We had a monster summer vacation this year - we left in late June and headed out to S. Dakota to do some of the touristy things there like Mt. Rushmore....because let's be clear, would we ever go on a special trip there on our own? We didn't think so, so we tacked it onto our summer vacation for Amy's work conference that was in Park City Utah. We thought that we'd make this a national park experience, seeing as we have Kaleb who is grade 4 and thus could get us in for free to the parks! :). Thanks Kaleb!
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| We're ready to fly out! |
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| One of many hotels that we would stay at on this trip! |
We flew out Friday afternoon, and over the next two days, we feasted our eyes on some amazing nature and monuments. We first headed out to the Badlands, with a small detour to feed the prairie dogs. Karis was aghast that he had paid money to buy peanuts for prairie dogs - seeing as growing up on a farm made his thoughts of these animals as "pests" :).
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| Zachary actually got one to eat the peanut from him! |
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| Patiently waiting for this one to take it |
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| Sneaking up to these two! |
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| We also stopped at a nearby exhibit of early farming/cabins etc - only the three of us were game enough to get dressed up! |
Next up - the Badlands where we were just amazed at how cool that area was. We wished that we had spent the whole day there hiking and exploring! The kids had a great time climbing on the structures and exploring - it reminded us of our Aunt Elaine and Uncle Murray's house where we explored a similar area. While there, we saw big-horned sheep that were wandering around and starting to get irritable, so there were some 'head butts' before we left.
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| Checking out the big horn sheep over in the distance by the road |
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| Panoramic view |
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| Addison taking a selfie with Daddy! |
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| They had a blast climbing all over these hills! |
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| Dad (3) steadies Addi-cakes! |
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| Mr. Explorer |
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| Conquers the terrain! |
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| This reminds me of a very similar picture at Dead Horse State Park in Utah 2 years ago! |
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| Beautiful day! |
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| Kaleb and Amy always take a selfie together as a tradition - he looks a bit worried doesn't he? |
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| Sweet moment - holding hands - Zachary is always so sweet with Addison! |
After that, we headed back to Crazy Horse Memorial - with a small stop at Wall Drug that is a HUGE drug store that made its name over the years with the fact that it would give free water to weary travelers. It now is a tourist attraction of its own right!
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| The store is something like 70,000 square feet now - it has a restaurant, ice cream store, donut shop etc etc - we didn't even explore the whole thing, and there were people EVERYWHERE! |
Crazy Horse Memorial was a very educational stop - with an interesting tidbits in the video that stayed in our minds afterward - such as the sculpture who had to climb something like 900 steps every day to get to the top of the mountain and when he'd get there, he would hear his generator start to make a "ka-putt, ka-putt, ka-putt" sound before it would quit entirely. He would then have to climb down, start it up, and make the trek up again the same 900 steps! He said one day he lost count how many times he had to do that climb! Can you imagine, that is true dedication!
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Rendering in front, the real mountain in the background
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After Crazy Horse, we went to the iconic Mt. Rushmore. It was fun to explore the state flags, the movie, and the walks around. The kids had fun "tramping" around in the woods, with Addison proudly telling me that she was "the best climber!" It ended up raining cats and dogs while we were there, so we stopped in the cafe to grab some supper and try to wait it out, but the storm won when it cut out the electricity so we headed on to the hotel. It was a great day!
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| Climbing on the side of the hill |
The next day, we got up and drove through Custer State Park through the "Needles Highway" which was really fun as it is an interesting landscape as the rock formations just jut up from the ground - tall and thin like needles - hence the name. The road goes through the "eye of the needle" in a few places where they have blasted a single lane through the needle for the road. It was fun, but windy road! We saw lots of wild life like buffalo along the way - although again we have experienced bison a lot when we visit Aunt Elaine and Uncle Murray, so we weren't as "wowed" as always wer!
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| Here we go - about the thread the needle! :) |
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| Spires! |
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| Looking at a buffalo off in the distance! |
We stopped next at the Mammoth Dig site where the kids had the chance to become archaeologists and dig for mammoth bones. It was well done, and we learned a lot about mammoths!
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| 60 mammoth fossils in one site! |
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| Those are some big tusks! |
Our next step was Wind Cave - and we discovered a major new thing about the Z-family. Apparently we aren't cave people! We were underground for about an hour, and we were so ready to go back above board! Kaleb was the only one who said that he kind of liked being in the small enclosed spaces!
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| How do we get out of here?! |
We ended our day with a drive through Iron Mountain Road, which culminated in a great view of Mt. Rushmore again. It had lots of hairpin turns etc, which at this point Karis emphatically stated that he was a prairie boy who liked straight roads on a grid! No more winding roads!!! As we drove back, there was a bit of excitement when we passed by several cop cars that had surrounded an RV, and the police officers were surrounding the car with their weapons drawn. No idea what was going on, but it looked serious!
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| A listing of all of the crazy twists and turns in Iron Mountain Road! |
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| And there is mt Rushmore through the trees! |
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| Zachary and Addison fell asleep! |
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| At one point, the road splits apart and you are just on a single track! |
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| Mt Rushmore again as we come out of this tunnel. |
The long weekend ended with us embarking on a 10 hour drive to Deer Valley though Wisconsin. We decided that we could have used a few more days in S. Dakota. It was gorgeous, lots of fun stuff to do, and great weather! We would recommend it! The Zs aren't known for long road trips but Pinterest was amazing - such great ideas and we really had a fun non-whiny trip! There were long hours of no cell coverage in Wisconsin - completely desolate with nary a town or a house. At one point there was a lone gas station at "three corners" where three highways joined together. We stopped for gas and Karis started a conversation with the gas station attendant - who told us that he was from Tampa (inner city area) and that he moved there to get away from the inner city! He had on a tuque and long sleeves/pants in the middle of summer - we can't imagine what a surprise he is going to get during the middle of winter!!!
Anyway, our phase 1 of the vacation was really fun - great memories and we will share part 2 of our vacation in Utah for the next blog post!
