Over Labor Day Weekend we took a trip to Black Hills South Dakota. Jeff could not go as he has taken all his time off work for now, so I took the 4 kids and headed out on the road with my mom for the 18 hour drive. We left right after school on Thurs. It is way too long of a trip to go for just the usual weekend so we took a couple extra days off school. Travel is awesome for learning lots of things so we are comfortable with missing a little school here and there for a trip.
We drove all night long to arrive in Rapid City, SD on Friday morning. My sister and nephew had driven up from Denver as well and met us there. We had a great time all weekend. We were put up so wonderfully by my Uncle and Aunt in their beautiful new home in the mountains. The kids loved all the trees and eventually even the dogs :) We spent lots of time visiting with them as well as my grandparents and one cousin and family who all live in town.
We love visiting the Black Hills. There is just so much to do and see. This would be my 30+ trip and I never am bored spending a vacation there. There is so much to do that we usually pick a few things that we are interested in doing that trip as well as a few things we MUST do every time.
We always spend a few hours browsing thru the shops in Keystone, never buying much but we love looking. Each of the kids did get a new hoody though because it was so chilly that day and we had left their jackets back at the house. We also love to get an Old Time Photo done and we soon hit up our favorite shop for a cute "Gangster" photo of the 4 kids. The big kids have done this several times and just love having Isaac in one as well.
Then, of course, we headed to Mt Rushmore. How could we possibly not take Isaac for his first visit. And mainly the ice cream is just so great we can't skip, usually when Jeff is along we go back at least one more time. Here we are:
We decided to visit Jewel Cave because we are always looking for a National Park or Monument to visit and we had never been to this one before. We have several times visited Wind Cave so we decided to try something new. Not sure when we will be up to going back, whew that was a tiring tour. The Cave has about 1 million steps, no just 725 or so. Up and down and up and down, it is a crazy trip and a bit difficult for the 3 of us carrying babies throughout but fun too. We saw some interesting things and Isaac received his first injury. During a break in the tour he decided to walk around a bit then suddenly leaned over, tucked his hands between his legs, causing his head to tip him over and hit his face into the ground, which unfortunately was metal and a bit spikey due to the slick areas. He was a little upset, but not too much, so we were surprised at the number of bleeding scratches he had received when we got back into good light. We will certainly remember that trip. He is doing well though and about healed up from his scratches. Our favorite part was the "bacon", the dripping water or something has caused this crazy formation that looks like a strip of bacon and is about 25 feet long I think. The picture is not good at all, but it was cool.
Next we made a trip to Storybook Island
We had a very fun trip. It was very relaxing. I was especially thankful for the time to visit with my grandparents and other family. We broke up the drive home a bit so we didn't have to go back to school, work, life after straight 18 hours of driving. We instead drove to Billings, MT and got several hours of sleep and then only 12 hours of driving to get home.
I dropped the kids off to spend the evening with dad, while he got them bathed and settled in for a restful night, I went to Cub Scouts for our recruitment night. I barely made it but it too went well.
So, another fun family trip enjoyed and many more to look forward to experiencing with our great kids! I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend as well.
Sheri
