We took another family camping trip this year. Last year it
was to Martins Cove and this year we went to Mt. Rushmore, in the black hills
of South Dakota. Let me start out by telling you it was a neat trip, definitely
a trip everyone should do at least once in their life. We camped for two
nights, and would have loved to camp longer but it did not work with our time
frame. The Mt. Rushmore monument itself is only a 4.5 hour drive from our house
in Cheyenne; one could take an all day trip and see it if one wanted to.
We left around 9:00 in the morning on Monday the 17th of
August and got to Mt. Rushmore in mid afternoon. Since the weather report said
that it was suppose to storm that night we made sure to go right to Mt.
Rushmore to see it while the weather was nice. Stewart and I both thought that
the men who carved the mountain did an amazing job. We were impressed by the
details and the size of the monument. While we were there we hiked along the
cliff face (in the designated hiking areas) that took us right under the
presidential faces, which gave us another unique perspective. We went to the stone museum where a forest ranger told us about how the
crew men were able to blast the cliff face down with dynamite to about 3 inches
from the finished product. The man who designed Mt. Rushmore, Gutzon
Borglum, made a model of
what he wanted the finished project to look like; one inch on the model is equal to one
foot on the mountain. In the end, it was impressive to learn how the mountain
was carved and all the thought that went into making it.
After we explored Mt. Rushmore we went to the Mt. Rushmore
KOA campground and set up out camp. I was not impressed with the campsite that
they assigned us, mostly because it was soooo close to other camp grounds. Our
campsite was in the front yard of cabins on a slope. I told Stewart the next
time we go camping it will be REAL camping, no more of this flushing toilet stuff
we have been pampering ourselves with. Other than the campsite location, we had
a fun time.
After our tent was up and we had dinner we went back up to
Mt. Rushmore for their night ceremony. We watched a video that told about how
Mt. Rushmore came to be and why those
four presidents were chosen. At the climax of the movie they turn on the flood lamps to
light up the mountain behind the screen so you can see Mt. Rushmore in all its
glory in the darkness. Well, since there was a storm moving in it was kind of drizzly
and cold, so when the lights came on all we saw was …… FOG! It was kind of
comical, but we are glad we went to the night ceremony anyway.
When we got back to our tent, we decided to call it a night.
We climbed into our tent to go to sleep just as it started to rain, and then
the storm moved in and it began to poor. Before we came I kept an eye on the
weather report so I knew a heavy storm would drop a lot of rain on us our first
night camping so in preparation I sprayed our tent rain shield with waterproof
spray a couple of times to make sure our tent would keep us dry. Boy am I glad I
did, because it poured on us all night long. In the morning the water had
seeped up through the tent at the foot of our tent soaking my sleeping bag
(because I was in the middle) and the blanket we had under us as cushion. But
we were at a KOA camp and they have an onsite laundromat so, we did what any other
real camper would do in that situation and took all our wet gear to the laundromat and stuck it in the dryer. Problem solved
:)
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| See when I told you we were in the front yard of cabins... I was not exaggerating! |
Day two of our trip was cold for most of the day as the
storm passed over us. It did not downpour anymore like it did during the night
but it was cold and drizzly. We planned our day with the weather in mind and
headed off to Bear Country, where we could take a driving tour around an animal
reserve with lots of bears and such. Although I have never been, I imagine it is
a lot like Bear World just outside of Rexburg. We got to see Elk, Reindeer,
White Wolves, Mountain Goats, Antelope, Big horned Sheep, buffalo, and of
course BEARS! As we drove through the park we unbuckled Sophie and set her on
the middle console between Stewart and Me, she took her camera along and took
several of her own pictures and a few movies. The animals were up and moving a
lot due to the cooler weather, some even coming up close to our car giving us a
close up look at them. After the driving part of our tour we got out and
explored the gift shop and Baby Land, where they had baby bears and other
smaller animals to see. Baby Land was not as fun as the driving tour because
the animals were all curled up and sleeping but we still managed to enjoy
ourselves.
After Bear Country we drove to The Cosmos. The picture below
tells you what it is so I won’t go into big detail, but basically it is an area
where the laws of nature are messed up. I remember going to a ghost town as a kid with
my family, and all my relatives in my mom’s immediate family, where the laws of
nature were messed up so going during our trip was like revisiting a childhood experience.
As a child I don’t remember feeling like
I was going to lose breakfast but as an adult it made me a little bit sick to
the stomach, Stewart too.
Throughout the tour people were asked to
participate in different demonstrations where you would see that the ground was
level but if you put volunteers on the platforms their heights looked different,
for example a short person would seem taller than the taller person even though
the ground was level. It was weird.
In
the house, it was impossible to walk upright, in the pictures you see us
tilting and not falling over we are not staging those pictures that is the way
we were really walking (the only way to walk). Stewart and Sophie have a picture where they are
leaning out from the corner of the wall in the building they were able to do
that without worrying about falling forward, weird I know. Sophie even got to
sit on a chair where you would think it would fall forward if not supported but
when the tour guide let go the chair fell back against the wall. It was called
the truth chair, if it fell forward the person in the chair was lying and if it
fell backwards the person was telling the truth. We are glad Sophie was telling
the truth.
Our next stop of the day was to Rushmore Cave, where we go
to see lots of caverns filled with stalactite/mites. It was an hour long tour
and lucky for us it was warmer inside the cave than it was outside. The first
part of our tour the tunnels were narrow and low, so we had to do some ducking
and squeezing at times. After that we the path widened out and it made things
easier. The people who found the cave hauled in cement using old tire tubes to
make several of the stairs we climbed, it was no small feat to do that. The
Stalactites were amazing some being enormous and others just itty bitty still.
Sophie loved the tour and did not ask to be carried once which for her, being on
her feet that long is “the worst thing ever”. This is was what Stewart wanted to do on our
trip, he too enjoyed it and was that person on the tour that asked a bazillion
questions. I do think he would have liked a little more spelunking instead of
the nice cut out path that we used. In the end I think we all had a great time
and of course the pictures do not do it justice.
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| The original entrance into the cave |
Once we had done all our activities the weather was warming
up so we had a picnic lunch and then we went back to our tent and wandered
around the KOA camp and of course some of us took a nap (Stewart). The KOA had
tons of stuff for kids to do and all of it was included in our campsite fee, so
that made it even better.
For dinner that night I had pre-made and cooked a meatloaf
and baked potatoes so all we had to do is warm them up in the coals of our camp
fire. Well by the time we got around to building a fire it was nearly dinner
time. Because we were hungry and still wanted to do other things that night, we
put our dinner into the fire way before we should have. We should have waited
because in the end our dinner was crispy to say the least and very memorable. It
was still eatable so of course we ate it, we just made sure to laugh about it
and chalk it away as a learning experience.
After dinner we went and got ice cream, because that was the
one thing Sophie requested we do. What we should have told
her was when we would go get ice cream because all throughout the day she made
sure we did not forget about it by asking us every hour if it was time to go
get ice cream yet, silly girl. The ice cream was delicious and a great way to polish
off our meal after our mishap.
When we got back to the tent, it was getting dark so we
rebuilt our fire and pulled our camp chairs up close to it and we each took
turns telling stories. We took our story stones with us to help us brainstorm
stories and the ones we came up with were fun, some of our stories were silly,
some were suspenseful, and others were interesting. It was the perfect ending
to an eventful day.
The next morning was Wednesday,
and it was time to break camp so we could start heading home. So after we got
our car all packed up we hit the road and headed for…. Custer State Park
(thought I was going to say home, huh?) more specifically Needles Hwy. Stewart
and I both wanted to do two more things before we officially headed for home; he
wanted to go hiking and I wanted to drive Needles Hwy because I had been told
it was breathtaking and we figured if we drove towards Needles Hwy, we would
find a hiking trail along the way… we were right.
The trail we decided to hike went around a lake named Legion
Lake in Custer State Park. It was the perfect trail as it was easy enough for
Sophie to walk it, fun enough for Stewart because there were some rocks that
needed to be explored along the way, and it did one big loop so I knew it would
not take all day to accomplish it. The lake of course was beautiful; we had fun
walking around scaling rocks and enjoying the beauty of nature.
After the hike we continued on to Needles Hwy. It was a fantastic drive but a little scary at first, in fact if I had the chance to drive it again I would probably say no thank you. The road was narrow with cliff drop offs on one side and the worst part it was meant to be used as a two way road. There were even some very narrow one way tunnels that we had to pass through, although they were actually pretty awesome. In the end I am glad Stewart was driving because I had to close my eyes at times out of fear of dying. It was spectacular, I just don’t like windy narrow roads with drop offs (you think I would be used to it after living in West Virginia).
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| Photo Credit: http://www.tripadvisor.com |
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| One of the two narrow tunnels we drove through... tight squeeze When we finished our drive through Needles, we officially headed for Cheyenne. As always the drive home seems much longer than the drive to a destination, but we made it safe and sound even despite the low visibility we encountered when we drove into a swarm of large bugs, many of which did not survive the collision. |
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| GROSS! |
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| Sophie did not seem to mind that no one could see out of the front window. |
After our trip even though Stewart was officially on
vacation until the end of the week, he had some stuff he needed to do that was
work related. So while he worked Sophie and I cleaned up and put away stuff
from our trip, and did the laundry. We did however manage to drag Stewart away from work to go Bowling with us. Because Sophie is little we got to use the bumpers! I did not use them much because I kept on rolling the ball strait down the lane and getting STRIKES! Stewart on the other hand was grateful for the bumpers otherwise he would not have been able to keep up with me. Enough of the smack talk. We each had fun and truth be told none of us looked at the score board much.
We took a quick trip to the State Capital again to show Stewart the inside of the building or rather let him look around the inside of the building in depth since he has been to the Capital a few times but always for work and did not have time to explore. The first time Stewart went to the Capital he took a picture behind a desk that the Governor uses when he signs a bill or proclamation, so naturally Sophie and I wanted our pictures taken behind that desk as well. It was fun to show Stewart around and now we all have a picture sitting at the same Governors desk. Fun memory!
We also took a trip to Ft. Collins to go hiking. On our way home from our
hike we drove by the Ft. Collins LDS temple site to see how the construction was
progressing since the last time we stopped. It is coming along but I really
wish that they were closer to being done as I have several friends that I would
love to take to the open house if we are still in the area. The picture below was
taken just hours before it was vandalized, around three in the morning on the 23rd. It was heartbreaking news. We never heard how
bad the vandalism set back the construction process, but they just put up the
Angel Moroni statute this week so things may not have been as bad as I mentally
pictured it was. The work of the Lord will go forth.
And that is our week of vacation in words and pictures. In
summery we had a blast, while Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills of South Dakota
are spectacular our favorite part was being together as a family. We have grown
to cherish these moments and times when we can be together without interruption.
May we always remember How blessed we
are to have each other.
