South Dakota bound- Day 13 (6/20)

Our last day!  Friday morning we packed up the van, picked up some rhubarb wine http://www.prairieberry.com/product/allproducts/red-ass-rhubarb/ and headed back to Keystone one last time.  Did some souvenir (t-shirt) shopping and tried Jane's Boardwalk pizza for lunch.  We gassed up in Rapid City at a Mobil station which also had a huge collection of taxidermy animals.  Surprisingly neat!  Lots of unique ones.  Further down I90, we stopped at the Badlands Petrified Gardens.  It was hot.  We would have liked to stop at the 1880s Town, but, we needed to stay on the road to get to Mitchell for the night.  And swim, of course.  We made the rest of the trip back home on Saturday!

Waiting while Daddy makes a deal on some petrified wood bookends.  Took longer than you'd think.

South Dakota bound- Day 12 (6/19)

 Schools about to start so I better do some catching up on the blog.  This was our last full day in the Black Hills!  Everyone slept in, or at least tried, since we had a late night.  The first thing on our agenda was Rushmore Cave.  No cave tour though, we were caved out by then.  We hit the 2 important ones at least.  But, Jessie had gotten us a stack of free passes for the attractions at Rushmore Cave!  The girls and guys got to do the eagle zip line, minus Logan and I. And they did all the 7D Gunslinger rides.  I only paid for Logan to gem mine and one Gunslinger game since I also had a BOGO attraction.  They said it was really fun.  We got by cheap here!  Luke was certain he was going to be scared on the zip line, but ended up loving it.  It's quite a bump at the end.

 Girls ready to go...

 and done!

After Rushmore Cave, we headed through Hermosa and got onto Iron Mountain Road, the last of the 3 main scenic drives in the hills.  This one was a little more relaxing than Needles Highway, much less death defying.  There were a few buffalo scattered at the beginning.  I can't imagine driving these roads during the busiest part of summer.  We only passed a couple of cars, nice!

One of our first glimpses of Mt. Rushmore...

After the Iron Mountain Road drive, we went back into Keystone and walked the strip again.  Had lunch/dinner at Teddy's Deli, the kids had shaved ice as big as their heads, and we went back to the cabin for a bit before meeting Jessie at Mt. Rushmore for the lighting ceremony.