We loved South Dakota last year and well, Grandma and Papa G have a house there. So the kids and I headed off the day school got out. Two days of driving, a little under 1200 miles. The kids did fantastic. There was a bout of fighting on the second day that lasted about 30 minutes but considering it's about 17 hours of drive time, that's pretty good!
Sunday was Father's Day so we went to church and their potluck with Papa (Daddy had a scavenger hunt all set up for him at home). Then we went to the mammoth site. It is an active dig site, they are still finding bones. They are actual bones, they are not like most fossils. Most fossils have been turned to stone, these were not. They were in a large sink hole, the water basically dissolved away the DNA but left the actual bones as they were. They are very fragile. Because there is no DNA they can't verify which bones actually go together. They have about 25 ft exposed and a core sample indicates there is at least another 40 ft with bones and such in it.
They actually found part of a giant short faced bear. We were told that if it were to stand on it's hind legs, it could put it's front paws on the ledge of a two story window. Dillon faced off with the skull replica. Then that night had trouble falling asleep because he was so concerned with the existence of the giant short faced bear.
This is the tiniest of mammoth species. The picture with the Columbian mammoth, which is what they found most of, didn't turn out. Papa G could walk underneath it's chin with feet to spare.
Of course, when we're at Papa and Grandma's house, bullets will fly. The kids had a great time with the guns. We never made it to archery. The kids took turns firing the junior size 22 rifle and the bb guns.
Yes, we know the bb gun is upside down, she would turn it upside down so she had the strength to cock the gun.
They did pretty good with those bb guns!
All of the kids know how to open and close a range, how to verify a gun isn't loaded, how to load, cock and aim. They also practice how to carry a gun and other safety measures. I'm so grateful that they have access to the guns so that they know how to be comfortable and safe around guns. The pistol in this picture was Great Grandpa G's, the kids got to shoot that too, though it is harder to pull the trigger.
As usual the kids are attracted to water. They played for a quite a while in the run off stream and pond.
Kayda meanwhile, would coerce Papa into reloading as frequently as possible. It took them a while to get everything set up properly but by the end of our trip they'd all had a chance. Though Kayda really knew her stuff. She kept correcting Papa and even identified rounds that had primers that weren't set correctly.
We woke up early one morning to go drive the wildlife loop. Last year that's when we were so successful. This year, not so much. The kids still had fun riding in the back of the truck and we saw a lot of antelope.
Papa managed to spot the burros out away from the road. We drove as far as we could and hiked the rest of the way carrying a big bag of carrots. The burros, while not exactly domesticated, are very friendly and used to people. We thought nothing of walking down there to feed them (the kids and I). It wasn't the best decision I've ever made. Once they realized we had food the whole herd (minus the mamas and their babies) came over and completely surrounded us. Trying to keep kids from getting stepped on or pushed over was really difficult. Every way you turned there was a burro, some as tall (if not taller) than me. I started throwing carrots out and away to try to get them to back off and sent the boys out on the outskirts, Kayda was already out there, thank goodness. Once we ran out of carrots we slowly and as calmly as possible started walking away. They followed us. They started to figure out that the food was gone but even walking away I had to keep putting myself between the burros and the kids. Finally there was just one left, I crumpled the bag and showed it to her and she walked away. It was super intense. I will not do that again. I didn't even think about how many other people, also with food, were usually around when we were feeding them. Fortunately, the none of us got hurt.
We saw tons of prairie dogs. They're the local pests. The kids liked hearing them bark at each other. We found a road were they were hanging out so as we drove off you would see them all run across the field. A couple of times we saw them lying on the road, seemingly dead, then they would pop up and look at you. They were quite irritated that their sunbathing was disrupted.
We only managed to see some lonely male bison and two females with two calves.
After the wildlife loop we went right up to do the junior ranger fishing. There were more people, with less available space, and the fish weren't biting. Once a little girl, without supervision, walked past us with her hook swinging around (and almost hit 3 people including Papa and Carson) my limit was reached. I have no patience for it. They have been informed that if they want to fish again it will be with Daddy and Papa H. Besides, did I put live worms like a sock onto the hooks repeatedly for the kids? Yes. But that is all kinds of nasty and I have no desire to repeat the experience.
We were there during a heat wave. It was way warmer than normal. Grandma decided a slip and slide would be fun so Papa picked one up. It certainly was fun! But it had a mud puddle at the bottom the boys didn't like landing in. So a tarp was added.
So it became this. Eventually another tarp was added so there was a "river" and a "pond".
Somewhere in here Kayda, Dillon, Papa and I ended up with a stomach bug. Carson started showing signs but was able to take a nap and woke up feeling ok. It took a couple of days to get back to normal after that hit.
We went over to do orienteering but I had the schedule wrong. We ended up doing a scavenger hunt where they had to collect things in a container. They found acorn caps, ants, bark, lichen....scat. Yes, they collected dried bison dung in their container. After we were done they were having a snake "patio talk" so we decided to stick around. There is only one kind of venomous snake in South Dakota, the prairie rattlesnake. Having rattlesnakes around is scary enough but apparently the snakes are starting to catch on that when they rattle their tails they end up dead. This is causing the population to slowly cease rattling to announce their presence. Afterward Kayda and Carson decided to hold "Willy". The snake seemed to be enamored with Kayda and kept trying to crawl up her arm.
One day the kids were really struggling being around the house so Papa took us to a lake (which we didn't previously know had a swimming area). The boys played in the water with some other boys. At the beginning of our trip I was told there was a dead fish. The boys were told not to mess with it. Later I heard something that alerted me so I yelled "Dillon are you playing with a dead fish!?" He yelled back "No!" Not even two second later one of the boys yells "I am!!!". While hilarious that someone else's kid was so proud to play with a dead fish I wasn't very impressed when Carson decided he should grab it, throw it and yell "Yuck!". Dillon really didn't want this picture taken but I had to post it. The boys would periodically come to me freezing so I'd wrap them up. I told Dillon he needed his hair dry to so I would run my fingers through it to dry it. What he didn't realize was that I was making his hair stand up in every direction like a giant pompom. I was thoroughly amused and got away with it twice. That picture was before I got it dry.
One evening Grandma brought up agate hunting to Kayda. So off we went to go hunt for agates. We ran in to a couple of problems.
First, we had to drive on a forest service road which requires a pass that is on the jeep. There were six of us. So we crammed six of us into the Jeep wrangler. Of course, 99% of the time we are all strapped in appropriately. But the ONE time we're not we are driving right by a bunch of sheriffs and highway patrol men dealing with a tanker truck (it's tires were completely gone). When we drove back they were still there by the way.
Second, Kayda and Grandma were the only ones to look at the pictures of the type of agate we were looking for. In Fairburn, there are apparently a bunch of loose round rocks, you pick it up, crack it open and see if it's an agate. That was not the case here. We didn't really know what we were looking for. Papa managed to find some cool looking rocks and found them in other rocks. Of course we wanted them so we spent a while trying to chip away the (very hard) rock from around the prettier portion of rock. It didn't work so well. It turns out they were agates but we didn't know that until we got back home and confirmed it online. Fortunately for us, we were at least in the shadow of the hill.
Kayda really wanted to do mini-golf because she missed out on it last year so Grandma took us to play. There is one right in town. It was kind of difficult because Kayda and Dillon wanted to play the "right" way, Carson did not. He wanted to keep hitting his ball until it went in. Grandma played for a while until Carson got too frustrated. So we ended up dividing and conquering. Carson and I would replay a hole over and over again while waiting for the group ahead of us, and then Kayda and Dillon to finish. Our preferred method of play is "Hockey golf". So we would basically hit the ball whenever we wanted and even roll it along with the club, often working together to get one ball in.
The lady that runs minigolf let each of the kids bring a golf ball home. That, turned into a type of bowling on the slip and slide (and expanded pond).
One evening we decided to give the wildlife loop a try again. Papa chose to go up through wind cave national park, then over to Custer State Park to the wildlife loop. He chose well. We got to see, and drive right up next to the Wind Cave herd and the Custer herd. They were spread out in different areas so we probably didn't see all of the herds but we got right up close again!
Kayda kept yelling "This is the life!"
This is the biggest herd of antelope we've seen and there were two babies!
Of course TONS of deer. We saw some bucks and a fawn this year. We even saw a coyote/deer stand off. We think the coyote was trying to get to a fawn. We scared off the coyote but the deer went running after it so we really hope we didn't send it toward the fawn! It went up into the woods and the fawns are usually kept in the long grasses so we should be good.
Be careful everyone! It's a picture of a nursing baby!
This part of the herd was bedding down for the night. We've never seen them all tucked into the grass to sleep.
The burros were out and there were more people. So we fed them some crackers and gave them some attention. Grandma G had to hold onto the baby so that a car could drive around it. This was the only mom that would come up with her baby. That baby is SO soft! It was unbelievable.
Of course the mom kept trying to take the crackers.
Papa introduced Kayda to "Zork the Underground Empire" which was the first computer game he ever played. It was entirely text and you would type in a command. Kayda's favorite was after she found a jewel encrusted egg. She wanted to hatch it so she typed "sit on egg". She broke it!
We went to Jewel Cave this year. They offer a "wild cave tour" for people over 16 but you have to be able to crawl through this cement block (the top lifts off in case you get stuck). The kids got a kick out of crawling through it.
Then they made me crawl through. I fit though!
We saw big horned sheep! They're very elusive and we've never seen them in the wild before. This year we saw the wild turkeys too. We are only missing the moose and elk for this year.
In Jewel cave. This cave was much better than wind cave. It has a lot more variety in the formations instead of being almost entirely box work.
There was a portion that broke off here. Papa thought it resembled a map of the United States.
We got to experience some thunder storms. Papa and Kayda disappeared for a while to reload. It started raining HUGE drops and hailing so I ran out and we put cars in. Next thing I know I hear gun shots. It had stopped raining and they were out shooting a little revolver with bullets that they had reloaded together. Kayda wasn't quite strong enough to squeeze the trigger alone so Papa helped.
She reloaded some of these bullets and collected casings to clean and reuse.
Carson decided he wanted to shoot too so he shot the junior 22 rifle and Kayda used the adult size. She hit the target more often than not, Carson was usually dead on side to side but would be too high or too low. He hit it a few times but was usually within a couple of inches.
I thought it was so cute watching him load the gun so carefully.
Dillon chose to just watch. We went in for dinner and it started raining and hailing again. When it stopped I dragged Papa out so I could have a turn!
Grandma put the kids to work cleaning off the debris on the patio. We got to experience a few thunderstorms. Though Papa and I missed the one with quarter size hail. We were in town for one down pour, the streets were inches deep in water because the storm water drains just couldn't keep up. Of course a few hours later it was almost all dry and you'd never know!
Around town they have these bison sculptures that are all painted different. Every year at the end of the summer they are auctioned off, so every year they are different. The kids LOVED this one. The mountain goats were all actual sculptures themselves, not just painted on.
Of course we had to try this picture again.
We had a great trip and the kids were great for the drive home as well. There were two little tantrums but they were both very brief (a couple of minutes). It was actually a pretty stress free drive. I asked them if it was worth all that driving to go to South Dakota and they all told me, in no uncertain terms, that it was.
