We decided to take a final road trip before our next little one is born. When we lived down south we tried to explore as many of the southern cities and states as we could. It was so fun seeing so many new places. My hope in all of this is to create lasting memories and family bonds. There's a lot of learning to do about each other when stuck in the car for long periods of time. There's so much joy in watching Audrey see or learn something new, and of course spending 24 hours a day with Paul is a treat. We've done our best to do the same here in the Northern States. I have enjoyed each new spot we find. This time we made our way over to South Dakota. Paul's work had given us a couple nights stay free at a hotel/casino there and while we didn't plan on gambling I had to take a look to see if there was anything else we could do while there. It turns out that South Dakota is a really pretty place that has a lot to see. The hotel we stayed at didn't have any double queen rooms available so we took a single king and brought Audrey a camping mat to sleep on. We carved her out a little space in the room and she was so excited about having her own space. I thought it was cute that she was so excited about something so simple. It wasn't long before she settled down in her bed, made it her own, and went to bed.
The next morning we headed to see Mount Rushmore. It was my first time seeing Mount Rushmore in real life. I don't know exactly how this man and his son carved what they did while they were so close to their art. I have a hard enough time drawing with the paper 20 inches from my face and seeing the whole picture. I can't imagine working on something like this and only getting to see such a small piece while working on it. It was here that I learned that Mount Rushmore was never finished. Did you know that the initial plan was to carve their jackets. It was supposed to be a little bit more of than their heads but the project ran out of funding. You can kind of tell their original plan by looking at George Washington who clearly has a little more going on than the rest of these men. Just a little FYI.
Mount Rushmore was pretty amazing, although it was a little smaller than I imagined in my mind. While heading out we made a stop at the gift shop. We have this tradition with Audrey that we buy her a pin for every place we vacation. She was excited to add another one of South Dakota to her collection.
We were in the Black Hills which I believe is a National Forest so while there we decide to take a ride on a steam train there that's been running since the 1880's through the Black Hills. It was apparently initially used for mining and sometimes moving people. The ride was filled with beautiful views and the weather was perfect. It had just started to sprinkle as we were traveling back and the cool breeze felt so nice. There was a man waiting at each train crossing with a new silly hat on and the kids on the train enjoyed pointing him out at each crossing.
There are several caves in the area so we picked the Mount Rushmore Cave and took a trip through the cave. I've never been in a cave before so it was fun to see one for the first time. They told us stories of the local people feeling like going through the cave was a right of passage. They talked of how earlier before the cave was hallowed out, people had to army crawl through really tight areas to get to the larger cavern where they would carve their names to show that they had made the trip. They'd spend the night and then crawl back out...each direction taking them 4 hours. I'm super claustrophobic so the right of passage for me would have either gotten me killed from panic or I would have had to pay someone else to carve my name on the wall.
While traveling back to our hotel I found a small candy shop. We stopped and bought some fudge that we shared on the way back to dinner at the hotel. It was a really good and busy day.
The next morning we swam and the pool for a while and then we drove a little more through the Black Hills finding a small hike to a waterfall. We hiked down to it and then we headed to Rapid City for our next destination. We took a stop at this place called bear country where there were tons of bears. Their only rule in driving through them was not to get out of the car or roll down your windows. They had a few other animals there but you could tell the park was mostly dedicated to bears. I've never seen so many in my life, which is not saying my because I've only ever seen a handful but it was pretty amazing. Two of them were testing boundaries with each other on who was higher up the totem pole. Right in front of our car they were having quite the tousle, but one ran the other down the road before we could see an actual fight. It was quite possibly the best part of our trip. After that we had to make a stop at Culvers to have some custard. It was so good that we actually went again before we drove home.
Our next hope was to see the Badlands and do a little star gazing. We took a trip out and the sun started to set just as we got there. We didn't get to see much of the park but the sunset on the hills was breathtaking, we also got some cool pictures in the dark. Our hope of seeing stars was taken by the moon. We didn't expect a full moon and even though we were a ways out from any civilization the moon was so bright it drown out most of everything else, so we took our tired girl and headed back to the hotel. By the time we go there Audrey was asleep and Paul and I were so tired that we fell into bed.
In the morning we ate, watched some cable shows while we packed up. Over all it was such a fun trip and such a good break before Paul's more difficult weeks at work before the baby is born.
Our next adventure....will be adding another little one to our family. Wish us luck in this new chapter of our lives. We're so excited to welcome Raelyn into our home!
