Devil's Tower and Deadwood

 We spent one full day traveling north and west of our hotel in Custer.  Our first stop was Devil's Tower NM in Wyoming.  We didn't have any "close encounters of the third kind", but we did hike the trail around the base of the monument. That was about all that there was to do there.  Let me just say this about Wyoming- there is nothing there.  We googled it, and it ranks 51st in population.  Washington D.C. has more people than the entire state of Wyoming.  It was crazy driving for miles and not seeing any towns or cars or anything.

 After leaving Wyoming we traveled to the north part of the Black Hills and ended up in the town of Deadwood.  Back in the day, this boom town was full of gambling and alcohol.  Not much has changed.  The historic buildings are now bars, casinos, and souvenir shops.  Not really a kid-friendly place.  We did see the saloon where Wild Bill Hickok was shot and we went to his and Calamity Jane's graves.

 Since we were up in the north section of the park anyway, we decided to do the Spearfish Canyon scenic drive, which began in the town of Spearfish.  We made a quick stop off at the D.C. Booth fish hatchery where we saw tons of trout.  We were there at feeding time, and the kids (and Brian) got to help with that.

 The Spearfish Canyon Loop ran along a stream and there were several waterfalls right off the road.  We stopped at two.  The second required a short hike, but was worth the effort.  The kids wanted to touch the water wherever we went to see how cold it was.  It was always really cold.

Rock Climbing

We had the best time at our rock climbing lesson.  This is something that I have always wanted to try, but have never had the opportunity to because we do not live in a location where climbing is possible.  We signed up for the "discovery" lesson, which lasted for four hours.  After getting us fitted for shoes, helmets, and harnesses, the guides took us on a short hike to our climbing location.  We started off with the basics of how to get strapped in and secure ourselves.  We did it ourselves each time, but they always double checked everything before we were allowed to climb.  I really liked that they taught us how to do all of the knots and security procedures instead of just doing it for us.

This is what our climbing area looked like- several ropes set up next to each other with multiple climbers and belayers going at the same time.  We all had to learn the basics of hand and foot position before we went up high, but we were climbing before we knew it.

We were in a group with several other people and four guides (one of whom had to leave after about two hours).  Since we were climbing using a belay device, it was important that some of us "students" learned to belay.  Otherwise, we would not get many climbs in because you can't climb if you don't have a belayer. I made two ascents- the first on a challenging (for me) route and then the second on an easy one.  I seriously couldn't believe that I made it up the first route.  It was really tough.  After my two ascents, I took a lesson on how to belay, and that's all I did after that.  Once Olivia and Owen saw that I could give them a belay, I spent the rest of the morning doing just that so that they could get in a lot of climbs.

Brian got in a couple of good climbs.  All of his were on the more challenging ropes.  He even made it through a difficult pass where he had to jump from one place to another.

We discovered that both of the kids loved climbing.  Owen had a rough start because he tried to go up one of the harder ropes first and then got upset when he couldn't make it up all the way.  After a pep talk from his dad, he tried the easier rope, was successful on that, and then had no trouble for the rest of the day.  He even made it up the rope that had tripped him up in the beginning.

Olivia was a little climbing machine.  I think that she and Owen went up almost ever rope.  They would come down from a climb and want to go right back up.  The guide was like "Don't y'all want a break?" , but they just wanted to get right back to climbing.  This is why I had to learn to belay.  We've created two little climbing monsters.






The climbing lesson was a highlight of our trip, and we will definitely be looking to do other climbing excursions in the future.

Chuckwagon Dinner

On one afternoon of our trip we took a horseback ride through the Black Hills.  Our destination was a little shelter in a clearing where some chefs were preparing a meal over a fire.  Other guests arrived via covered wagon, but we opted to go to the cook-out by horseback and then return on the wagon.  Getting there was definitely half the fun. We wound through trails in the Black Hills spotting deer and yellow bellied marmots along the way.  This was the kids' first time riding a full-sized horse by themselves, and they did great.  Olivia's horse, Diesel, liked to stop a lot, but she handled it well.  My horse, Indy, wanted to be first and kept trying to pass the guide's horse.  Owen's horse, TJ, and Brian's horse, Crow, were well behaved for the most part.  You can tell we don't ride a lot as we were all a little saddle sore when we reached the cook-out site.  One hour of riding was definitely enough.  While we waited for our steak to finish cooking, we enjoyed a little show.  The show consisted of folk songs and comedy.  The steak was delicious.  Brian and Owen went back for seconds.  It was a beautiful afternoon.

Caving

The national park service oversees two different cave systems in the Black Hills area.  We visited both- the first being Jewel Cave NM.  Jewel Cave is the third longest cave system in the world and is so named because of its numerous calcite formations.  We saw several examples of stalagmites, stalactites, cave popcorn, and cave bacon during our tour.

 We had time to kill before our tour, so the kids worked on activities to earn their Junior Ranger badge.

 Jewel Cave was nice (but I still like Mammoth Cave better).

The other cave in the region is Wind Cave NP- the sixth longest cave system in the world. Wind Cave is known for having a rare cave feature called boxwork, and we saw a lot of that.

 I didn't want the two cave experiences to be the same, so I booked us on a "Candlelight" tour at Wind Cave.  This was really fun.  We went off of the beaten path- literally- there were times where we were crawling and we had only a small candle bucket for light. Because of the requirements for this tour, we were not allowed to take photos inside of the cave.  The guide took one and texted it to us, but it turned out bad because the light from the flash blinded us. We would all like to try a "wild cave" tour at some point, but are not able to yet because there is usually an age requirement that the kids don't meet yet.  The candlelight tour was a good way to have a more adventurous experience in the cave that the kids can do.

The Black Hills

After our two days / one night in the Badlands, we made a quick stop at Wall Drug for food (and to look around a bit) and then drove to the Black Hills where we would spend the rest of our vacation.  Our base was the town of Custer, and we found it to be a nice, centrally located place to come back to every night.  The kids discovered a pizza place across the street from the hotel that they loved and we ended up eating a meal there every single day of our stay.  We did a lot of driving, hiking, and sightseeing in different areas of the Black Hills region throughout the week.  We visited Mount Rushmore on our first day.  There wasn't much to do there except look at the monument, so we didn't spend a ton of time at that location.

One area that we all liked a lot was the Sylvan Lake area.  We did a two-and-a-half hour hike here along the Sunday Gulch Trail.  This trail wound through varied landscapes and ended up being a bit more adventurous than I thought it would be.  Toward the end we were criss-crossing a stream on tree limbs and small wooden footbridges.

 We did three scenic drives in the Custer area of the Black Hills.  My favorite was the Needles Highway because of its dramatic views and narrow tunnels.

We had no problem spotting wildlife along the Wildlife Loop and Iron Mountain Road.  This buffalo was just strolling down the road without a care in the world.  This whole area was so beautiful and different than what we have in Georgia.  I really enjoyed seeing it.

Into the Badlands

Of all of the things that we did on our vacation, my personal favorite was our time spent in the Badlands NP.  I loved this place.  It is just so different-looking than anything that I've ever seen before.  Not only did we stay inside of the park (which was just fabulous), but we also hiked three trails and did the scenic drive.  Our favorite trails were the Door trail which allowed you easy access to the formations, and the Notch trail which involved going up/down a rope ladder at one point.  The Notch trail was pretty strenuous for us, but it gave the best views.

 We saw all sorts of wild animals within the park- including deer, buffalo, pronghorn (antelope), big horn sheep, rabbits, and prairie dogs.  We even stopped off at a place just outside of the park that let you feed peanuts to the prairie dogs.  These animals were so conditioned to being fed, that they let you come right up to them.  Prairie dogs in the wild did not do this.

I've not been to a lot of national parks, so I don't have lots to compare.  That being said, at this moment, the Badlands NP is my favorite.