavation is going on. The site is home to the largest repository of Columbian mammoths on the continent even more proved that south of South Dakota’s complex past. So about 26,000 years ago. The spot was a large sinkhole, technically, a karst sinkhole which led to the demise of the mammoth still trapped within it. Nowadays, you can take a 30 minute tour of the sinkhole and actually see an active archaeological project up close and inaction. And it says admission is $10 for adults only

George
spend 10 bucks that turns out to be a nice surprise. I thought it was going to be some cheesy tourist trap, but I thought it was. It was interested. Interesting and educational.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I think we spent about what an hour there maybe. And I downloaded the app on my phone. So it’s like a self guided tour and have like a number one in you read this and everyone just kind of stood around me and I read it out loud. And it was pretty just cool to see that these like petrified remains of these. So what what it was like it was a sinkhole, but it was like it looked like water. That was like 60 feet deep. And so the the these gigantic This is like prehistoric times dinosaurs age, these these mammals would come to get water on the edge of because they were herbivores, they would come on the edge to get the grass and they would go into the water and then it would sink down. It was slippin and they couldn’t get out is what is what it says. So like 60 of them were dead in there. And all their remains. And it’s a really interesting process. There’s a crane inside this building that they built just to excavate the bones. They have to put like a cast around it, and then they take it out. And it’s very interesting. Educational. If you’re in hot springs, and you’re I mean, I think the route that we took was just a great day trip. Yeah, yeah. After that, we headed back to the RV because we were we’re pretty booked. Yeah. Taylor had in his head that we were going to go swimming back at Sylvan Lake, though.

George
We did. We stopped at the lake. Yep, he came home, we came home we got changed, we got in our bathing suits on. Fortunately, on the way there it started raining. And it put a damper on the swim. I mean,

Lisa RichartHernandez
it was cold, the water was freezing, the water would have been cold. If it was 100 degrees out,

George
oh, it was cold outside of the water. Great. I threw a towel over myself just to stay warm. But Tyler was hell bent on getting in the water. And he did it he got in the water a little bit. And they what they wanted to do is jump off this rock. And of course, as soon as you’re walking to the site, there’s signs everywhere, do not jump off the wall rocks, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, $100 fine. So we kind of put the bomber on that. But it was just so cold.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And there was a bunch of kids, there’s a little beach area and there’s a little lodge right there by by Sylvan lake. So that was pretty and we drove back needles highway to get there.

George
And then all the driving around here is beautiful. There’s not a boring road there. The views are incredible. And there’s so many places that you can pull over to take pictures that you know, you can get every angle of this park just from from the drive.

Lisa RichartHernandez
And once again, we were just gonna leave to go swimming and come home and then go out to see the animals later. And that did not happen either. We were again on the road. We went all the way from Sylvan lake. We took 87 to 44 we drove past Mount Rushmore again, and we went all the way down Iron Mountain Road. Iron Mountain Road is very similar to needles highway. Again, you can’t take an RV or anything like that we’re in the jeep can take vehicle. They have several tunnels that are 10 feet wide by 11 feet tall. 12 feet wide by 11 feet tall. So super narrow carved and the rock. Those are the ones that you can see Mount Rushmore. Yeah, that was really cool. So we had to like actually stop and look back. When we are coming. Like coming from

Mount Rushmore.

George
Yeah, to see if you head toward Mount Rushmore. It’s, that’s a lot easier.

Lisa RichartHernandez
That would have been a better smarter drive. So we decided, Well, hey, hey, we missed that whole half of the wilderness loop wildlife loop in the morning. So let’s take the that’s that whole side that we missed. And it was kind of a bummer. We really didn’t see much

George
on the way Oh, and I think we should have stayed on the road. We decided to take another dirt road. Another State Park Road, fisherman’s

Unknown Speaker
flats where

George
we thought okay, that was such a great hit. In the morning that maybe in the afternoon, there’ll be out here again and we always saw with some wild turkeys. Yeah.

Lisa RichartHernandez
The Wind Cave National Park I think was way more viewed as highly,

George
highly recommended. Yeah, yeah. A part prohd five tickets straight across that park and you will not be disappointed early in the morning early in the morning.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I can’t I can’t recommend getting up early in the morning anymore anymore.

George
So that’s it. I, we wanted to go to Badlands. We didn’t make it. I don’t think we’re gonna make Badlands on this trip. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to do everything in this trip port. We’re, we’re gonna have to wing a lot of stuff. I would love to do Badlands, but I’m so happy with what we’ve done so far that I’m not disappointed in the least bit.

Lisa RichartHernandez
No, no. And we’ve had just full full days. As a matter of fact, while we’re in our RV podcasting right now, the kids are outside with making s’mores by the bonfire. Tomorrow morning, we’re gonna do another early morning wildlife drive, we check out of here at noon. And then we’re moving over to the Mount Rushmore. That QA is like the super fancy kind of cafe. It’s got a restaurant and all of our ice cream store all kinds of stuff in its own lake. So we may take it a little more easy tomorrow, because we got a long drive the next day, nine hours over to Bozeman hotsprings, which is about an hour outside of Yellowstone Park. So next week, we’ll be podcasting all about our trip to Yellowstone Park. And we’re going to be staying near the West entrance. And

George
yeah, so stay tuned for our one hour breakfast drive.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yes, we’ve learned our lessons. But I definitely would have loved if someone would have given me that tip before, before we left the RV is to definitely pack a backpack, keep it in the back of your trunk with waters and snacks and a change of clothes and maybe even a bathing suit, depending on the weather and you will be very happy that you did.

George
Yes, we would have been. But regardless, we still had a fantastic day. fabulous time. So

Lisa RichartHernandez
don’t forget to check us check out our photos and everything to see what really happened. And the photos truly don’t even do it justice. But we have some beautiful photos. There’ll be on our Instagram and Facebook. And we’re at RViewpodcast.com There’s links to all of that there. And if you have suggestions for any tips for Yellowstone, please please share them with us. We would love to know how to pack our breakfast before before we left the house for the day. And

George
or even if you have a favorite route, I would have loved to have known that Oh yes. We just happened to stumble across that dirt road. If we had no clue about it, we had no intention of taking that route. But had we not just decided to go for it. We would have missed a tremendous opportunity. Yeah. So if anybody has a favorite route, a secret route, take this dirt road, whatever. Please let us know. Yeah. So

Lisa RichartHernandez
Yellowstone is huge. So I’ve been doing as much research as I can on where to go and what different routes to do. But it’s a lot of work. And there’s not very much Wi Fi internet service here. So well, let’s wrap this up and get to bed because we’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow. And lots more to see a new.

George
Yes. So stay tuned and listen to us next week. We’ll fill you in on our adventures, Yellowstone and everything in between.

Lisa RichartHernandez
Thanks so much. Have a great one. Bye.

intro
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai