Big Trip, Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore was a lot of fun. The weather was great (this was true of the whole trip!) and it wasn't too crowded (also true of basically the whole trip!)

We have a couple of future presidents: 

When we got back & were telling Grandma Doris about the trip, she mentioned that they'd kept track of everything they spent when she & Grandpa Leroy & Tara & Kerry took their RV on a big road trip, even "5 cents for ice cream." Here we are with our $8 Thomas-Jefferson-recipe ice creams. (They were quite good, and quite large, as I guess they'd better be for $8!!) Leah managed to lose a tooth eating hers. There were least chipmunks running around outside looking for crumbs. 

Proof of the not-crowded-ness: 

We watched the video about the carving of the mountain & it was quite fascinating how they planned out & translated the model to the actual cliff face - a pretty low-tech solution. It took 14 years, 400 workers (poorly paid for dangerous work) and $1 million dollars. I didn't realize that the rocks down in front were just the debris from the dynamite as they were carving, either. 

James visited the gift shop & got a VERY realistic bat finger puppet. 

 

Big Trip, the Badlands

The Badlands was our first national park & it was very, very cool. 

Leah kept asking for her photo to be taken in various locations & poses: 

Sam took a lot of nature photography: 

I wore my hat: 

Amelie wore Sam's hat. We went on a short, kid-friendly trail & also another hike that had us go from post to post. 

The kids could climb around on parts of it. 

There was another lookout that didn't seem too safe without a railing, so the kids lay down to look over! Doesn't look quite as dangerous from this angle, though: 

We randomly ran into friends from college - Kara & Dan Smith - on their family vacation. We'd gone for a drive & stopped at a picnic area (so the kids could climb around some more) and there they were! They came to the sunset lookout point where we were, too, but we failed & didn't get a selfie together. 

It was very beautiful! And a little cool! You see Leah & Amelie are in their blankets in the photo above.  

There was a sign saying the prairie dogs carried bubonic plague. But they were very cute - and there were a lot of them! They make chirping noises. 

Leah posing in Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. We visited the Badlands 2 days, but stayed the night at a hotel in Wall in between. There was a tour bus of Amish/Mennonite people staying at the hotel, who we also saw at Wall Drug. Several of them traipsed by to look at us swimming in the pool! The kids swam both days in the indoor & outdoor pools - I got in but it was too cold!

Mountain goats - there were some perched on nearly 90 degree cliffsides. 

This bison was RIGHT BY our van. We took the photo right out the window of the stopped vehicle. 

I had to be restrained from buying all the buffalo-related knickknacks (I did get some!) James picked up this magnet:

Magic Rocks

Leah and her cousin Levi both got the Smithsonian Chemistry Magic Rocks Kit for Christmas. Yesterday, she wanted to play “pet shop,” which is a very tiring imagination game with many, many rules for the grown-up participant, and I suggested a board game instead. She came out of the art room with the science kit & I said, “why not?”

It also turns out to have a lot of rules! We were careful, but ended up spilling anyway - it all cleaned up ok with no ill effects. 

Here they are right after setup:

Leah sat there & watched the rocks grow 😂

And this is what they looked like when we woke up this morning:

The instructions said to drain off the sodium silicate solution:

We put the rocks away from the wall of the tank, but some of them grew up the wall of the tank anyway.

And then I filled it back up with plain water: