It’s amazing how sharply the landscape changes in the short distance between the Badlands and the Black Hills. Rolling plains and eroding sedimentary formations shift to pine-covered mountains of tall, dark granite. Brandon was tempted to try the Needles Eye highway in Custer Park (he watched several youtube videos of buses and RVs pulling it off), but good sense prevailed. We’ll have to see it next time.

We did attend the evening lighting ceremony at Mount Rushmore, and the next day we visited the still-in-progress-after-fifty-years Crazy Horse Memorial. The original sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, was an interesting character. Born in 1908 to a Polish prizefighter in Boston, Ziolkowski left home at sixteen because he “still couldn’t whip him.” He eventually won a sculpting prize at the New York World’s Fair, and he assisted Gutzon Borglum at Mount Rushmore. He worked on the Crazy Horse Memorial from 1948 until his death in 1982. His ten children are still working on the giant project.

Pete, Nan, and Brandon learning to hoop dance

After Crazy Horse, we drove to Devil’s Tower in eastern Wyoming. That’s a gorgeous spot. It has an easy walking path around the base. We watched ant-sized climbers working their way to the top.

Our Cheyenne friends were out-of-town, but they suggested a route through Caspar, so we could visit the National Historic Trails museum. Western settlers crossed the North Platte River at Caspar before diverging onto the California, Oregon, and Mormon trails.

Brandon was content to watch highlights from the first few UGA football games this season, but the final Saturday of our travels was a big game day: UGA vs. SC. Brandon’s goal was to make it a hotel room in time for kick-off. Then the RV went bonkers. Here’s where it happened:

“Don’t worry,” Brandon said, as we limped to a rest stop. “I think I know what the problem is.” He’d purchased a little computer scanner, which reads the problem codes for the RV. The diagnosis was just as he suspected.

Apparently, our engine has a common issue, and Brandon read about it on an RV blog when he was researching which vehicle to buy. He’d purchased a replacement part, just in case. Now he calmly installed it. Boy. Scout.