South Dakota

We went to South Dakota! Our big vacation plans for the summer (Europe) were quashed by the you-know-what, so I decided to make one of my childhood dreams come true instead. When I was a kid, I was kind of fascinated by Mt. Rushmore. But, when are you ever near Mt. Rushmore? We've made many cross-country journeys and had a lot of mega-road trips, and not once have we been to South Dakota. So, I decided this would be our big Coronavirus adventure. The kids were not that enthusiastic about it. I didn't care. 

Nils got a huge new lens, and was giddy about taking pictures with it. All of these pictures were taken by Nils, and the ones that look magazine-worthy were taken with the ginormous lens. Sadly, most of the pictures he took were lost because the SD card corrupted before he could transfer most of them. These are the pics he saved before that happened. 

Blogger is crappy, and won't let me arrange the pictures in any sort of order. We packed a lot in, and here's what we did:

Mt. Rushmore. Turns out it's not as cool as I imagined when I was a 10 year old. I knew that going in, but still. The drive through the Black Hills on your way to Mt. Rushmore is more impressive. It was all blocked off, so we could only see it from a distance- I think they were preparing for Trump's visit the next week. It's fine. Check and check! 

Bear Country USA: It's an animal refuge, and there are baby bear cubs that are the cutest things ever. 

Deadwood: It's an old cowboy town, but it's a gambling and drinking place for bikers. It's nice to look at, but nothing to do, really. Except gamble and drink. 

Devil's Tower, Wyoming: This was amazing. We had hoped to be able to go here at some point, but it's a little out of the way. Since Deadwood turned out to be pretty stupid, we decided to head to Devil's Tower since we had some time. Totally worth it!! It was by far my favorite part of the trip. We got there around 7:30 at night, so there were hardly any people there. We got to walk around and explore all we wanted. It was peaceful and beautiful, and just a really nice surprise. 

Custer State Park: We went to Sylvan Lake and played on the beach and in the water- the rocks there are really cool, and the kids thought they were fake. :) We drove the Needles Highway, which is incredibly beautiful!

Wall Drug: No pictures of this, but it's a big tourist trap store/restaurant. Pretty entertaining.

Badlands: We saw a prairie dog town, the Yellow Mounds, hiked the Notch Trail, and stayed until sunset to get some cool pictures of the changing colors. We stayed at a campground/Motel in Interior, SD, which is right by the entrance of the Badlands. It was pretty fun. The Badlands are crazy. It's really desolate and beautiful there. 

Wyoming Sky

10 hours of this each way

Everyone act excited! This is Mom's dream come true! Act excited!

Bear cubs- so cute!

Devil's Tower

Amazing shot by NilsyNils! It's two birds fighting over a gopher.

Da moon

Devil's Tower, different angle

Needles Highway in Custer State Park

Aani and Ava in the Badlands

Long lens shot at the Badlands

Prairie Dog Town

2,000 miles on the trusty ol' Sienna. Gotta love road trip bumpers.

Sylvan Lake- amazing how random kids just play together. 

Notch Trail in the Badlands

Yellow Mounds, Badlands

All of the "rocks" in the Badlands are just dirt- they're super fragile. I don't know how they survive the elements. 

So, we had fun! It was really nice to go somewhere new. The Black Hills are really, really beautiful. It was fun to see the Badlands, and maybe it's just this weird year, but most of the places we went weren't swarmed with people. 'Twas good. Would recommend.