The Badlands

Yesterday (Sunday, July 31st) we pulled out of Pleasant Valley Farm and Cabins in the Black Hills and moved Eastward to the Badlands.  We listened to the sermon in the van for “church”, oh how we miss being in community at church in New Hampshire!  Only one more Sunday to go!  Before going to the Badlands we decided to take a quick pit stop in the random attraction of Wall Drug.  I mean, when you see billboards for it, you have to stop, right?  That’s definitely their marketing strategy.  I was proud we fell for none of their ploys except using clean, free restrooms, doing a quick walk through and playing in their new “backyard” space for a hot minute.

Now for the real destination!  Badlands National Park.  I remember this from the cross country trip we did when I was a kid.  I think we got to see it at sundown which is truly spectacular, but I’m glad we at least spent a good part of the day learning about this interesting area and exploring it for ourselves.  Here’s Janseman at the first overlook.

A little farther down the road we found one of the few picnic spots that was designed to provide some shade in this very open-to-the-elements park.  While I made sandwiches, the boys ran around exploring and scrambling up some of the unique hills around.  The Badlands look like it is sand that would just crumble away, but it’s solid to stand on, but definitely can be slippery.  They developed a sliding game to descend the different little peaks.

We had a very exciting sighting (right after a very frustrating couple minutes of the big boys being ridiculous to each other so I had jumped from the front seat into the back between the captain’s chairs and made Tavin go up front, all while Doug was driving…sometimes you just gotta take matters into your own hands!).  Doug has wanted to see a Big Horned Sheep since we learned about them in Colorado.  Penn amazingly spotted three of them as we were just driving along these hills.  Can you see all three??

A pretty cool discovery at our final national park of the trip.  We also enjoyed discovering the Visitor’s Center as they let you watch the paleontologists that are working on fossils found in the Badlands.  And these are just shells or tiny snail-like objects, we got to see huge skulls from saber-tooth tiger type animals.  The lady working was scraping sand from the teeth of the animal and said to us that we were the first people to ever see those teeth.  How incredible!!

We bought our final sticker to add to our car top carrier assortment.  A total of 13 parks!  What a thing to get to reflect on all we’ve seen these past six weeks and just the variety that lies within our country’s boundaries.  

On our drive to the exit of the park we did a quick trail for one more outlook into the vastness of the Badlands.  Some lady offered to take a picture of the boys and I.  Well, sure!

Goodbye, Badlands!!  I think this park is often underrated.  I think it’s beautiful and interesting and amazing.  If we had more time and it wasn’t ninety-three degrees, I would’ve loved to climb some of the longer trails and really get into it.  

It was a four hour drive to our crash pad…the last hotel night of this long trip!  The last six nights will all be with friends.  Yay!  We have definitely perfected our quick unpack/repack for these hotels though.  And the boys all know what to do.  It’s pretty impressive!  Check out this handsome helper.

When unloading I just had to take a picture of the front of the minivan.  Today we hit 9,000 miles!  And I’m pretty sure our bumper shows that we probably killed about 9,000 bugs in the process (and one bird back in Shenandoah).

Until the next post!

 

Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park & Wind Cave National Park

I definitely underestimated the Black Hills area of South Dakota.  Wow, it has a lot to offer!  I mean look at that post title!  So much in just one day within a couple dozen miles of each other.  And it’s not just busy things or man-made attractions, it is beautiful country.  

I have to admit that I started the day a little grumpy and run-down after a couple not-so-great nights of sleep and let’s be honest, just all-around travel weariness at this point (mostly due to the repetitive nature of the minivan misbehavior by a certain couple kiddos).  Anyways, throughout the day my mood was turned around by our experiences.  The outdoors, creation and laughable moments are certainly good for the soul!

First stop this morning was Mount Rushmore!  I was here on our cross country trip as a kid and it has definitely been built up.  I do not remember the concrete parking garages or the stone entryway and aisle of flags leading up to the view of the mountain, there’s an amphitheater beneath the great stone faces now too.  It wasn’t necessarily ugly or bad, but I remember it more simply as a park amidst tall pines and a walk through the woods to the viewing area (or am I just recalling this from the scene in North by Northwest?).  Here’s our first glimpse…

And then I took a picture of the boys under the New Hampshire flag.  We were actually all quite excited to see a piece of home!

We got a family picture of course (well, almost all of us)…

And then we walked the 0.6 mile “Presidential Trail” for all sorts of great views…

The trail leads you to the sculptor’s studio where a ranger did a very interesting talk about the whole process of bringing the monument to fruition (and how it remains unfinished to this day).  Here’s a picture of the actual model they used to base the monument off of.

After finishing the trail and checking out the exhibits in the Visitor’s Center we loaded back in the van and on to our next stop…Sylvan Lake (which we didn’t realize was actually in Custer State Park, but we are so glad it was!).

At first, I thought this might be a miss.  It was hot, we had to walk to find a picnic spot and it wasn’t a great one.  A sunny piece of dock.  Koen jumped in, Doug jumped in.  Everyone else baked for a bit.  I hid in the shade making everyone’s lunches.  A fish died.  The boys named it Greg.  And then they keep talking about it as we ate.  Gross.  So at this point, mood hasn’t improved.  But, wait!  Time to walk and explore.  Things do get better!  This lake spot is so cool.  Boulders just rise up out of the water.  There’s a hiking path all around the lake.

We heard rushing water and lo and behold…a waterfall in the crevice!

And look at this cool tunnel we walked through!

I pointed out this hole in the rock to the boys.  I asked Penn to check out if it was possible to crawl up behind and peek through.  He (and all the brothers) quickly checked it out.  Mission accomplished!  If you zoom in, you can see all four little heads in the hole!

So pretty!!

After hiking around the lake to the beach, all jumping in and swimming for awhile (this was a huge boost for me, I worked up the courage to get in the cold lake and swim around some big rock structures and it was so energizing, game changer!) and then getting ready to go, we took off down the Needles Highway through Custer State Park.  Doug had measured the van just to make sure we could fit on the roadway and its tunnels.  But before we got to the first tunnel we were stuck behind a Jeep.  I jumped out to see what the wait was about.  It was because a huge tour bus was coming through the tunnel!  I wish I had gotten a picture.  There was about an inch on every side of margin.  Craziness!  That made me fully confident we would be fine (especially with Doug at the wheel).  Here we go!  Still a tight-feeling squeeze!

And another tunnel about 15 minutes later.  A little less intense, but still, not for the faint of heart!

Best part of the day right here.  Absolute turnaround for me…this was a great day!  A bison traffic jam!  We saw them all gathered in the field and then spotted about eight cars stuck on the road.  Nowhere to go but through it all so we just embraced it.  It was amazing!  Up close and personal!

Eventually Doug couldn’t stand the fact people were just OK sitting around forever waiting for the bison to move, so he started maneuvering through the crowd of giant animals and around the stopped vehicles to make a way for us.  Talk about alpha male!

In this next picture the calf is nursing!  We saw this happen multiple times.  So cute!  And one time it was right next to my door.  I could see milk running down the calf’s lip!

But we did eventually make it through.  It must have been at least 200 bison and a 30 minute process or more (which no one else but Douglas was trying to get going).  Next stop, Wind Cave National Park.  Doug’s not really into caves, a tad claustrophobic!  So this was more of a quick stop park.  But it was still interesting.  A highlight (which I don’t have a picture for) were the adorable prairie dogs everywhere.  We did stop at the Visitor’s Center to learn about the history of the caves.  Very cool!  Doug couldn’t handle being in the basement with displays about how tight the cave crawls are, so he disappeared pretty quickly. I, of course, read lots of historical and geological info to the boys from the exhibits.  Poor guys!

After all these adventures we drove back to our cute cabin and had dinner, finished a movie together and got to bed.  A good day. Thank you, Lord, for working me through that rough start to some pretty amazing memories!  Tomorrow, moving on…again.

Devil’s Tower & New Digs

On to Devil’s Tower National Monument.  I remember seeing this on our cross country as kids, but I don’t remember going in and walking around, I feel like we stopped on the side of the road for pictures and it was at dusk?  So anyways, it was fun to go in and do the 1.3 mile walk around the base and catch several different views of the unbelievable natural structure.  

It was nice to stretch our legs, then it was on to Spearfish, South Dakota for lunch and a Walmart Supercenter stock up before going to our place in the Black Hills.  Funny how Walmart runs have become a family event on this trip!  Doug takes Penn and Jansen and they make a whole game of it.  And I take the older boys and coach them through appropriate grocery store behavior as they spend most of their time messing with each other and the cart!  At the end of the trip Doug takes Penn and Jansen out on the cart and they go really fast and then Doug has them jump off.  I caught them as they sped away.

After loading up on groceries, it was time to head to our next destination of the Black Hills, South Dakota.  We had reserved a cabin on a goat farm (naturally).  It is adorable!  After unloading the van (yet again!) we explored the property.  Just lovely.

They even have pick-your-own buckets of lettuce off the back porch of each cabin!

And a pick-your-own vegetable garden.  I let Koen and Tavin pick a little carrot each to try.  

At the end of the lane is a historic site…the site of the last buffalo kill in South Dakota.  So random, definitely sad and I couldn’t tell if it was here to celebrate or commemorate or what.  But we checked it out at least (i.e. we read it and then the boys climbed the rock it was on).

After a home-cooked cabin meal of grilled drumsticks, Annie’s mac & cheese and kale and cabbage slaw, we cleaned up (the dishes and the boys) and settled in for a little “research” for our next day…we watched the first half of National Treasure 2, a family fav.  The storyline actually takes them to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills.  It was Jansen’s first time watching the movie and we just watched the first half.  But it was fun to just chill as a family and snuggle and watch a movie for the first time in a long time!