South Dakota

Our South Dakota vacation was a lot of fun. We got there to our resort near Custer on Saturday, July 17th. On Sunday, I spent most of the day relaxing. Eric went with a group of people and climbed a hill/mountain. You could see a long way into the distance and you could see our cabin from the top. I did the climb on Monday. I have a few other pictures, but they are on our other camera and Eric has that in Pittsburgh.

On Tuesday, we went with Dale, Audrey, Madison, Randy, Kara, Alex, Max, Sophia, Henry, Amy, and Cody to Mount Rushmore. We had lunch in the parking lot and used the back of the truck as a play pen. :)



I don't have any pictures on the camera I have from Wednesday, but we went to Crazy Horse and then we went on a train ride. Oliver loved the train ride- he had a blast!

Thursday was a long day. We went to Devil's Tower with a big group of people. We did the walk around it, then we went and had lunch. After lunch, our big group split into smaller groups and went their own ways. We were with my mom, Randy, Kara, Henry, and then myself, Eric and Oliver. We found a coal tipple near the booming metropolis of Aladdin (population 15). We went to the general store there and asked if they had a place where we could rinse sippy cups for the little boys and they told us they didn't have sewer or running water. :) But they did have a pump out back that we could rinse them in. After that we found the geographical center of the US. It was quite the adventure. The center was in a cow pasture out on a gravel road. We had to climb through a barbed wire fence to get in. It was a small cement slab with a little marker and a flag on it. We took lots of pictures there. The roads out there had lots of beautiful scenery. It was a very fun day.










On Friday, we went to a Mammoth Site with Kathy, Dale, and Samantha. On our way we saw buffalo. It was pretty cool. Eric is much more brave with animals than I was and he kept going closer than I would have and than I preferred him to. But we all made it through. At the Mammoth Site, Oliver had fun digging for bones. We ate lunch and then we went to Evan's Plunge which was a pool that was filled with water from a natural spring. Oliver loved swimming there and the water was at a constant 87 degrees.




It was a fun vacation and we are looking forward to next year's vacation. Planning is started and it looks like we may be headed to the Ozarks in Missouri.