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.

Minuteman Missile NHS

On our first morning in South Dakota, we visited the Minuteman Missile NHS.  During the cold war the Great Plains were home to hundreds of ICBMs.  Soldiers manned command centers ready to fire at a moment's notice.  Many of these command centers have been decommissioned, and one has been made into a National Historic Site to commemorate this time in our history.  We started our visit at the Visitor's Center where we looked at exhibits telling us about the history of ICBMs in this area of the country.  Aunt Connie had sent us National Park passports, and we were sure to stamp those. One of the most interesting things that we learned was that there are still 450 missiles that are still active and ready to go.

After leaving the Visitor's Center, we traveled up the road to tour a decommissioned command center.  This is where the missileers would live and work.  We actually got to go into the underground bunker where the launch controls were.  The tour was very interesting.  Working at a ballistic missile site is definitely a job that I would not want to have.

Great Plains Road Trip

We have just returned from our Great Plains road trip.  We had a wonderful time exploring the state of South Dakota and also parts of Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming.   We did so much that it is going to take several posts to cover it all.  I'm going to start, though, by describing the loooong drive to our destination.  In order to reach the Black Hills / Badlands area of South Dakota, the kids and I left at noon on Friday, drove all of Friday and all day Saturday, met up with Brian in Omaha on Saturday evening, and then drove most of the day Sunday.  We spent a lot of time in the car, and most of the scenery looked like picture above- flat, grassy, corn, cows.  To break up the monotony, we made short stops to look at road-side attractions.  This gave us a chance to get out and stretch a bit and to see something other than flat grassland.

 Our first little stop was in Omaha.  Brian had flown in here, so we spent the night.  Once we met up with Brian at the hotel, we made our way to the historic "Old Market" area of Omaha which had lots of good restaurants and shops.  We were only in Omaha for a short time, but I liked the vibe that I got from it.  It is definitely a place that I'd like to go back and explore more thoroughly.  Anyway, Omaha is on the Missouri River and we noticed a little park and pedestrian bridge as we drove back to our hotel from our meal.  The next morning, we decided to go and check out the park before we left Omaha.  The bridge that we saw connects Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa and we thought it was neat that they had the state line drawn into the bridge so that you could see that you were standing in two states at once.  

The path that we took out west matched up in many places with the path that Lewis and Clark took, so we saw a lot of "Lewis & Clark" sites along our way.  As a matter of fact, our second stop was at the Lewis and Clark State Park in Iowa.  We stopped here because of it's proximity to the Interstate and because it had a replica of a keel boat- which is the kind of vessel that Lewis and Clark would have used.  The kids ran around a bit and checked out the boat.  They were also having some type of demonstration going on at the park, so we got to see people dressed in period clothing and some old Native American and European artifacts.  

 Our third stop was in Sioux Falls to see the falls.  These were beautiful.  The falls were right in the middle of the city and there was a nice little park with walking paths.  This was a nice stop.

 Our forth and final pit stop was at the Corn Palace.  This is basically a basketball gym that they have decorated with murals made by corn cobs.  The murals were cool, but other than that this place is a total tourist trap.  Not my favorite.

After a long, long drive we finally made it to our cabin in the Badlands.  This view from our back porch made the trip worth it.