May 20, - Jewel Cave National Monument

My pretty little Red (Miata) is such a mess. Yesterday, May 19, she got a bath, the first since we arrived in April.  She was so shiny and bright.  Then today we took off and headed to Jewel Cave National Monument and after traveling 7 miles on a the gravel dirt road the poor thing is filthy. So horrible.

Poor little Red, so dirty!

The trip to the Caverns took 2 1/2 hours. There was lots of road construction and of course we're in Wyoming and South Dakota so there was rain. The actual distance to Jewel Cave was about ninety miles.

Jewel Cave is the third longest cave in the world at approximately 170 miles.  Though that number grows about 4 miles every year.  They have not explored the entire thing.    On the “Scenic tour”, which we took, one only sees about a half mile of the cave.  In June each year they open the “wild cave tours” and on that you get to crawl around in the cave and explore about 4 miles and it takes about 4 hours.   

Anyway on our tour we were down about 380 ft below surface and walked up and down 726 
steps.  We saw large geos, nail head spar, box work, and a few, very few stalactites.  Unfortunately, the lighting was such that I didn’t get a good shot of the nail head spar.  We enjoyed the tour of the cave.  It was quite interesting and quite different from Kartchner caverns.

I don't have any photos of the grounds, because much of it was under construction and the weather was rainy.

After touring the cave, naturally T was hungry. So we had to find someplace to eat. We drove over to Custer City and looked around. It is a quaint touristy little town. Most people who travel through the area use it as a stop off to see the national monuments in the area, of which there are at least four within a hundred miles.   T had his favorite sandwich at Subway.  Yes my husband likes his Subway sandwiches.  

I found this quaint little place called the Purple Pie and we went there and had blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream for desert.  I of course had to have a my picture with the owner, Bob Yehle. He and his wife come to Custer in the summer.  They run the Purple Pie until the season is over.   Then close up and go back to California for the winter.  The pie was great and it was fun visiting with the owner.  

Purple Pie

Bob Yehle, owner