Bold North Tour 2018: RoadSchool-SD Wax, Wood, and Wisdom

10/13- 10/14/2018
Our warm and sunny arrival to Custer State Park changed overnight... SNOW all day Saturday, so we made up some Vegetable Beef Soup in the crockpot and headed to Keystone, SD!

We didn't see the typical presidents, as we did that in 2015 and wouldn't have seen them through the snow anyway. No... we got up close and personal with all 45 presidents of the United States of America! Plus some other notable people from history!

I thought this might be cheesy, but was pleasantly surprised. There was a really informative short video showing the HISTORY of wax figure artists, and how the process works. Scroll down on the Presidential Wax Museum home page for a quick video on the PROCESS. It is absolutely remarkable.

There were some figures more realistic than others, but all of them just made our historic knowledge of them more real. To see them as they once were.

Some of our favorites...

George and Martha Washington consulting with Betsy Ross

Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson

A favorite quote from Thomas Edison:

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

Teddy Roosevelt drew me in the most... his fingerprints are all over the National Parks that we so enjoy... and the girls love that his kids had all sorts of animals in the White House... he must have been an interesting man to know. I wouldn't have been surprised to see him get up from the chair!

A spin-off of a well known photo of JFK and his son, John.

A good example of realistic vs. not quite... Jackie Kennedy doesn't share the same artist as Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, and Judge Sarah Hughes... however, it helped us understand the tragedy of the moment. Blood stains and all.

We're thankful to Dwight D. Eisenhower for our country's interstate system!

From the museum we wandered through Keystone in the falling snow to see what few stores were still open this late in the season (not many), get some ice cream (why not?), and watch a chainsaw carver create a waving bear from a pine stump.

Kate tried not to actually sit down, as the seats were wet.

A guy came over from Turkey to learn English, got a job with the main chainsaw artist, showed him his art portfolio, and is now learning how to carve. 'Merica.

Lily was intrigued.

An example of what he was working on. Pretty cute!

Our drive back through the park looked a LOT different than last nights drive!

Joe's not so sure about the continuing snow...

Sunday we woke up to 4" of snow, got the laundry done, and checked out the Custer State Park Visitor Center, where they had some cool facts about bison. We also discovered that the Game Lodge just up the road was once visited by Presidents Eisenhower and Coolidge, with the latter staying for three months due to "fantastic fishing." It only came out later that the river was restocked every night with fish for the President. ;)