South Dakota: Martin's Cove

We stopped at Martin's Cove on the way home from our South Dakota trip! It was a welcome stop to break up the LONG, FLAT drive through Wyoming! It was a good chance to explain to the boys what happened there while the pioneers crossed the plains. The boys were very excited to pull a handcart after watching a video and touring the visitor's center. There's quite a few pictures of them pulling handcarts because it was so cute and I loved watching them work together to accomplish a goal. They pulled it through the little park they had set up without help from any of us adults and by the end, Brayden was pulling Easton as well.

Easton found the little handcart and pulled that by himself for a few minutes.

Our family with Devil's Gate in the background.

South Dakota: Martin's Cove-Brayden's Pictures

We stopped at Martin's Cove on the way home. It was a nice excuse to get out of the car for 30 minutes or so and walk around. Wyoming is SUCH a boring drive so breaking up the drive by stopping was a great break! Brayden only took pictures in the Visitor's Center. He was obsessed with that old bugle and his choice of photos reflects that.

South Dakota: Wind Cave

After our longer than scheduled drive, we made it down to Wind Cave. The boys enjoyed when we went to Minnetonka Cave during our Leavitt Family Reunion during the summer so we thought we'd try another. There were many to choose from in the Black Hills but taken that two of our participants weren't going to be much for lots of stairs, we chose Wind Cave. We did the Natural Entrance Cave Tour which was only 1/2 mile and 300 stairs and we got to take an elevator back up at the end!

Some facts about Wind Cave:

*When we went through in October it was currently the 5th longest cave in the world (3rd longest in the United States) at 136 miles so far explored. They think it may be the world's longest but they are still currently exploring the cave and think they've only explored less than 10% of it so far!!

*At one point we were 200 feet below ground! They've explored points as low as 654 feet below ground!

*It's one of the world's most complex caves! It's totally different from the other caves I've been in during my life because there are narrow little passage ways every where you look!

*Every other weekend volunteers come and explore and map new parts of the cave.

*To get to a new, unexplored part of the cave, it would take 24 hours!

*Has the most boxwork of any known cave. (There's pictures of boxwork below.)

*The entrance is one of the most sacred spots on earth to the Lakota Indians. For that reason, the only natural entrance to the cave has been unchanged and no one uses that as an entrance or exit. The used dynamite to blow an entrance open nearby that visitors use today.

*Wind Cave was discovered by two guys who walked by and the wind coming out of the hole blew the hat off of one of the guy's head. The next time they came, the wind had changed and sucked his hat in.

Easton before we started the tour.

The ranger who lead our tour. He's standing by the only natural entrance and showing the wind is blowing out of the cave currently.

We all got a chance to go and see the entrance up close.

This would be the boxwork the cave is famous for.

Brayden in the cave.

Easton and Aunt Stephanie. At one point there was a large opening and he turned off all the lights and we got to experience complete darkness.

Our Family

Some of the stairs we walked down.

Easton and Aunt Stephanie

Our family again in the cave.

South Dakota: Wind Cave-Brayden's Pictures

We had a great time at Wind Cave. Here's the few pictures Brayden took while we were in there. We didn't let him have the camera much because of all the stairs and narrow openings we went through.

And this must have been on the way to or from Wind Cave. Aunt Stephanie was a good sport with all the pictures he took of her!

South Dakota: Driving Day 3

We started off day 3 by taking the LONGER way to get to Wind Cave National Park. We had already driven past it on day 1 while we drove down to Hot Springs to see the Mammoth Site so when looking at the map, we decided to take the other route and see more of the Black Hills. It was beautiful but very curvy and lots of switchbacks up and down hills which wasn't a good combination after just eating breakfast. Thankfully no car sickness was more than just feeling sick and we were all happy to get out of the car when we reached Wind Cave!! These are some pictures of our driving that morning...tunnels, more views of Mount Rushmore, and some animals we hadn't seen during our trip yet.

Mount Rushmore in the distance. The hints of fall color were beautiful.

This tunnel was fun. We also drove over many old bridges that were one lane as well. For sure a fun and scenic drive.

Mount Rushmore through the tunnel.

These tunnels had a sign to honk before entering since it was a one lane road. Brian provided the boys with lots of chances to laugh at all his honking!

Wild Turkeys

South Dakota: Mount Rushmore at Night

Sometime during the course of our trip, we found out that the lights at Mount Rushmore were on for an hour or so at night so we wanted to make sure we saw it while we were there. I think we ended up going both the 2nd and 3rd nights we were there because it was really cool. The pictures don't do it justice because it was really beautiful. Because we stayed in Keystone which was 2 miles from Mount Rushmore, we drove by it at least once a day. It got to be that the boys would say "hi" and "bye" to it everytime we past it. Easton still says Mount Rushmore everytime he sees a picture of it.