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Published: July 31st 2006
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There is not much to write about 10 hour drives that start at 2:30pm except that you can make it faster with Western speed limits. The scenery at the beginning was pretty and as we were driving on Saturday both of us could drive. That being said, we arrived in Hill City SD at 11:00pm on Saturday night.
When we awoke, it was to an already very hot sunny morning at the J Bar Ranch Campground. We gave ourselves a break and just hung around the campground (most of my earlier catch up blogs that didn’t happen in the Virginian laundry room happened here). Ed took the kids to the nice swimming pool and we just hung around because we all had pretty low energy levels.
It seemed too warm to go to Mt Rushmore so after remembering that there were two different cave National Monuments nearby, we got tickets for the cave tour at Jewel Cave NM and headed the 15 minutes over to that park. We got there in time for the kids to get their Junior Ranger badge work and then took the 80 minute underground tour. It was the first time for both Ed and
the kids to go into a cave and after getting over the shock of 49 degree temperatures (damp), we all enjoyed ourselves. The cave was really interesting and the ranger was good but by the end, we were all chilled and then quickly hot again on the surface. The kids then finished their badge work (they now had Arches, Yellowstone and Jewel Cave badges) and we headed out for dinner at the Cattleman’s Restaurant in Custer SD. As fitting the locale, 3 of us got steak and our quasi vegetarian got chicken fingers. As fitting the family, we had spied a homemade ice cream stand and that is where we got our dessert.
We headed towards Mt Rushmore and got there in plenty of time for the kids to then get Junior Ranger Badges there. Ed listened to an outdoor blues concert in the ampitheatre prior to the lighting ceremony and then we all joined him for the lighting. It was not as impressive as I remembered but it was good as Ed had never been to Mt Rushmore. Danielle told me it was boring just to round out our experiences.
I did want to take a moment
and explain the Junior Ranger thing. It is a great program and has worked really well for the kids. At each park they have a workbook of activities and information related to that park. Usually the kids can pick a certain number of the activities to do (not all) and then they explore the park and visitor centers to get the information they need to finish. There are word searches, crosswords, fill in the blanks, games, and matching activities age appropriate to the kids. It has been great because not only have the kids enjoyed the tasks, they have gotten a chance to learn a lot more about the places they have been to (which I doubt they would have done without the program).
We stayed another night at the ranch and when Ed went to work in the morning, I took both girls on a horseback ride. Now this was a BIG DEAL for Danielle who finally made the age cutoff (out west it had been 8 yrs old). It was her first trail ride and although her feet did not reach the stirrups, it was not a big deal as you couldn’t get these horses to do
anything anyway (I tried hard as mine walked very very slow). She had a great time and wants to go again soon. On the other hand, Jacquelyn found it boring because all you can do was walk (I think she might be getting spoiled at the ripe old age of 10).
Then another family pool stop (which works well instead of showers) and we were on our way to Sioux Falls SD. This was going to be just an overnight transit stop on our way to the Wisconsin Dells.
I think it finally hit me that we are now going East and that is making me pretty sad. Prior to this day, most of our travels have been West or North. When we crossed the Missouri (I was asleep after that for the Mississippi), I realized we were heading home. I’m looking forward to that but it made me sad to realize we had most of our adventuring behind us. We have begun to talk about whether we’ll do this again which also makes me realize that we are almost done. In some ways I am ready, but in others I am definitely not.
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