Vacation Day 2

After driving lots the day before, we took it easy with a train ride to a nearby town. It was an old fashion train the only one of its kind because of the engine.

After the ride we went to the Mammoth Museum. Michael and Dad enjoyed looking at a real life archaically dig. After that we went to the Wind Cave. It was a dry cave so there were no crystals a young boy discovered it in the late 1800's. The cave is the third longest in the world. Even my mother liked it. The pictures of the cave did not come out, but the park around the cave was very nice and had little paire dogs and more buffalo.

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Day 1: the scenery shots

As I mentioned in my last post South Dakota was very beautiful- very green and very wide open. So in homage of the of the beauty I will be only posting scenery shots. The first day we went to Mount Rushmore- the main draw of SD. You are greeted by a lane of flags of all 50 United States.

We took the audio tour to learn more about the place and the building of it. Michael and I are into audio and trolley tours. Then we walked about 1.5 miles around the the monument. At the end we were quizzing each other on what we learned- I had a stumper of Which two presidents died on the same day and what was the day?

The answer is Thomas Jefferson and Adams both died on July 4, 1831.

Here are some pictures of the monument

Next we went to Sylvan lake (picture on previous blog) and walked around 1/2 of the lake. The road we took to the lake was very curvey- to see the Black Hills, which are not really black it is just the reflection of the sun on the montains that make them look black- two of the pictures are the same shot, just the different reflection showing them look black.

Then we drove through Custer State Park- of a 20 mile road of open park land where the deer and the antelope play and also lots of buffalo.

Then we went to Crazy Horse memorial, where a family is in the process of carving out the biggest monument in history. It is a huge undertaking and my sister thought it would never be finished, however I thought it might be finished in the next 500 years so we have a $20 bet on that one. (the white marble statue is 1/33 of what the finish product should look like)

14 more to go!

We just got back from South Dakota where we put 900+ miles on a rent a car traveling around seeing the state. Lots of people gave us a hard time about visiting South Dakota for our vacation- mainly we went to cross a state off of my goal to see all the states. However we were very impressed by the beauty of South Dakota and had a fun time. As an added bonus we spent a day in Wyoming so I actually got to cross two states off the list! Here are the states I have left to visit- any takers for traveling buddies? Here are a few pictures of the trip- will be posting more with stories in the next week.

Michael at Sylvan Lake. It was very green and the skies were very blue.

Michael at the Badlands

The Family at Devil's Tower (my personal favorite)