Our little family along with our friends, the Torres family, took a trip over the 4th of July weekend. We got up bright and early on the 4th and drove to Custer, South Dakota. Our trip was so much fun! I never thought that I would like South Dakota as much as I did! We were able to see so much and we were able to do it with great company! Here is our trip in pictures!
Lily wants to take a picture every time we get the flag placed in our yard. Luckily they placed ours right before we headed off so she was able to get her picture taken with the American Flag! She is a little patriotic! After pictures were taken, we were off on our trip! The drive took 8 hours with two hour long stops along the way.
Once we got to Custer, we checked into our vacation home and set out to explore Custer. It was great to walk around and explore a little.
After we explored for a while, we ate dinner at one of the local places and then headed home for bed. They didn't have fireworks due to high wildfires and the potential for more. When we told Lily, she cried. She was very sad. She had been looking forward to "in July" (what she calls the 4th of July) ever since we left the fireworks last year.
The first full day in South Dakota, we went to several different places. The first stop was the Wind Caves. These were really cool! We went on a cave tour and Lily did AMAZING! She did 200+ steps, some really steep!, and didn't even get tired! Daddy was a real trooper as well! He carried Logan the whole way!
Ready for the hike!
This is the natural entrance to the Wind Caves. The Wind Caves were discovered in 1881 by Charles Crary. They are home to the world's largest boxwork cave formation.
Boxwork
After we went on the cave tour, Lily became a Jr. Ranger! She was so excited about becoming a Jr. Ranger. She was extra careful to take care of the things around her as soon as she had her badge!
After the Wind Caves, we headed to Custer State Park and drove through it. One of the largest buffalo herds in North America lives there. There were soooo many buffalo! I thought there were a lot in Yellowstone, but this place had a lot more than that!
We also pet the wild burros. They are so wild that they approach everyone, especially those with food! The kids thought it was a lot of fun to pet the donkey!
They would walk right along side your window until they realized you weren't going to feed them!
The white burrow visited Lily at her window! Lily thought that was super cool!
And as soon as we were finished with the burrows, Logan took a nap! I love how he decided to use Lily's quiet book as a pillow!
Once we left Custer State Park, we headed to Mt. Rushmore! Incredible! Such a patriotic experience. These faces represent the United States! I met a really awesome lady there. She was from London and had made the trip from London just to see Mt. Rushmore! She was amazed by the structure! As were we!
We stayed and had dinner and waited for the Lighting ceremony. That was really cool. Lucky for us, it started to rain right after. I don't just mean a little rain either! It was torrential down pour for about 45 minutes. We waited some of it out in the covered parking before we drove back to Custer in it. The kids were loving our sweatshirts to warm themselves as they were wet from the run back to the car!
The next day we started at Bear Country USA! It was crazy to see so many bears! We put the kids on our laps and they had a great time watching through our windows at the animals!
Enjoying my drink as I was holding him. He would bend all the way down to the drink instead of pulling it to him!
After you drive through the big animals, you can get out and go see the baby animals. Lily and Logan enjoyed meeting the Bear before we set out to see the babies!
The baby bears were so much fun to watch play! They would wrestle each other and roll around. Logan, however, decided they needed a little more to play with. He decided they would enjoy playing with his nice WHITE shoe! He kicked it into the pen for them to play with!
They all were so excited to have the new foreign object to play with! They all were competing to get that shoe!
Logan was not sad about the lose of his new shoe! Actually he was smiling when he did it! He would smile and laugh as people would pass by saying, "there's the little boy whose shoe the bears have!"
We contacted the care takers and they went in and got the bear for us!
I was impressed with how little damage was done. They had it for about 15 minutes and all the damage was a few tooth marks, lots of dirt on the outside (the inside was still white!), and the laces had been pulled tight!
Checking out his shoe after the bears played with it.
Trying to get rid of it again! I guess he was trying to tell us that he wanted new shoes!
It still fits! Good thing because I didn't bring a spare set of shoes with us that day and we still had lots of places to go! Now we have a story to tell! Logan will forever be the little boy who gave his shoe to the bears to play!
After Bear Country we headed into Rapid City. I had read about a park that I thought would be a fun place to take the kids. Once we were home, we found out that my mom used to play at this same park when she lived in Rapid City! The park is incredible! It is called Storybook Island. It has lots of themed play items from Nursery Rhymes and Fairy tales. The kids loved it! Lily will tell you this was the highlight of the trip! I am glad we took some time for just the kids!
Lily was so excited to see Rapunzel!
Logan spent the first half of the day asleep on Daddy! Then he woke up and was ready to play!
He also climbed on everything!
After leaving Storybook Island, we headed down the road to a Chuck wagon! We went to the place where they filmed Dances with Wolves. They have the little town and then they do a Chuck Wagon dinner. This is the room where Kevin Costner takes his orders. The window still has the whole from when the General is killed in the film!
While we waited we walked around the town and Lily helped make a rope!
We told Lily that we could use the glow sticks during the Chuck wagon entertainment! She was so excited! She also loved the music and danced the entire time! I smiled the whole time she danced! She also had so many people comment on how cute she was!
Our last full day spent in South Dakota was spent in Deadwood. This town is incredible! It was put on the map due to the gold rush. People loved it so much that the city was built up fast! It was an outlaw town. This is where Wild Bill Hickok was killed. Other big names from the Wild West also lived there. It was and still is a gambling town. One other crazy fact is that it has been completely rebuilt due to many different fires. We had a great time visiting!
Saloon number 10 is where Wild Bill was shot. They do a reenactment that we went to. They also do shoot outs in the streets that represent events from the Wild West Deadwood history!
This building, though not the current Saloon number 10 is the actual location of the first Saloon number 10 where Wild Bill was shot!
The kids were all dubbed honorary Sheriff Deputies of Deadwood, badge and all!
Ready to lay down the law!
This is one of the shoot outs they do in the street.
Then there is the Wild Bill reenactment! The one time that he didn't sit with his back to the wall. He was holding 8's and Aces. Thus the reason that hand is called the dead mans hand!
Before we left, we went to a Deadwood museum and the kids got to do a few different activities!
Back at the house for some relaxing before bed. These two cuties had a great time together! They played a lot and were so good! They even let Logan in on the play!
We had a great trip! I love the Wild West! It was a great trip as a family. We love to spend time together and experience new things! And we really enjoyed having the Torres family come with us! They are always asking us what is American that we can share with them. So we took them to Mt. Rushmore and to a Chuck wagon. What is more American than that?! We really did have a great time!
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