Today began with Brian driving (15 minutes) to see if he could get in line to get tickets for a tour of Jewel Cave. Turns out arriving 30 minutes early puts you third in line! By the time they opened at 8 there were 50+ people hoping to get on a tour. Brian was able to get us tickets on the 9:30 tour, then drove back to the camper to eat and shower and get Donna and then drive back to the cave. We made it with 5 minutes to spare!

We had a great tour of the cave with a nice group of guests, a number of which Brian became friends with

 while waiting in line. Jewel Cave is now over 200 miles in length and they only feel they’ve discovered about 10% based on the air flow volume when the pressure changes. It’s the 5th longest cave in the world. We got to see many of the features that make it unique, but the main feature is that almost all the walls are covered with calcite crystals, giving it the name Jewel Cave. Brian brought along his UV flashlight and found that the calcite in the cave was phosphorescent! It had a cool green glow when the light was turned off.

After our tour, we headed back to the camper for lunch then on to Hill city to visit the Black Hills Institute of Geologic Research Museum (everyone calls it the Dinosaur Museum). It contained the most amazing collections of rocks/minerals/fossils that we think we’ve ever seen. Its focus is on South Dakota and the United States, but they’ve collected from all over the world. A number of private rock/mineral collectors have donated their collections to the museum but they do digs/explorations all over the area looking for more items. This is the group that found ‘Sue’ the world’s first complete T-Rex, she’s now in Chicago, but they’ve got a replica of it. The number of specimens on display was amazing for a small museum in a little town in the middle of the Black Hills. If you are ever near Hill City, it’s worth a stop!

After the museum we were trying to find something non-hiking related to do as it was in the mid 90’s. On a whim we tried to see if we could get tickets on the 1880 Train to Keystone. Luckily they had seats 

available for the last trip of the day. We rode about 10 miles from Hill City to Keystone through some beautiful country. Saw a number of old abandoned mines/buildings and 10-15 deer, a group of turkeys, and an osprey nest (occupied). After a 15 min break in Keystone we boarded the train for the ride back. The car we rode in was pretty full and Brian asked one the the helpers on the train if it would be possible to ride in a different car on the way back. Turns out one of the beautiful vintage cars had no-one in it and they allowed us to have the car to ourselves. It was a really cool car with antique stained glass above the windows and leather seats. We felt like we were back in time.

Tomorrow is another hot day, so we’ll probably be doing some truck sightseeing and museum touring.