Day 3

Up early, we left the campsite around 8AM and headed to Hill City/Mt Rushmore KOA, SD. Our first stop was K-Mart to pick up some needed supplies. Mission accomplished, we headed east on Rte 90 towards South Dakota.

The 260+ miles journey held many sites for us to take in...numerous pronghorn, oil wells (old and new), open pit coal mines, 100+ coal trains, thousand's of Angus, incredible landscapes, and we experienced an incredible change from the wide open plains of the mid-west to the Black Hills of South Dakota. As a side note for all that are interested in gas mileage...we averaged 6 mpg from Sheridan to Hill City.

Before arriving in Hill City, we stopped at Jewel Cave National Park http://www.nps.gov/jeca/ to explore the country's second largest cave. Kentucky's Mammoth Cave is the largest - YEAH BRAVO!!! We were warned that the cave's temperature was a constant 47 degrees, so we all put on jackets and entered the elevator which took us down 300 ft. to start our guided tour of Jewel cave tunnels. This was a truly amazing experience...

Leaving the Park we had only 25 mile to go to reach our KOA at MT Rushmore/Hill City, SD. Before reaching the KOA we needed to stop for gas. After expertly driving Rolling Teepee through some very difficult maneuvers, we managed to align ourselves perfectly with the pump. Unfortunately, there were a number of traumatic incidents that occurred while we were filling up. A fellow RV'ist had a major gas leak and the entire police and fire department ascended on the Exxon station. A young hitch hiker was caught up in the mix and forced to empty her entire backpack. Tears streaming from her eyes, we all felt she was in serious trouble. Ironically, the only one - other that Rolling Teepee - to emerge unscathed was a group of bikers! Only in the WILD WEST!!!

We arrived at the KOA at 4:30PM...it is amazing. The number of activities are incredible: horse barn, miniature golf, three pools, 180 ft water slide, giant bounce bubble, and my personal favorite -  $2 all you can eat pancakes from 7-11AM!!!!