September 4, DAY 7 Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial

Wow, what a day! Spent the day in the Black Hills. It's just beautiful. The locals say it has been a very wet year and I've been told the Black Hills have never looked better.

We went to Mount Rushmore today. There was a mix up with our rental car reservation
(😆see footnote),  so we drove the coach up to the mountain.

Turned out to be a great thing! There was RV parking literally at the entrance to the promenade leading to the viewing point so we were mere steps from the mountain.

 So we did the obligatory selfies and actually a nice lady insisted on taking our picture which was nice. But the thing is, I was sitting at the entrance to the promenade with Lance beacause "no pets past this point"... and the Nice lady said I don't care what it says we're going in. And she drug us up closer to get the picture!

Joni went into the gift shop and got to meet and take pictures with a 98 year old man who was a driller on the Mt. Rushmore project. He has written a little book and he signed a copy for her!

We left there and headed over to the Crazy Horse Monument which is under construction.  It is already spectacular but the finished product will be unbelievable.  There are numerous buildings with museums, gifts, etc. but we really couldn't leave the dog so we didn't go in. Anyway the goal was to view the sculpture! It's way cool.

Meanwhile, we have a couple minor issues with the coach- one: blew a fuse that powers the Garmin Navigator and our USB ports,  and 2 the generator is leaking oil. Now, we don't need the generator at all when we're plugged into shore power, but we have been running it while driving to power the HVAC cause it's been so stinking hot! So I made a few calls to mobile repair guys. Everyone is booked out. So this evening we got back and we're having a cocktail when there's a knock on the door. Joni opens the door and there's 2 guys standing there, and the one guy says "I'm Brian, you called me about repairs, and I just got the message that you're here at the Elks Lodge, and me and my buddy here were just pulling in for opening night of league dart throwing".
You can't  make this stuff up! So the one guy dives into my generator compartment and finds a loose oil filter. He cleaned it, re-installed it and topped up the oil. The other guy says I'll  call you tomorrow to come back for the fuse issue but we gotta get in for Darts. So I  give them a 20 for the first bucket of beers and they go on their way! I'm serious when I say I've never seen nicer people than South Dakota!

Oh yeah, and the gas price....? What is up with California? !

😆footnote. Our Enterprise rental car was supposed to be ready on Tuesday morning but the reservation got messed up. To get it resolved they had to fly in some hand controls from Montana, and scramble to get them installed today. We finally picked up the car this afternoon. We had already decided to just stay another day, so we will return the car Friday.  The Enterprise manager was a great guy, very apologetic.  He felt so bad that he comp'd the whole thing. Well, almost. He had to charge us $0.01, because the computer wouldn't accept a zero charge!