Looking Up Into the Light and Down Into Darkness

We headed back to Mt. Rushmore on Wednesday morning to see the monument during the day and explore all the exhibits.  There are lots of things to see and lots to learn, especially about the building of the sculptures.  We spent a good 1/2 hour or so inside the exhibit hall, which was very crowded. Of course the boy disappeared and unlike his sister who will find the nearest adult and announce she is lost even when I can still see her, Kellen just kept trying to find us.  It probably took a good 45 minutes to find him.  It was hot and we were all feeling a bit grumpy at that point.

We decided to walk the trail that goes along the base of the mountain. It was also crowded with lots of young children. We barely made it onto the trail when Bella lost it.  She was completely on edge and her anxiety was on high, so she and I headed back to the RV while the boys finished the trail.  After a snack and some quick souvenir shopping ( we needed our sticker for the RV ), we loaded up the RV and headed for Wind Cave National Park, just an hour or so away.

We arrived at Wind Cave and got our tickets for the Natural Entrance Tour and grabbed some lunch in the RV. One of the many things I like about the RV is being able to make lunch anywhere!  The kids got their National Park passports stamped and we got our RV sticker and then headed down for the tour.

Something about going down into a dark cave turned our two kids into a couple of chatter boxes. They are not normally the most talkative kids but they pretty much talked though the whole tour. It was only a problem when the ranger wanted to talk.  The cave itself was very cool and so huge. Apparently they are still discovering new sections all the time.  The box work formations were neat to see and apparently that is the only cave that has them.  Kellen said the cave was creepy and Bella really wanted to see some bats. We didn't see any but they had fun looking. It was nice to have Rudi along as well.

We said goodbye to Wind Cave and soon enough South Dakota as we headed for Casper, Wyoming and our first hotel stop of the trip.  More about that come.....