Fort Hayes Bus Tour

Today was a very full, but exciting day and SO worth the $80 it cost each of us. We took a tour with Fort Hayes Mount Rushmore tour bus, (don’t start thinking we were on a bus with purple haired old ladies and men) most of the people on the bus were younger than us with small children. We highly recommend it, best money we have spent.

Our day started with being at Fort Hayes for 7:30 for a chuck wagon breakfast of pancakes, sausages, (biscuits and gravy which we didn’t have) and any beverages.  We ate out of tin plates just like the pioneers and gold paners did. Then we wandered the village at Fort Hayes, all the buildings were the homes, shops and buildings used in the movie Dancing With Wolves. The buildings had all been dismantled after the movie shoot was finished, then moved to Fort Hayes to be used for the tour company

We boarded the bus about 9:00 and started the tour with the funniest, most knowledgeable and best driver tour guide that you could ask for. He filled us in with facts about everything, suggested different activities around Rapid City, and so much humor, he had us laughing and entertained continually, a really nice man. First he took us up to Mount Rushmore, this is truly amazing, so majestic. We had an hour to view the President’s faces, the museum and walk around, it was so beautiful and neat to see.

(Presidents faces through tunnel)

From there we toured through the Iron Mountain Road. As soon as we started driving through here, we realized we made the right decision to go with the tour. The roads are so windy, sharp cliffs, narrow roads, sharp turns, hairpin turns and tunnels that the bus just fits through. The tunnel is 102” wide and the bus is 96” wide, not a lot of space. We wouldn’t have had a relaxing drive even though the speeds hardly ever went over about 35mph, it would have been stressful at times. And then there are 3 pigtail turns, a pigtail is when the road comes around in a complete circle over top itself, a very tight circle and your passing back over the road that you were just on. We went through 7 tunnels and the last one that we went through was so tight, the driver had to line himself up really straight before entering the tunnel. He tried once and had to back up to fit and bumped the inside of the tunnel once. There were a bunch of people on the other side watching us come through, taking pictures and wanting to see if we could do it. So he said, “let’s make them think we’re stuck”, so he made the bus rock, roaring the engine, then put the 4-way flashers on to make them think we were stuck in the tunnel, meanwhile he has a paper on his front windshield that says “student driver” which he’s not. They all laughed and clapped when we finally came out and we had quite the show, there must have been about 25 people there watching. This was the kind of guy he was, quite hilarious all day.

We carried on through Custer State Park where we stopped to have lunch at the State Park Lodge and had the best lunch ever and we both tried Buffalo Stew, very yummy. The lodge was built when President Coolidge came to visit the park, a really nice building.

We went through Needles highway, which also was filled with hairpin turns and coming down the mountain in constant “s” turns all the way down. The needles are rock formations that shoot up many feet in the air like rods or needles, smoothed edges instead of rugged edges like the mountains. Again, we realized we made the right decision about the bus tour. By this time, I ran out of power on my battery for both my camera and my movie camera (I left my other battery at the hotel), so the rest of the pics are on my iphone. We went to Sylvan Lake where the movie National Treasure was made, so peaceful and calm, the rocks look so nice, they almost look artificial. Then off to Crazy Horse to see the monument being carved since approx. 1947, it’s bigger than Mount Rushmore.

About 5:30 we returned back to Fort Hayes for a chuck wagon supper and dinner show. We had roast beef, chuck wagon potatoes, baked beans, biscuits, applesauce and spice cake for dinner. Their band entertained and played music all the way back from the 1920’s, and were quite entertaining. The evening ended at about 8:30. All of the meals at Fort Hayes and park entry fees were all included in the price we paid, it was such a good deal and nice that we both were able to relax and enjoy the scenery

We had a VERY full day and are exhausted. We know we wouldn’t have been able to see all the things that we saw today if we tried to do this on our own.

Talk to you tomorrow!