There were two main goals for the ride home: 1. the kids had asked to see buffalo on this trip and 2. Granny Gail and Grandpa Earl live in Pierre in the summers, so we planned to see them.
We had three days to drive home, which left us with time to stop and enjoy some sights as well. The first day we drove all the way from Gunnison, north through Wyoming, to Hot Springs, South Dakota.
The kids were becoming road trip experts by now. We got out some John Denver and sang our way across the miles.
When we first crossed into Wyoming, I was feeling bored with the drab scenery. And then we hit the town of Lusk. My dad had suggested we stop here, and I was half intrigued and half dubious. But he raved about this pizza place, and our family loves pizza. It also so happened that we would be driving through right about supper time. We pulled into this small town, and I admired the obvious pride shown in the buildings and gardens. And, I have to hand it to my dad -- this pizza place is really something.
I loved the wood and exposed brick. And this, a little station with crayons and butcher paper for kids to color with.
Victoria brought in Abigail and Isabella, her stuffed animals from the trip.
This guy flashed his baby blues at me.
And Victoria drew this picture of mommy!
When the pizza came, all drawings got put aside and we dug in. It was phenomenal. If you're in southeast Wyoming, you owe yourself a stop here.
We left Lusk and drove as the sun started to set. The landscape between Lusk and Hot Springs became magical. Beautiful shadows and land formations, tons of antelope. It made that last drive of the day fly by!
The next morning was Buffalo Day! We realized on our walk to breakfast that there are buffalo everywhere in this town.
This was the only breakfast we ate out, and we enjoyed this lovely coffee shop.
This was a short drive day, and we found ourselves torn between all there is to see and do in the Black Hills. We finally decided to visit Mammoth archaeological site, drive through Custer State Park, and a quick stop at Mt. Rushmore.
The mammoth site was amazing. Hearing how unique the site is, and the number of mammoths estimated, and thinking about how long they've been doing this ... I visited when I was 13, and this made me want to go back and compare photos! Vic and Alex loved the kids lab...
They dug in the sand and did crayon rubbings.
And learned about the prehistoric animals found at the site.
Then we went into the site itself for an excellent tour.
Huge tusks!
There are two mammoth species found here ... the Columbian mammoth and the wooly mammoth. Check out how huge the Columbian mammoth was!
I tried stepping into that photo just to get Alex to join, but he was being a bit of a pill. Then Vic wanted one with "just mommy."
In one of the galleries, they had a mock-up of a mammoth hut. Pretty interesting to imagine living in one.
We drove north into Wind Cave National Park, and pretty quickly we turned a corner and saw the
kids first buffalo.
They were so ecstatic, nearly jumping out of their seats! So fun to watch them. Around the next corner we were able to pull over and watch. Buffalo, antelope, and prairie dogs all in one photo!
(of course, buffalo are really
bison, and antelope are really
pronghorn. Now I'm sitting here wondering whether
prairie dog is the right name or whether they, too, have something more accurate than their common name!)
We watched for awhile, with binoculars too. Alex was so nervous after all our buffalo warnings he wouldn't get out of the car ... LOL.
It was actually quite fun to keep looking for buffalo. Check out this video of Alex requesting more buffalo!
They did not disappoint.
One walked right by our car and I loved hearing the clip-clop of his hooves.
Admittedly, we probably dawdled too long with the buffalo. But we had promised Vic a look at Mount Rushmore so we drove north on Iron Mountain Road (with the pigtail bridges! I loved them!). Great views along that road.
Kids are such great truth-tellers.
I tried to explain why Mount Rushmore is so cool. "I mean, someone CARVED all those faces into a mountain! Look at the mountain next to it -- that's the way it used to look. But someone had a vision to put some of our presidents' faces into the rock, and it took SO MANY people years and years to do this. Can you imagine people there on scaffolding, trying to get the faces just right?"
As I'm telling this story, trying to convey magnitude of the project, and a sense of awe ... Victoria chimes in: "Mom, WHERE'S the GIRLS?? Girls do really important stuff too." (Thank you, Rebel Girls book for making her know this so whole-heartedly). I explain that we have never had a girl president, so FIRST I hear from her all about how dumb that is that we've never had a girl (in a tone of naive disbelief that makes my heart break) . . . THEN she points out that if we only had boy presidents, why should they have carved all presidents and not included other amazing people?
Ummm. Yes, that. True.
And then there was Alex. He was sorta fascinated by the concept of dynamite on the mountain, but completely nonplussed over the fact that someone wanted to put faces on the mountain: "why would they do that?" He just seemed very confused.
I see their points. A lot of time and effort to carve some dead white guys into a mountain. Hmmm.
Needless to say, our $10 price tag for parking at the monument resulted in a couple underwhelmed kids who really wished we had instead stood in line for ice cream. I'm still glad we took them, so they could say they had seen it.
The rest of that afternoon was spent driving to Pierre. We were running a little late, and had a mix up about the time change, but finally made it to the restaurant where we met Granny Gail. Alex was exhausted and throwing a fit by that time, which made our dinner conversation more difficult, but it was still so nice to see her. It never happens that we get to see her twice in one week! Grandpa Earl showed up for a brief visit too, before we had to get the kids to bed.
We also enjoyed our brief stay at the hotel there, as it was very nice and -- true to many SD hotels -- catered to hunters:
The last day of the trip, the drive from Pierre to home, was brutal. It was hot, we were all tired. The kids seemed to do better than me even -- I was foggy headed and eventually got car sick and threw up somewhere in southwestern Minnesota. I was basically counting down the minutes, especially knowing it was my brother's birthday and the family was gathered at his place for supper. After a long day, we showed up at his doorstep to gather our pups. The kids ran in excited to see everyone. Our dogs, surprisingly, were not overly excited or surprised, a sure sign they were well taken care of on our trip! Our family offered us leftover steak and shrimp for supper, and a loaf of home baked bread to take home with us. It's definitely good to come home!
