Black Hills Vacation- Part 2

Day 6:  The Chases headed back to Missouri, but we wanted to stay a few more days.  We saw Bear Country USA which is a drive-thru wildlife park.  It was really neat!  The playful baby bears were everyone's favorite.

Then we drove to Rapid City, SD to play at some parks.  Dinosaur Park was on a hill with amazing views of the city.

Then on to Storybook Island.  It has scenes from nursery rhymes, books, and movies.  The girls thought it was awesome!  Although after seeing princess scenes Olive asked with disgust, "So is this ALL Disney stuff?"  This is why aren't going to Disney World.  They don't even like Disney-themed playgrounds!

You can see how much fun they had!  Olive suggested they had to identify the characters before they could play on them.  Then they wanted their picture WITH EVERYTHING.  These are just a few.

 So Hannah had a disappointment in the spring.  Her girl scout troop was going ziplining the same day as her soccer team had a game.  We thought the commitment to the team was more important, so she did the soccer game.  But I promised I would take her ziplining on my own.  And then I found Rushmore Tramway Adventures that had a zip lines AND a ropes course!  Unfortunately you had to be 7 to do it, so Olive was too young (although she would not have wanted to do it anyway!)  I did the ropes course with Hannah while Steve did a giant slide with Olive.  I've been ziplining before and I don't mind heights.  However my previous experience in Costa Rica had workers at each platform helping you to stop and hooking you up for the next zip.  This place gave you a mini lesson of how everything worked and then you hooked up everything yourself!  EEK!  Also, I found out I'm more scared of heights than I was when I was 20!

The platform in the bottom left corner is where all the courses started.

Look at my face compared to Hannah's.  This zip was super high up over people and buildings.  This girl had NO FEAR.

And this girl had some fear.

We zipped onto the lower platform and then climbed the ladder to zip from the upper platform.  Notice that we ARE ABOVE TREES.  I seriously about lost it here.  But I did it!  The first zip I did I tried to stand up too soon and missed the platform...so I slid backward!  Then I had to hand over hand it back to the platform and my arms aren't very strong.  After that I made sure to get my landings right!

Olive watching Hannah from the ground.

There were several different courses all mixed up.  We did two easy ones first.  Then we stepped up to the next harder level.  I saw these rings and I was hoping it was not on our course.  It was.  Of course Hannah did it with no problem.

It was a little trickier to get my body through them.  Note I am balancing on a wire while my other foot is dangling in the air.

I'm not sure these pictures show how difficult this stuff actually was.  Nothing is sturdy.  You are holding on to two wires (some courses just had one) and walking on things held together by wires.  SO EVERYTHING IS MOVING.  And you are very high up and can see people walking below you.  Olive is the bottom left corner.

Everything requires lots of balance and strength.  The harder course was much higher and much more difficult.  I was physically and emotionally exhausted when I finished it.  And I was done.  Of course Hannah was not bothered at all by it.  She did three more hard courses on her own while I watched from the ground! 

 Tightrope walking!

Steve and Olive got to ride the chairlift and go down the alpine slide twice.  Olive loved it!  I love it that she had an adventure with her dad since it is usually Steve/Hannah and me/Olive.

Steve took these pictures from the top.

She is pointing to Mt. Rushmore.

Our campsite in Keystone, SD.  The guy beside us said he drove behind us in Bear Country USA.  He was from Arizona and taking his grandson on a two month trip.

Our campsite was next to a tourist train that goes from Keystone to Hill City multiple times a day.  We usually caught the first train before we left in the morning.

Day 7: We caught George's profile on our drive.

We hiked the Little Devil's Tower trail in Custer State Park.

We thought we were near the top.  We were not.

This was the top!  It was cold and windy!  We were higher than than the helicopter tours.

The peak on the right is Harney Peak, the tallest point in South Dakota.

This girl was so brave.  She climbed up the mountain like it was no big deal.

After the hike we drove around some in Custer.  The eye of the needle.

We saw goats on the side of the road!

Babies!

 My legs were pretty sore after the ropes course and hiking, so rested in the afternoon at Center Lake.

And then did some more swimming at our campground pool.

No camping trip is complete without marshmallows.

Day 8: We visited Wind Cave National Park and earned another ranger badge!

It is the sixth largest cave in the world and they estimate only 5% of the cave has been discovered.  It is famous for a formation called "boxwork" which is one of the few places in the world you can see it.

popcorn

The cave was discovered by wind coming out of this opening.

We stopped at Cascade Falls outside of Hot Springs, SD.  Can you tell we have some girls who like the water?

In Hot Springs, SD

We tried some water from the Kidney Springs.

The girls scootering to the playground next to our campground at Chadron, NE.

Day 9: Driving across Nebraska is even worse than Kansas.  But we did learn about sandhills.  This trip was a giant geology lesson.

Carhenge in Alliance, NE.  Let the record show Steve did not want to stop for this.  It was all me.

 More water!  Lake MacConaughy. 

Hannah is so tall, she is almost as big as Steve!

Steve must be shrinking...

Day 10: Lincoln, NE.  We visited another state capitol building.  I like how different it looks.

Can you see our car?

 Our last stop was the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, KS.  It was not that great, but it was free thanks to our Union Station membership.

 They were more excited about the stream sprayground outside the museum.  Because, you know, water.

We stopped in some shops in Aggieville and found my favorite tiny hands!

Like last year, the girls were great on the road!  We spent probably 24 hours in the car...without technology!  We brought the ipad...but we forgot the charger.  They didn't mind.  Their favorite thing to do by far was build with legos.  That kept them busy for hours.  We also brought some color wonder sheets that they really liked.  Plus the usual car scavenger hunt games.  And this year we did the license plate game, too.  We saw Alaska in Manhattan, KS!

And of course there was reading!  Each time we passed into another state we read about it.  The girls saw two new states this trip bringing their total up to 14.

We got to drive through a storm on the way home from Manhattan.  Exciting!  

Another great family vacation in the books!  I love taking road trips, seeing new things, and making memories with my family.  I'm already planning our next vacation. :)