Train Travel

We decided to take an 1880 train from Hill City to Keystone. The ride is about an hour long (each way). It was a last minute decision to go and we needed to drive from Mount Rushmore to Hill City. After the cave excursion I wanted to go back to Rushmore and look around a bit more. We ended up seeing the Sculptor's Studio which had a 1/12 scale of the mountain and faces. Michael then took the kids to have ice cream while I looked at another exhibit.
















In a case of miscommunication, he waited for me on one of the patios and I was at the car. We weren't sure that we were going to make the last train of the day but we did...by three minutes. We pulled in the parking lot at the train station and were the last ones on the train.
We ended up in the car right behind the engine. There are advantages and disadvantages to this seating arrangement. You get to hear the engine, see the steam come out, and hear the whistle REALLY well. The train whistles every time it crosses the road. We must have serpentined the road twenty times. A factoid about the train whistle. It blows two long, a short, and then another long. This harkens back to when the Queen's boat would enter or leave the harbor and would whistle the same pattern giving it the right of passage. Anyhow, when we rode the train back, we sat in last row of the last car. Much more enjoyable.